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Issue 63.2 of the Review for Religious, 2004. ; 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 ° St. Joseph's Provincial House 333 South Seton Avenue ° 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 permissign will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religigus. view for religious LIVING OUR CATHOLIC LEGACIES Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Clare Boehmer ASC Philip C. Fischer SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tray Gramn~ Judy Sharp Sr. Raymond Marie Gerard FSP Eugene Hensell OSB Ernest E. Larkin QCarm Louis and Angela Menard Bishop Carlos A. Sevilla sJ Miriam D. Ukeritis csJ QUARTERLY 63.2 2004 contents 118 134 143 spirituaO wisdom Keeping a Balance: Contemplation and Christian Meditation Brian V. Johnstone CSSR proposes that some form of active vocal prayer may well go together with contemplation. Faith Seeking Understanding: Spiritual Direction's Sapiential Function Dennis J. Billy CSSR explains how spiritual direction is a divine (but also human) art that helps us "pray in truth" and come to an intimate personal knowledge of God. Windows of the Soul: Walter Ciszek SJ George Asehenbrenner SJ relates the incident in the life of the Jesuit Walter Ciszek that gave him the faith-filled freedom to survive twenty years of Communist prison. 148 158 men oring Merton and a Spirituality for Millennials Fred Herron proposes Merton's retrieval of the riches of the Benedictine Rule as a spirituality for the millennial generation. Paradox in the Monastery: Lessons from Two Ammas Laura Swan OSB reflects upon the paradox that oft-told stories reveal more about us and our current struggles than about the subject of the story. Review for Religious 169 Viewing Chapters as "Authorizing" Our Congregations' Narratives Patrick Sean Moffett CFC presents various aspects of religious-life chapters that emphasize the storytelling nature of these ecclesial events. 182 ignatian tradition Our Lady's Presence in the Spiritual Exercises J. Thomas Hamel SJ helps us to review the subtle, but penetrating, presence of our Lady to the prayer exercises of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises. 192 The Spiritual Power of Matter: Teilhard and the Exercises Kathleen Duffy SSJ shows how the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius helped Teilhard de Chardin to synthesize the science of evolution with his Christian knowledge of God. departments 116 Prisms 204 Canonical Counsel: Mergers, Unions, Federations, and Confederations 211 Book Reviews 63.2 2004 Pentecost is the traditional birthday of the Christian church, and its mis-sionary effort began simultaneously with its birth. As we read in the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, Peter stood up "with the Eleven, raised his voice, and addressed the devout Jews of every nation staying in Jerusalem at the time. 'Jesus God has raised up, and we are his witnesses. Exalted at God's right hand, he first received the promised Holy Spirit from the Father, then poured this Spirit out on us. This is what you now see and hear'" (Ac 2:32-33). As a result of Peter's preaching on this first Pentecost day, some three thousand were bap-tized. This is the story of the church's birthday. After centuries of identifying mission just as one of the activities of the church, we now are returning to the church beginnings at Pentecost to realize how church and mission are a single reality. We might claim, then, that Christian theology has its beginnings in our reflection on mission. In the U.S. bishops' 1986 pastoral let-ter "To the Ends of the Earth," we read: "To say church is to say mission." Our way of theologizing about our Trinitarian God--Father, Son, and Spirit--is in terms of their active relationships, in terms of their mission. In Genesis, God pours forth the Spirit, and creation and life happen. In the Gospel of St. John, Jesus describes himself as the One who is sent. And, in that same Gospel, Review for Religious Jesus describes anew a sending of the Spirit from the Father and himself. Both creation and redemption can be described as salvific acts because God as "missionary" is always involved in being a saving presence in creation. As the Body of Christ, sharing in divine life, we the church also share in God's mission. The church, then, like our Trinitarian God, is missionary in its very being. The word missionary cannot be restricted only to those sent to evangelize in countries or cultures not their own. In fact, mission cannot be defined by geography, especially in our globalized world. Mission is not driven just by the zeal to expand the boundaries of the church. To be missionary, however, does call us to step out beyond the boundaries of our fears and our traditions and our cultures. If being church is being missionary, what does mis-sion mean for us? We Christians, members of Christ's Body, are missionary in our very baptismal being. Jesus has extended his mission to us all--proclaiming the reign of God (close around us) and so making people aware of the nearness of a saving, loving God. Just as the mis-sion of God is found incarnated in Jesus' life mission, we realize that our mission today must be exercised in the way we live and deal with others. It is the way that God respects and dialogues with us human beings. Only with such dialogue and respect can we make ourselves one with God's mission. As missionaries, like St. Francis of Assisi, we live, and sometimes we have to preach. There is a traditional saying, "You can only convert what you love." In an analogous way, we might need first to be "evangelized" by those that we intend to evangelize. But today we are being called anew to be who we are baptized to be: missionaries, made in the image and like-ness of our Trinitarian God, our Missionary God. David L. Fleming SJ 63.2 2004 spiritua wisdom BRIAN V. JOHNSTONE Keeping a Balance: Contemplation and Christian Meditation Some time ago Ernest E. Larkin OCarm pub-lished an article titled "Today's Contemplative Prayer Forms: Are they Contemplation?" After reviewing the different meanings given to "meditation" and "contemplation," he conclu-ded: "In this frame of reference, we see that centering prayer and Christian Meditation do not fit handily in the category of either meditation or contemplation. They are something new in contemplative practice.''1 The present article offers an account of what is different in these contemporary prayer forms and seeks to show how they are nevertheless related to tradition. The discussion will focus primarily on Christian Meditation. Meditation and Contemplation Contemplation itself, as understood for example by St. John of the Cross, is "pure Oft"; there is no place in it for active collaboration. Brian V. Johnstone CSSR, new to our pages, writes from Accademia Alfonsiana; C.P. 2458; 00100 Roma; Italy. Review for Religious Thus, Larkin concludes, "John's contemplation is not the immediate horizon of contemporary contemplative prayer forms.''2 In his writings, the Benedictine monk John Main, who is recognized as the original exponent of Christian Meditation, does not enter into lengthy, detailed analysis of the higher states of prayer such as we find in St. Teresa or St. John of the Cross. In his account of Christian Meditation, John Main says: "I am using the term meditation as synonymous with contemplation, contemplative prayer, meditative prayer, and so forth.''3 We do not find in his writings a sharp distinction between contemplation in the classic sense and the forms of prayer that entail the active engagement of the person praying. Is there an issue here? Perhaps the most practical question is whether Christian Meditation is to be regarded as a form of contemplation in the classic sense, that is, a type of prayer that is believed to be given freely by God, but usually only after a long process of many steps. In particular, for John of the Cross, contemplation begins with the passive, dark night of the senses. This would mean, at least in a commonly accepted interpretation of contemplation, that it would be a miraculous supernatural event reserved for an elite. Christian Meditation, as described by John Main, is not like this. It is a form of prayer in which, after some simple instruction, beginners can join. He is concerned to impart to interested persons a simple method which, being simple, is available to many. Participants are not encouraged to think of themselves as moving from stage to stage along a precisely delineated path towards a "higher" level of prayer. It is recognized that meditation over a long period, many years in fact, is usually necessary to acquire facility and skill, but experienced meditators are not considered as having attained a level of prayer with different requirements from those that are appropriate and possible for beginners. 63.2 2004 Johnstone ¯ Keeping a Balance A fear of mistaking "doing nothing, with nothing happening" for genuine contemplation has a long history in Christian prayer. This raises an important practical issue. In the traditional theological analysis, it was important that persons engaged in prayer recognize clearly the stage they had attained. A director was to assist discernment in this matter. Since there were particular rules and expectations for each stage, a mistake could have serious spiritual consequences. The issue is mentioned in Larkin's article; he cites James Arraj as warning that without "express contemplation" (which I take to mean contemplation in the sense of "infused" or passive contemplation) the person should continue to make acts of faith and love rather than be "simply idle in the prayer." 4 The practical problem seems to come when people think they have been given the pure gift of contemplation in the proper sense. Then, since this level is essentially passive and excludes the making of acts, they think they should drop such activity. But they may be mistaken. Having stopped making acts of faith and so forth, they may then just "hang out," doing nothing, thinking they are enjoying the gift of passive contemplation when they are merely being passive. They would be doing nothing, and nothing would be happening. This would be unlikely in the case of people following John Main's Christian Meditation. He insists on the continuous, quiet repetition of a short prayer that he calls the mantra; if persons at prayer should momentarily lapse into inactivity and find themselves Review for Religious doing nothing, they should immediately begin repeating the mantra again. A fear of mistaking "doing nothing, with nothing happening" for genuine contemplation has a long history in Christian prayer. On the one hand, it would be a serious mistake to lead people to believe that the hours they are spending in "contemplation" are just a waste of time, mere wool gathering. On the other hand, if a spiritual guide such as John Main strongly recommends that people continue to make acts during meditation, does this imply that in this form of meditation there is no place at all for contemplation in the classic passive sense? In offering an answer to this question, I will examine a prayer form recommended by St. Teresa and accepted also by some who followed her. As I will seek to show, she had a less restrictive notion of contemplation than the previous analysis suggests. This broader notion of contemplation, furthermore, may well have a parallel in Christian Meditation. Active Recollection Larkin takes note of St. Teresa's "active recollection," a form of prayer that she developed from her own experience,s He describes it as a "transitional prayer form that is very similar to modern contemplative prayer.''6 "Transitional" indicates that this way of praying is followed by those who are passing from simple meditation to the "higher" levels of contemplation, but have not yet arrived. St. Alphonsus de Liguori (+1787), in addition to his works on moral theology, wrote extensively on the spiritual life, and in particular on prayer. Following St. Teresa, he gives special mention to "active recollection," which he links closely to "contemplative repose," an expression he takes from "the mystics.''7 Contemplative repose, he explains, is vi.rtually the same as active recollection; it refers to a spiritual condition in which 63.2 2004 ,~obnstone * Keei~ing a Balance "the soul is focused on some spiritual thought and, absorbed in itself, feels gently attracted to God." I will analyze this type of prayer, "active contemplation," and compare it with Christian Meditation. Such a comparison will, I believe, serve to show the continuity of Christian Meditation with tl~e older tradition, and also bring to light those new features which it has to offer. What did St. Teresa mean by "active recollection"? She was familiar with what is called "discursive meditation." This form was promoted in the Dominican Luis de Granada's famous Book of Prayer and Meditation, which St. Teresa actually recommends in her con-stitutions. She herself, however, did not find this way of prayer suitable. About such works she wrote, "There are so many good books written by able persons for those who have methodical minds and for souls that are experienced and can concentrate within themselves that it would be a mistake if you pay attention to what I say about prayer" (19.1). But her own method is for those persons whose minds, like hers, are "wild horses" (19.2). How does St. Teresa deal with this mental rodeo in the context of prayer? She recommends .the Lord's Prayer. One would recite it phrase by phrase, slowly and attentively. In her view, vocal prayer does not exclude contemplation. She calls her method "active recollection." in this kind of prayer, she says, "the soul collects its faculties together and enters within itself to be with God" (28.4). This entails a centering of attention, plus awareness that God is near, fully with us at all times (29.5). We are to be fully present to God and to gaze upon him. Teresa uses the sight metaphor several times. It is not a matter of constructing arguments with concepts. She writes: "I'm not asking you now that you think about Him or that you draw out a lot of concepts or make long and subtle reflections with your intellect. I'm not asking you to do anything more than Review for Religio~ts look at Him" (26.3). She calls this a "method," and the one praying is required to make an "effort." This form of active prayer does not exclude contemplation, but promotes and may include it. From Teresa's experience she can affirm that this method disposes a person to the prayer of quiet (that is, a more passive kind) more readily and quickly than other methods. During this form of prayer, she writes, the soul will at times feel a passive quieting and be drawn gradually to a greater silence (30.7). For Teresa, the experience of passivity, that is, of contemplation in the proper sense, is not reserved to some final stage at the end of a long progression, nor is it reserved for spiritual experts. Is there a conceptual difference between the "prayer of quiet" and contemplation in the classic sense? St. Teresa refers to the former as "the beginning of pure contemplation" (30.7). But it still entails active recollection and may include vocal prayer. She insists that it is a mistake to believe that vocal prayer cannot go together with contemplation. There are no clear psychological gaps between vocal prayer, the prayer of quiet, and the beginning of contemplation. One fades into another as the felt need to initiate new effort yields to the sense of being moved by the impetus of the process one has already begun. This itself, of course, was begun as a response to the stimulus of grace, which in turn, as it emerges into consciousness, yields the awareness of being taken over completely by God. St. Alphonsus dealt specifically with the nature of the "prayer of quiet." According to his view, since in active recollection one's will is dominant, it will bring the imagination under control without any further effort on the part of the soul.8 There is, then, control, but it is the kind of control that follows the momentum of the earlier activity; there is no need for the further effort of making 63.2 2004 Jobnstone * Keeping a Balance new acts. This is a-form of quiet, but it is not completely passive. St. Alphonsus insists on some acts, those to which God is gently attracting us. The impetus of the divine initiative begins to emerge into consciousness, but this is not to say that the same initiative was absent before one's becoming conscious of it. The assumption that active and passive prayer are essentially different levels of prayer begins to appear as abstract theory that does not necessarily correspond to actual experience. For St. Teresa, the reason for active recollection is to become aware of Christ's presence. For example, we can be present to him in joy, being with him as risen. Here Teresa seems to imply reflection on the Gospel accounts. She has a theological support for this conviction: "Although risen, he still influences us through his earthly mysteries, by which he draws close to us in a more tangible way" (26.4,5,8). St. Alphonsus, as has been said, followed St. Teresa closely with respect to "active recollection." He is St. Alphonsus insists on some acts, those to which God is gently attracting us. perhaps more insistent than she is that the person at prayer continue to make acts. There may have been historical reasons for this emphasis, apart from A1- phonsus's own energetic personality. Pope Innocent XI in 1687 condemned the Quietists. This group taught, or is supposed to have taught, that making one intense act of love of God and never withdrawing it would assure union with God, and that no further effort was needed either in prayer or in living. It may be as a reaction against this that St. Alphonsus stresses the need for acts and more acts. Review for Religious However, while he emphasized the need for activity, it was certainly not his intention that the active contemplation become obsessively busy. Consider the following description of active recollection: "Without conscious effort, untroubled by external distractions, and totally absorbed within itself, experiencing at the same time a deep sense of serenity, the soul is able to concentrate on the mystery or the eternal truth in question.''9 These words would, on the whole, not sound alien to one familiar with Christian Meditation. But, to explain the differences between Christian Meditation and the active recollection of the Teresan tradition, a more detailed description of the former is needed. Christian Meditation John Main's account of Christian Meditation begins with an acknowledgment of the inveterate confusion of the human mind. While St. Teresa invoked the image of wild horses, John Main compares this condition of the mind of the would-be meditator to a "tree full on monkeys." Whether described in terms of horses or monkeys, the mental experiences are clearly similar. There is also a similarity in the way these two writers recommend that we deal with the problem. St. Teresa favors the Lord's Prayer; John Main also proposes a form of vocal prayer. The prayer he recommends is an attentive, mindful repetition of a phrase, a mantra. He recommends, in particular, Marana tha, an Aramaic expression which means "Our Lord, come." St. Paul ends his First Letter to the Corinthians with this invocation, and the Book of Revelation ends with the same prayer. The prayer is eminently Christian. For both St. Teresa and John Main, the aim of cultivating attention so as to make space for the experience of the presence of God is essentially the same. Main once wrote: 63.2 2004 Johnstone ¯ Keeping aBalance St. Thomas Aquinas says that "contemplation consists in the simple enjoyment of the truth." Simple enjoyment! Now it is true that thinking, analyzing, comparing, and contrasting all have their place in the various disciplines, including theology. But contemplation, as St. Thomas calls it, meditation as we would call it, is not the time for activity, for the activity of thinking, analyzing, comparing, or contrasting. Meditation is the time for being. Simple enjoyment. And the simplicity that St. Thomas speaks of, its oneness, union.1° Here no clear distinction is made between contemplation in St. Thomas's sense and meditation. The experience of oneness or union, however, seems to belong to contemplation in the classic sense, that is, something beyond active meditation; the soul is completely passive. For John Main, though, these distinctions do not seem to matter. There is a notable difference between the Weresan prayer of "active recollection," at least as understood by St. Alphonsus, and Christian Meditation. The first entails reflection on a "mystery" or "eternal truth," while the latter aims at a sense of union, without passing through the penetration of a "truth." In Christian Meditation, one does not concentrate, for example, on the meaning of the phrase "Lord, come," but repeats it as a way of focusing awareness on the presence of God. As we have seen, St. Teresa, and St. Alphonsus as well, would immediately affirm this goal. The point of difference is that they would include a concentration on a particular mystery or truth within the meditation itself. Truth in a more general sense, however, is intended as an element of Christian Meditation. John Main wrote: "Meditate every morning and every evening, faithfully, simply, and humbly. Contemplation consists in the simple enjoyment of truth.''11 This statement suggest two facets of the one event: the active meditation (that is, the Review for Religious repetition of the mantra) and the simple enjoyment that accompanies it. This is not all that different from St. Teresa's and St. Alphonsus's notion of "active recollection." Christian Meditation should not be misinterpreted. It is not antiintellectual or antitheological. It does not downplay the importance of truths. It merely leaves reflection on such truths outside of meditation itself. Indeed, within the movement there is available to meditators an extensive body of writing that offers ample reflection on the mysteries of faith. Because it is a popular movement, the reflection is generally not presented as systematic theology, but then neither are the reflections of St. Teresa or St. Alphonsus. I have noted above the particular place that St. Teresa gave to the resurrection; the same theme occurs frequently in the writings of John Main.~2 It would be a mistake to think that Christian Meditation plays down doctrine. Rather, we might say, it is presumed that study and reflection lead to a background awareness which, while not consciously evoked in the meditation itself, continues to support spiritual awareness. There can be no doubt that many people, growing numbers of them, have found Christian Meditation a most satisfactory way of prayer. Is there any compelling reason to choose between St. Teresa's more extensive use of words during meditation--in particular, the words of the Lord's Prayer--and the brief word recommended in Christian Meditation? There are many ways of praying, and people may be led by the Spirit along different paths. Some, perhaps because of different cultural backgrounds, have found the older approach rather too insistent on Christian Meditation is not antiintellectual or antitheological. 63.2 2004 Johnstone * Keeping aBalance repeated acts and a good many words. As I have noted previously, however, neither St. Teresa nor St. Alphonsus had in mind a multiplication of acts or a mechanical proliferation of words. For whatever reason, though, in our time the verbal austerity of Christian Meditation seems to appeal to many. The limited use of words, or even the deliberate renunciation of them, in Christian Meditation is connected to its nature as conceived by John Main. Spiritual authors in the past often spoke of "conversation" in their accounts of prayer. This conversation was to be a two-way affair, even if carefully structured. When God speaks, we listen attentively; when God does not speak, we engage actively in the conversation through acts of faith and love.~3 This "traditional" element John Main includes in his own words, although again with a significant modification: "Prayer is not a matter of talking to God, but of listening to him, of being with him. It is this simple understanding of prayer that lies behind John Cassian's advice that, if we want to pray, to listen, we must become quiet and still, reciting a short verse over and over again." ~4 Active Recollection and Contemplation At this point I move to a more theoretical discussion, but one with practical implications as well. The issue is the relationship between active recollection and contemplation. St. Teresa, from her own experience, taught that active recollection disposed to contemplation, but she also anticipated that contemplation itself might well arrive during the time of active recollection. The 4th-century monks of the Egyptian desert also expected that "higher" forms of prayer might suddenly break through more normal forms of meditation. During their periods of praying the psalms together, they were to curb their spitting, coughing, yawning, groaning, and Review for Religious similar noises. The only sound that was accepted was a spontaneous sigh of ecstasy.15 It was anticipated, apparently, that moments of "contemplation" would emerge within more ordinary prayer. St. Teresa seems to have had no difficulty in recognizing when such special moments occurred in her own prayer. For one whose spiritual sensibilities were as finely tuned as hers, there would probably be no reason to have any doubt about the presence of contemplation. What are we to think, then, of the advice of Arraj, mentioned by Larkin, that, until "express contemplation" is present, one should continue to make acts (of faith, love, and so forth)? The practical problem is how to know that such contemplation is present, and how certain we should be about it. To clarify the question, we could accept Karl Rahner's theological explanation, namely, that the experience of God in meditation, in human activity, or in classical spiritual doctrine's "infused contemplation" arises from the one same gift of God at work within us.16 Indeed this must be the case. To speak of "passive" contemplation as a pure gift must not be allowed to suggest that active recollection is not a gift, but somehow a product of our own efforts, before or apart from grace. We may say that recollection "disposes" us to the prayer of quiet, but we may not claim that recollection is the product of our initiative, which somehow, of its own power, engenders or earns the further state. "Pure," as applied to the gift of contemplation, does not imply that prayer such as active recollection is somehow impure, because contaminated with human activity. Nor can it be philosophically accurate to say that in "passive" prayer we are not active in any sense. The pure gift of God's grace cannot but raise us to the highest level of actuation. Our conscious experience may be one of pure passivity, but when God takes over completely our 63.2 2004 Johnstone ¯ Keeping a Balance The more intense the power of grace, the more we are fully active. 1-30J capacities are not simply extinguished. As is always the case with grace, the more intense the power of grace, the more we are fully active. The more God intervenes, the more empowered we become and the more free we are. Similarly, I would have difficulties with an explanation of infused contemplation according to which "the infused light and love go directly to the object without any return to the self.''17 In the "modern" philosophical era (that is, from the 16th century onwards), there has been a dissociation between subject and object)8 This seems to have been reflected in Catholic theo-logy, so that some traditions focus on the subject and others on the object. In these circumstances the interpretation of the spiritual experience involved here may tilt excessively towards the object. Perhaps such thoughts as these are ¯ improper philosophical intrusions on discourse about spirituality, but I would suggest that cutting or leaving the subject completely out of the picture is metaphysically impossible. Further, I would point out that what is interpreted as an absolute certainty of the presence of God, or of the state of "passivity," is a certainty on the part of the subject. When someone says "Whenever I experienced contemplative prayer, there was absolutely no doubt that I was in God's presence,"'9 we would need to add after "doubt" the words "in my mind." Without this qualification the interpretation veers too far towards the subjective. Such a state of consciousness is not a proof that God is present, or that the pure gift of prayer of quiet has in fact been granted. We cannot know definitively whether we have reached this "stage" or not. Review for Religious Such certainty as we have rests ultimately on the certainty of our faith, not on the felt quality of our experiences. This is not to return to a theory in which grace is beyond experience. We may indeed experience grace. But our conscious certainty cannot establish that grace is in fact present. What I am suggesting here is that the traditional language used in speaking of contemplation, meditation, and levels of prayer has problems. At least part of the difficulty with the older formulations is that they presupposed a rigid distinction between "natural" and "supernatural," and hence between "acquired" (or natural) contemplation and "infused" (or supernatural) contemplation. "Natural" meant what we do; "supernatural" meant what God does. Such a sharp distinction is understandable when we recall the theological disputes of the time (especially the controversies about grace), but we would express that difference somewhat more flexibly today. Perhaps we could say that it was and is a mistake to reify the various categories of prayer which the classic authors have named for us. Probably it was not so much these authors themselves, but the theological commentators who interpreted them, who made the mistake. To reify would mean to consider the distinct kinds of prayer as if they were things like quantitative blocks of consciousness that we could, as it were, line up one after another on a conveyor belt and then run the belt through our minds. Following on this thought, we might suggest that saying the petitions of the Lord's Prayer, as St. Teresa did, or repeating.the mantra, as John Main did, can dispose us to quiet and contemplation. But it is not necessary to turn them off, as it were, so that we can really appreciate the quiet. If we do so, the wild horses of our disordered minds are likely to gallop back again, or the screeching monkeys may well return to the 63.2 2004 Johnstone ¯ Keeping a Balance thickets of our consciousness, and quiet would be no more. In these reflections I am suggesting that the classic fixed distinctions between different forms of prayer may not be so important as they .were once thought to be. I suggest that it would not make a great deal of sense to say to oneself, "I have not yet arrived at the experience of passivity and received the pure gift of contemplation, and so I must continue with active prayer." Nor would the reverse be any better, namely, to convince oneself that one has indeed been given this gift and so to drop active prayer. The best solution, I suggest, would be to accept with St. Teresa (and St. Alphonsus) that some form of active, vocal prayer may quite well go together with contemplation. At root this is what John Main believed: the repetition of the mantra may accompany contemplation. We do not need to be scrutinizing our consciousness so as to find whether contemplation has occurred or not. The prayer of quiet, or gift of contemplation, may be given by God at any moment within that active prayer. We need not be surprised if this happens, and we may welcome it if or when it is given to us. To conclude, the form of meditation in which one repeats a short prayer continuously with the expectation that a prayer of quiet (with a sense of oneness and rest) may supervene has strong roots in the Catholic spiritual tradition. This is true not only of the earlier tradition, where we find Cassian commending this practice, but also of the more recent tradition, as expressed in particular by St. Teresa. The description of prayer in the texts on Christian Meditation does not include a description of contemplation in the classic sense, but who are we to say that the latter may not supervene? It is indeed God's gift--and may be given whenever God chooses to do so. Notes t Ernest E. Larkin OCarm, "Today's Contemplative Prayer Forms," Review for Religious 57 (1998): 83. Review for Religious 2 Larkin, p. 84. 3 Cited in Larkin, p. 78. 4 Larkin, p. 87 n. 12. 5 The Way of Perfection, in Vol. 2 of The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, trans. Kieran Kavanaugh OCD and Otilio Rodriguez OCD (Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, 1980). p. 140. The relevant passages are chaps. 28-29. Hereafter all references to Teresa will be to this work and edition, by chapter and section(s) given in the text thus: (19.1). 6 Larkin, p. 83. 7 Alpbonsus de Liguori: Selected Writings (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1999), p. 170. The putting together of this "active" recollection with "contemplative repose" may seem perplexing. The essential point is that it still involves acting, as distinct from "infused contemplation," where there is no acting on our part. s Alpbonsus, p. 176, citing St. Teresa. 9 Alpbonsus, p. 170. ~0 John Main, The Inner Christ (London: Darton, Longman, and Todd, 1987), p. 203. " Main, p. 205. ~2 Main, pp. 116, 119, 132. '3illpbonscts, p. 171. ,4 Main, p. 22. ,5 Owen Chadwick, John Cassian (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1950), p. 69. ~6 Larkin, p. 81. ~7 1 refer here to the citation from Max Huot de Longchamp, Saint Jean de la Croix: Pour Lire le Docteur Mystique (Paris: Fac-editions, 1991), p. 164, cited by Larkin, p. 87. ~8 See Charles Taylor, The Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge: Harva~:d University Press, 1989), p. 188. ,9 Larkin, p. 78. 63.2 2004 DENNIS J. BILLY Faith Seeking Understanding: Spiritual Direction's Sapiential Function ~;l~you are a theologian, you will pray in truth; and you pray in truth, you are a theologian." 1 These words of Nilus of Sinai (+450), a 5th-century monk from Ancyra in Asia Minor who lived in the wilderness of Sinai for more than sixty years, remind us of the inti-mate connection between conversing with and under-standing the mystery of God. A true knowledge of God involves an experience of the divine mystery, not simply knowledge about it. Such experiential knowledge comes, not through rational analysis, but from a living rela-tionship with God nourished by prayer. This under-standing of theology emphasizes knowing God by participating in the intimate community of divine love. It values the living reality of God over theological constructions of that reality. That reality is closer to us than we are to our own selveS. We are invited to be pre-sent to God's pr.esence in us. Spiritual direction can help us become present to this reality. It is a divine (but also human) art that helps us "pray in truth" and come to an intimate personal knowledge of God. ._~,, ~ ~,~4_J 2D45e8n;n iRs oJm. Bai l0ly0 1C0S0S; RIt awlyri.tes again from Accademia Alfonsiana; C.P. Review for Religious Praying in Truth The theologian, in Nilus's eyes, is one who knows how to "pray in truth." To do so, we must strip off the old self and put on the new. Only then, by being renewed in the image of our Creator, will we gradually progress toward true knowledge of the divine (see Col 3:9-10). To pray in truth is to pray in Christ, the way, the truth, and the life (see Jn 14:6). Praying in truth means open-ing our hearts and being present to God as we really are. It means not being afraid to look inside ourselves and confront the various masks and self-deceptions we find there. It means bearing our souls to God so that God may bear his soul to us. Intimacy with God first requires intimacy with oneself. We cannot communicate with God in truth if we are unwilling to know the truth about ourselves. Coming to an intimate knowledge of ourselves, how-ever, is no easy task. Most of us cannot go it alone and are in dire need of help. We find facing our inner wants and insecurities much too threatening. Left to our own resources, many of us would end up rationalizing away our fears and discounting our deepest hopes about who we are and want to become. Spiritual direction helps us confront ourselves and open our hearts to God. It gently points out the voice of the Spirit manifested in the nitty-gritty circumstances of our lives. As the prophet Elijah reminds us, often that voice is found, not in whirlwinds, earthquakes, and fires about us, but in the small whisper that can only be heard in the solitude of our hearts (see 1 Kg 19:11-13). Spiritual direction seeks to settle our hearts so that we can rest in this solitude and become ourselves in our faith? Focusing on our conscious and unconscious inter-action with the divine, it helps us to follow the flow of troublesome and often conflicting personal narratives in our life and then to make responsible iudgments about 63.2 2004 Billy * Faith Seeking Understanding what we are being called to. It pays special heed to our prayer life, helping us to discern authentic prayer from its mean and paltry imitation. The goal of spiritual direction is for us to "pray in truth." We receive help to confront ourselves and thereby to discover our authentic voice. That voice alone will lead us to intimacy with God. We must be patient, how-ever, and ever so silent. We must listen to our heart and not be afraid to hear what it has to say. When we speak from the heart, we soon discover the gentle voice of the Spirit yearning within us. To pray in truth is to pray in the Spirit, the re-creative presence of God that hovers over and revives the primal forces within us. We know we are praying in the Spirit when our lives manifest the Spirit's various gifts and fruits (see Is 11:2-3, Ga 5:22-23). Spiritual direction helps identify these spiritual riches and let them do their quiet work within us, the work of gradual divinization, of greater sharing in the eternal love of the Godhead. Solitude of Heart The primary means by which the Spirit accomplishes its task is by nurturing in us a deep desire for solitude. As we empty our hearts of unnecessary attachments, we make room for the divine indwelling. Solitude of heart is the precondition for our experience of the fullness of life. "The glory of God," says Irenaeus of Lyons, "is a liv-ing human being."3 We who are created in the image and likeness of God become ourselves only by allowing God to be himself in us. Spiritual direction helps us open our hearts to the heart of God. It helps us by fostering a contemplative attitude toward life, enabling us to see all that happens in the light of God's providential plan. By offering their directees the hospitality of a lis-tening heart, directors set the tone for all that happens during the session. By being present in silence and with Review for Religious their full attention, directors affirm the seriousness of what is taking place and often form lasting friendships. These bonds spring from their reflective gaze upon the directees' unfolding experiences, from this sharing in their solitude. Three persons share in this solitude of heart: the director, the directee, and the Holy Spirit. In direction, directors and directees gradually turn their attention to this quiet partner in their midst. They discern the signs of the Spirit in the nar-ratives that directees share with their direc-tors. The Spirit leaves traces of its presence in the threads of people's lives. When we look at our lives prayerfully, these slight vestiges gradually become noticed and fit into conscious awareness. This is the time for directors and directees together to interpret these signs so that the directees can respond appropriately. One of these signs is peace. After his resurrection Jesus comforted his disciples with a message of peace that stemmed from his immediate and unquestioning trust in the Father's love (see Lk 24:36, Jn 20:19, 21). Today this same message comes to us through the yearn-ing of the Spirit in our hearts, who intercedes for us to the Lord with unutterable groaning (see Rm 8:26). Directors help their directees to recognize the factors in their life that contribute to peace. Such peace comes not from the world, but by giving ourselves whole-heartedly to the one thing that ultimately matters--the love of God dwelling in our heart. "The paradise of God," says Alphonsus de Liguori, "is the heart of man.''4 The peace of Christ works its The primary means by which the Spirit accomplishes its task is by nurturing in us a deep desire for solitude. Billy ¯ Faith Seeking Understanding way outward from within. Rooted in the love of the Lord, it eventually finds outward expression in our striv-ing to form right relationships with others on every level of human society (such as family, country, community of nations). Peace, "the tranquillity of order" as Augustine of Hippo refers to it, possesses personal, com-munal, and transcendent dimensions.5 For us to find it in our lives, solitude of heart is necessary. Spiritual direc-tion, in turn, is an important instrument given us by God to help in that discovery. Faith Seeking Understanding If theologians are persons who pray in truth, spiritual direction facilitates such prayer. Theology, we are told, "denotes. far more than the learning about God and religious doctrine acquired through academic study. It signifies active and conscious participation in or percep-tion of the realities of the divine world--in other words, the realization of spiritual knowledge.''6 To be even more specific, theology has to do with our attempt to reflect upon our experience of the indwelling of the Trinity in our hearts. When seen in this light, the classical Western understanding of theology as "faith seeking understand-ing" (tides quaerens intellectum)--which was developed by Anselm of Canterbury under the influence of the Latin Vulgate and Augustine of Hippo--needs to be rescued from the overrationalizing of later centuries and exam-ined in relation to acquiring Christian wisdom.7 When understood as a sapiential (as opposed to a narrowly ratio-nal) enterprise, theology's true task comes to the fore. All of us are called to reflect upon the meaning of our lives in the light of the gospel message. To accom-plish this task well, we must reflect on the experience of God in our hearts and try to ascertain what exactly is being asked of us. When understood sapientially, theol-ogy as "faith seeking understanding" tries to discern the Review for Religious movement of the Spirit in our lives so that we can bet-ter understand how to live out our call to discipleship in mature and responsible ways. Spiritual direction is an important place for acquiring spiritual wisdom. It helps us talk to God, listen to him, and engage in discernment that leads to deeper intimacy with him. Spiritual direction achieves this goal whenever there is an honest, sharing relationship between the two per-sons. This relationship, while complex and manifold, focuses primarily on the relationship of the directee with God. Directors help directees to understand their inter-action with God better and then to draw closer to God. This process is both challenging and consoling. Directors challenge directees to be honest and to identify areas for future growth. They also need to comfort directees in times of discouragement and imminent loss. Knowing when to exercise this dual role of challenge and comfort is one of the primary skills that directors need to have. Faith seeking understanding in spiritual direction calls for directors to have flexibility and strength. They need to adapt to changing times and circumstances and to withstand the adverse challenges that may occur. The fruits of the process become evident. To believe as one searches for meaning in life leads to a deeper under-standing of one's life situation, of one's relationship with oneself, with others, and with God. Spiritual direction, in its many forms, seeks to empower us to affirm our faith and in the process become ourselves more fully. Becoming Holy Becoming ourselves in our faith is but another way of speaking about our desire for holiness. Spiritual direction is not simply a matter of gaining greater insight into our relationship with God. It has very much to do with turn-ing those insights into concrete practices that lead fur-ther along the path of conversion. These practices must 63.2 2004 Billy ¯ Faitb Seeking Understanding Becoming ourselves in our faith is but another way of speaking about our desire for holiness. not be imposed from without; they must arise from within. They must correspond to a true assessment of our needs based on insights that spiritual direction has facilitated. A truly wise person is also a holy person, and vice versa. According to Thomas Aquinas, wisdom is the gift of the Spirit that corresponds to and is guided by and is a perfec-tion of charity.8 The sapi-ential function of spiritual direction leads us beyond simply knowing God to loving and serving him. "Faith seeking understand-ing" through spiritual direction leads not only to insights into divine things, but also to incorporating those insights into the way we live our daily lives. This close relationship between "being" and "action" is important for the sapiential function of spiritual direc-tion. The virtuous actions performed by people striving to be virtuous contribute to making them even more vir-tuous. When directees ask their director what they should do, they are ultimately asking about what kind of person they themselves wish to become. When prop-erly exercised, spiritual direction helps people see this important connection and encourages them to make "communion with God" the motivating force of all of their actions. Living in communion with God is another term for becoming holy. It is a primary concern of the direction process, helping people become themselves in their life of faith. As an element of "faith seeking understanding," spir-itual direction seeks to help us not only to discern but also to act. By far the most important thing any of us can ever do is pray. Prayer is "the great means of salva- Review for Religious tion.''9 Our manner of prayer--its frequency, its form, its content--is and should always remain a vital subject in spiritual direction. During direction we need to ask if our prayer addresses every dimension of our human makeup: the physical, emotional, intellectual, social, and spiritual.~° With the help of our director, we should try to identify what we may be neglecting in prayer and make appropriate changes. How we pray says a great deal about our own self-understanding and our rela-tionship with God. By examining our prayer carefully for ways to improve it, we demonstrate our love for God and our longing for holiness. Spiritual direction helps us to understand and prac-tice true prayer. It accompanies us on the way to self-knowledge and invites us to deeper intimacy with God. Such experiential knowledge transcends the conceptual world of the professional theologian. By it we share consciously in God's love and develop an intuitive aware-ness of the mind of God. By helping us to "pray in truth," spiritual direction assists our understanding and enables us to become ourselves in our faith, to live in the Spirit, to grow in wisdom and in the knowledge of God, to grow in charity throughout our lives. By help-ing us listen to the movement of the Spirit in our hearts and respond wisely and generously, spiritual direction enables us to see the world around us with something of God's zealous compassion, God's .intense longing to dwell in the hearts of us all. Notes 1 Nilus of Sinai, IY3 Texts on Prayer, no. 61 in Early Fathers from the Philokalia, trans. E. Kadloubovsky and G.E.H. Palmer (London: Faber and Faber, 1954), p. 134. 2 See Jean Laplace, The Direction of Conscience, trans. John C. Guinness (New York: Herder and Herder, 1967), p. 26. 3 Irenaeus of Lyons, Against the Heresies 4.20.7, in Vol. 1 of The Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1925), p. 490. 63.2 2004 Billy * Faith Seeking Understanding 4 Alphonsus de Liguori, The Way to Converse Always and Familiarly with God, in Vol. 2 of The Complete Works of Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, ed. Eugene Grimm (Brooklyn: Redemptorist Fathers, 1926), p. 395. s Augustine of Hippo, The City of God 19.13, in Vol. 2 of The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ed. Philip Schaff (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1903), pp. 409-410. 6 The Philokalia: The Complete Text, ed. and trans. G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware (London: Faber and Faber, 1981), Vol. 2, p. 389. 7 See Anselm of Canterbury, The Proslogion, chap. 1, in Vol. 1 of Anselm of Canterbury, ed. and trans. Jasper Hopkins and Herbert W. Richardson (Toronto and New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1974), pp. 91-93; Biblia sacra vulgata, ed. Robert Weber (Stuttgart: Wiirttembergische Bibelanstalt, 1969), Vol. 2, p. 1103 (Is 7:9); Augustine of Hippo, On the Trinity 8.5.8, in Vol. 3 of The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ed. Philip Schaff (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1900), pp. 119-120. ~ See Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I-II, q.68, a.8; II-II, q.45, in Vol. 20 of Great Books of the Western World, ed. Robert Maynard Hutchins (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1952), pp. 95-96, 598- 606. 9 Alphonsus de Liguori, Prayer, The Great Means of Salvation, in Vol. 3 of Complete Works (1927), p. 23. 10 See Dennis J. Billy, Evangelical Kernels: A Theological Spirituality of the Religious Life (Staten Island: Alba House, 1993), pp. 167-184. Gift I am stunned by the gift you gave me. Not a sun or stars, not the sea or a pebble rounded to perfection. Not even forgiveness, although this was wrapped into the gift. You gave me love. Some day I may regard your gift indifferently, as something I deserve. For now, I know nothing but astonishment. Patricia Chaffee OP Review for Religious GEORGE ASCHENBRENNER Windows of the Soul: Walter Ciszek SJ T e eyes are often windows into the soul. A mother ows this as she gazes quietly into the eyes of her newborn child, dreaming and hoping about its future. Lovers and friends know this too. Gazing into each other's eyes opens a whole world, wide and deep beyond words. Most of us are unaware of how revelatory our eyes are. The grumpiness of discontented people lurks in their eyes for anyone to see. So, too, the limpid kindness of truly guileless people sparkles in their eyes. Yes, in many instances our eyes are windows into the soul. In fact, our eyes convey more and deeper messages as we grow through life. Forty years ago,. on 12 October 1963, BOAC flight #501 from London landed right on time at 6:55 a.m. A man in his late fifties wearing a heavy green overcoat shuffled down the stairway from the plane. A big floppy Russian hat concealed a lot of his face. But, under the brim of that hat, like beacons of a profoundly wise soul, George Aschenbrenner SJ has written for this journal every couple of years since 1966. His current address is Campion Hall; University of Scranton; Scranton, Pennsylvania 18510. r~l!4~a --- ~ 63.2 2004 Ascbenbrenner ¯ Windows of rise Soul two lively grayish-blue eyes greeted sights not seen for twenty-seven years. At least ten years before, his Jesuit brothers in the New York Province had offered for him the customary two Masses for deceased Jesuits. Now Father Walter Ciszek of the Society of Jesus had risen from the dead. Those dancing guileless eyes, those soul-beacons, told a stoW immediately that it would take years to get into words: two books written painstakingly with the gracious competent help of Father Dan Flaherty, a brother Jesuit. But, if you ever had the chance to meet Father Ciszek, you got the whole stoW in those eyes. My experience of Walter was that those lively eyes, those bottomless wells of love, joy, and humble confidence, conveyed more than any hand gestures ever could. Dramatic gesturing was not his way of communicating. Like a diamond those eyes sparkled with a wisdom, a peace, a humble confidence, but first and foremost a startling freedom. On that October day at New York's Idlewild airport, Father Walter was free, free from KGB surveillance, free from restriction on his priestly min-istry, free from the brittle cold, free from his starvation diet, free from the threat of death at almost any moment. But freedom was something he had known truly and profoundly for the last twenty-one years--ever since that time in the dreaded Lubianka prison, a time that marked his soul for the rest of his life, a time that he would never forget. (It was a soul-changing experience, too, for oth-ers when they met him: something smiled in and leapt out of those eyes to greet you.) Early in his captivity, solitary confinement and intense interrogations night and day were wearing him down. Knowing he was not guilty of the espionage charges, he thought that all he had to do was explain this clearly and definitely to his questioners. But a combination of forces--first the repeated questionings like a pile driver hammering into Review for Religious his head and heart and then the cold deaf ear to his labored and elaborately explicit defense--became too much for him. He gave up. He quit. He signed an admis-sion of his guilt--just to get it over with. Back in his cell, however, and all by himself again, it hit him. He had given in to free himself of this harass-ment of his soul. His motive had been selfish, filled with ego, and had lost much awareness of God's love and care. He felt ashamed and confounded. In that disheartened state of mind, though, he felt relief that, during the fif-teen years of hard labor in Siberia to which he had been sentenced, at least the solitary confinement and the mad-dening questions would stop. This relief was short-lived. Soon he was told that there would be four more years at Lubianka to "clarify" some of the issues to which he had confessed. The deaf-ening, soul-splitting interrogation began again. It seemed more than he could handle. What he had hoped to get out of by signing the paper was beginning all over again. An overwhelming despair descended upon him, a loss of hope and faith. He felt absolutely helpless. He was at rock bottom. You and I have sometimes felt helpless; we know that even brief moments of helplessness are fear-some. But most of us have never plumbed the depths to which he fell at that moment, all alone, in Lubianka. But, at this moment of feeling bankruptcy of soul, at this lowest point in his whole life, something happened. He stepped across a boundary line. No, to be more exact, he did not step across: he was lifted across. In that moment of despair, he remembered an olive grove some two thousand years ago. Jesus, Son of Mary and Son of God, having chosen to be faithful to his identity and mis-sion in the face of looming certain death, had collapsed in helplessness, had hit rock bottom (Mk 14:32-42). Through his surrender, through his self-abandon-ment, Jesus was rescued, he was freed. The impending 63.2 20O4 Aschenbrenner * Windows of the Soul Walter Ciszek's contemplation of Jesus" agony in the garden gave new meaning to his own despairing helplessness. horrific suffering and death were not taken away, but something shifted deep inside. A freedom, a humble con-fidence, lifted his soul because the eyes of a dearly loving, caring Father were still gazing on him, even in his utter helplessness. In fact, now he knew it in some new way: no depth of helplessness could ever be beyond the loving, life-giving gaze of those eyes. Those eyes, there in Gethsemane, both looked deep into his soul and also revealed a bottomless love and care deeper than any doubt or frustration. Walter Ciszek's contemplation of Jesus' agony in the garden--a prayer that just came upon him, he did not reach out for it--gave new meaning to his own despair-ing helplessness. As in the case of Jesus, Father Ciszek's fear was transformed into freedom, and his feelings of danger and despair became confidence and happiness. Now nothing seemed to worry or trouble him anymore. At an apparent depth of no return, he had learned that God would never leave him, but would take care of him even if he were killed. Astonishing, simply amazingm talk about a new heart and a new freedom! He could say with St. Paul: "I am ready for anything through the strength of the One who lives within me" (Ph 4:13). That prayer along with Jesus in the garden marked Walter Ciszek for life right into eternity. He would never forget that prayer. Yes, Walter Ciszek became profoundly free in Lubianka twenty-one years before he stepped off a plane in the United States. The Word of God had leapt off the page anew in the person, the presence, the eyes of the Review for Religious risen Jesus. Now nothing he did, nowhere he was taken, nothing that happened to him, absolutely nothing could separate Walter Ciszek from the risen Jesus. In his own agony of despair and helplessness, he had been gifted with a very special awareness of God's love. This gave him an invincible trust, whatever the future might hold. Nothing could really hurt him now because he was in God's loving hands, more than he had ever realized before. Yes, the eyes are windows into the soul. But the eyes of holiness are also reflectors. Holiness reflects the radi-ance of Someone Else's loving eyes. Just as Jesus knew the gaze of a dear Father's eyes, Walter Ciszek experi-enced God's loving gaze in the depths of his despair and helplessness. That same loving gaze blesses us all, each and every one, with a freedom and a trust that does not take all suffering out of our lives, but does enliven our hearts, our souls, and our eyes. It is no surprise that, whenever my friends and I met Father Ciszek, we felt we were meeting more than just that courageous, peaceful little man. Those lively, gray-ish- blue, dancing eyes were windows glistening with the wisdom, the freedom, the love of his soul. Those eyes mirrored the steady gaze of Jesus' love--a love that moti-vated everything Walter Ciszek did, a love that got him through fifteen years of undeserved hard labor in prison and five years of undeserved solitary confinement, a love that burned in his soul and left him unscarred by bitter-ness, anger, revenge. The eyes of Walter Ciszek told the story of his soul, a story of courageous love in incredible suffering and of invincible trust against all odds, because the most impor-tant story of love always glistens in the eyes of the risen Jesus. 6~.2 2004 mentoring FRED HERRON Merton and a Spirituality for Millennials Young people who grew up in the late 20th cen-tury, sometimes called millennials, easily relate to Thomas Merton as someone not entirely comfortable in any one place. Like him, they find it hard to root themselves in one "abiding place.''1 They are more comfortable describing themselves as "spiritual" rather than "religious." For them the paradigm shift that Merton illu-minated in his lifetime seems a dramatic release from the moorings of the stable past and an optimistic embarkation on a journey. By high-lighting such a change in his life and thought, Merton managed to offer direction and some cautions to those who would follow. Dwelling and Seeking Robert Wuthnow has argued convincingly that a major change took place in the spiritual Fred Herron is chairperson of the religious-studies depart-ment at Fontbonne Hall Academy and a member of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at St. John's University, Staten Island. He may be addressed at Fonthonne Hall Academy; 9901 Shore Road; Brooklyn, New York 11209. Review.for Religious practice of the last half of the 20th century. He suggests that "a traditional spirituality of inhabiting sacred places has given way to a new spirituality of seeking." He con-trasts these two viewpoints this way: "A spirituality of dwelling emphasizes habitation: God occupies a definite place in the universe and creates a sacred space in which humans too can dwell." On the other hand, "a spiritual-ity of seeking emphasizes negotiation: individuals search for sacred moments that reinforce their conviction that the divine exists, but these moments are fleeting.''z Both forms of spirituality have found their place in the history of religions, and the world religions have sup-plied rich imagery for both. Wuthnow points out that, "in settled times, people have been able to create a sacred habitat and to practice habitual forms of spirituality. [However,] in unsettled times, they have been forced to negotiate with themselves and with each other to find the sacred." Settled times evoke an imagery of dwelling, and unsettled times one of journeys. In the former, "the sacred is fixed, and spirituality can be found within the gathered body of God's people; in the latter, the sacred is fluid, portable, and spirituality must be pursued with a sense of God's people having been dispersed.''3 A habitation spirituality is suggested by the Garden of Eden and a land of milk and honey. A spirituality of seeking, on the other hand, is illustrated by the taber-nacle and the tents of pilgrims and travelers. The first form can be seen in the secure routine of the monastery, the cloister, while the latter is seen as an ongoing journey. The story of the Shulamite woman draws the dis-tinction between these two spiritualities. At first she revels in the security of her spiritual home: "Our bed is green, the beams of our houses are cedar, and the rafters of fir" (Sg 1:16-17). Later, however, she wanders, seek-ing the warmth she has lost: "I will rise now., and go 63.2 2004 Herron ¯ Mertion and a Spirituality for Millennials about the city. In the streets and in the squares, I will seek the one I love" (Sg 3:2). Merton's metaphors of the "citadel" and of the "wide, impregnable country" point to similar visions.4 Note that both are images of security, but the former suggests secu-rity and the latter.openness and freedom. In the citadel there is isolation from others, whereas in the wide coun-try there is room for an indefinite number of people seeking God. A spirituality of dwelling seems to be more secure, while a spirituality of seeking seems less constraining. Both offer freedom, but quite different kinds of free-dom. Familiar places offer the freedom of not having to worry where the next meal is coming from, since both caring people and known resources are available. Anne Truitt describes this experience as "the lighthearted feel-ing of being in a litter of kittens.''5 That understanding of freedom is comparable to not worrying about achiev-ing any particular objective, that is, not feeling "bound by an inexorable result [but being] like the birds or lilies ¯. without care." 6 Seeking and Freedom The fifth volume of Thomas Merton's letters, VVitness to Freedom, suggests that there are three stages in his understanding of the growing freedom that is central to a spirituality of seeking.7 In Merton's youth, freedom meant doing whatever he pleased. The second stage came with his entrance into the monastery of Gethsemani in 1941. Merton recalls that, when Brother Matthew met him at the monastery gate, led him through that gate, and then locked it, "I was enclosed in the four walls of my new freedom." s This was the freedom of the citadel, the freedom to do what he was told and to keep the rules. Freedom here became obedience, one portion of the monastic Rule. Review for Religious Keeping the rules is central to both of these stages. In the first, the rules are the problem. In the second, the rules are the solution to the problem. The third stage led Merton to view freedom in a very different light: freedom as an inner reality guided much more from within than from without. In con-templation, Merton realized, we meet God, and in meeting God we discover our deepest freedom. People achieve this third level of freedom, a sense in which their deepest selves are in God and express God, to the extent that they rid themselves of the illu-sions that distort reality for them.9 Merton wrote to Jacques Maritain of these illusions: "There are great illusions to be got ridden of, and there is a false self that has to be taken off. There is still much to be changed before I will really be living in the truth and in nothingness and in humility and without any more self-concern." 10 The road to true freedom is strewn with idols: the false god, the false self, and the false image of God's crea-tures. A false vision of God causes us to see God as one among many, not as absolute, the Hidden Ground of Love, from whom all things come and in whom all things are sustained.ll From this arises the false self, for, instead of being an image of the true God, the self tends to become an image of the false god. Finally, to be fully free, we need to be liberated from the illusions that mark our relationships with other human beings and with the rest of God's creation. What, then, is the freedom that Thomas Merton con-siders essential to this spirituality of seeking? It is the freedom to choose the good and not to choose "freely" In contemplation, Merton realized, we meet God, and in meeting God we discover our deepest freedom. 63.2 2004 Herron ¯ Merton and a Spirituality for Millennials between two realities such as good and evil. Merton argues that "the free man is the one whose choices have given him the power to stand on his own feet and deter-mine his own life according to the higher light and spirit that are in him.''12 He says: "The mere ability to choose between good and evil is the lowest limit of freedom, and the only thing that is free about it is the fact that we can still choose good. To the extent that you are free to choose evil, you are not free. An evil choice destroys freedom . Perfect spiritual freedom is a total inabil-ity to make any evil choice." 13 St. Benedict's Rule and the Spirituality of Seeking The contrast between a spirituality of habitation and a spirituality of seeking is evident in the 6th-century Rule of St. Benedict. The Cistercian monk takes three vows: stability, obedience, and conversatio. Stability emphasizes setdedness, a "permanent and lifelong attach-ment to the monastery of one's profession." 14 Conversatio connotes the changeable life of the spirit. It is "a com-mitment to live faithfully in unsettled times and to keep one's life sufficiently unsettled to respond to the chang-ing voice of God." ~5 It involves a commitment to con-stant progress in virtue. The monk can never say that he has done enough. It is "the vow to respond totally and integrally to the word of Christ, 'Come, follow me,' by renouncing all that might impede one in following him untrammeled, all that might obscure one's clarity of intent and confuse one's resolve."16 As such, it is a source of peace. Peace comes when there is a "willingness to renounce our petty selves and find our true selves beyond ourselves in others, and above all in Christ." 17 Obedience here suggests a commitment to both sta-bility and conversatio. This is an obedience to God in all things. The monk uses this obedience as a means to grow closer to God. It is the obedience of faith in the context Review for Religious of love and discipleship. The wisdom of St. Bernard is that dwelling and seeking, stability and conversatio, are both part of what it means to be human.18 The desire for a dwelling, for a citadel or fortress of solitude, is evi-dent in the fact that people associate God with churches, synagogues, and temples. It is intimated by the feelings that are aroused by memories of the house in which we were raised or by the uprooting we feel when we need to move. A human habitat takes on sacred meaning, becom-ing a home that has a "heart and a soul," an abode that can be lived in with grace and in "the power of bene-dictions." 19 Merton spoke about Gethsemani, especially in his early years there, as a "sign of Christ.''2° Thomas Merton and a Generation of Seekers Americans live in increasingly complex and perilous times. We face conditions that appear to be spinning wildly out of control--terrorism, environmental pollu-tion, worldwide hunger and poverty, AIDS, crime. A spir-ituality of dwelling may appeal to many people, especially when reli-gious leaders promise secure space in which to worship God in famil-iar ways. For some, the purpose of any congre-gation will be to pro-vide a haven amidst the uncertainties of modern times. A spirituality of seeking, however, will appeal to more of the American people, precisely because it lets them choose their own understandings and their own ways of worshiping. For them, the believing community is less a haven than a supplier of spiritual goods and services. Neither style is entirely satisfactory. Both arise out of our conversation with our past. While earlier genera- The believing community is less a haven than a supplier of spiritual goods and services. 63.2 2004 Herron ¯ Merton and a Spirituality for Millennials tions found some peace and security in a spirituality of inhabiting, later ones take pride in being on a spiritual journey. This shift has roots in our immigrant history.21 Until the beginning of World War II, when Thomas Merton entered the monastery at Gethsemani, ethnic groups were still influenced largely by their immigrant experience. They had come looking for a better life. Together they built institutions. They came in search of both physical and spiritual homes. After the war they worked feverishly at the task of building new houses. Levittown came to symbolize that desire, and the Cold War represented a threat to that dream. The decade of the 1950s was to be an ending as well as a beginning in that regard. The world has changed substantially since the pres-idency of Dwight Eisenhower. Change has become a general condition of every part of modern life. The 1950s gave way to an era of racial unrest, political turmoil, and environmental havoc. The children of the 1960s seemed out of control and all too willing to question authority. That changing world is the world that Thomas Merton inhabited and somewhat came to personify. But the later Merton was firmly rooted in the earlier one. That is, his willingness to stand on his own two feet was not the mark of a radical individualist undertaking a ruggedly individualistic spiritual journey. Rather, it was the mark of a "free" human being dedicated to living faithfully in unsettled times as a person firmly in "one dear perpetual place." Stability, for Merton, was rooted in his relationship to his monastic family and his work within the monastery. It was the dedication of one who had come to grips with the allure of worldliness and won, leaving it behind in search of greener pastures. Merton was not claiming an "abiding place," for the Spirit of God did not let him put a mere place above the call of fidelity. His commitment was not simply to a commu- Review for Religious nity, but ultimately to the God who told him, "Come, follow me." A portion of Merton's enduring legacy to the mil-lennial generation rests precisely in his understanding of the Rule of St. Benedict. He cautions the next gener-ation about undertaking a journey for its own sake or in search of illusory goals. Better to live firmly in a com-munity that demands your constant focus on growth. If that involves a journey, so be it. But the journey, the "road trip," is not an end in itself. It needs to serve a greater truth. The challenge of conversatio for today's young people is to be constantly open to going where God takes them and not where the illusory goals of a consumer culture or a warrior culture might lead them. The call of obedience is to cling tightly to God and to the gift of true discipleship. Like the gyre that William Butler Yeats describes in his poem "The Second Coming," Merton struggled in his personal life and on his spiritual journey to find a way for the center to hold, to find a way toward some form of final integration[ The point where stability and conversatio meet was, for him, in obedience. Obedience holds both together, insisting that both are essentials in the spiritual life. Merton not only illuminates the dra-matic upheavals of our recent past, but points a way to our future. Notes ~ Dean Hoge, William Dinges, Mary Johnson SNDdeN, and Juan Gonzales, Young Adult Catholics: Religion in the Culture of Choice (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2001); James L. Heft SM and James D. Davidson, "The Mission of Catholic High School and Today's Millennials: Three Suggestions," Catholic Education 6 (June 2003): 410-422; T.P. Waiters, "Millennial Youth: Facts, Figures, and Priestly Vocations," in T.P. Waiters and B. Crawford, eds., The Millennial Generation: Hearing God's Call (St. Meinrad, Indiana: Abbey Press, 2001), pp. 15-25; and James D. Davidson et al., The Search for Common Ground: What Unites and Divides American Catholics (Huntington, Indiana: Our Sunday Visitor, 1999). 63.2 2004 Herron ¯ Merton and a Spirituality for Millennials 2 Robert Wuthnow, After Heaven: Spirituality in America since the 19YOs (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), pp. 3-4. 3 Wuthnow, After Heaven, p. 4. 4 Donald Grayston, Thomas Merton's Rewriting: The Five Versions of Seeds/New Seeds of Contemplation as a Key to the Development of His Thought (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1985), p. 371. See also Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1948), p. 33. s Anne Truitt, Daybook, the Journal of an Artist (New York: Pantheon Books, 1982), p. 22. 6 Thomas Merton, "Elias--Variations on a Theme," in his The Strange Islands (New York: New Directions, 1959), p. 233. 7 Thomas Merton, Witness to Freedom: The Letters of Thomas Merton in Times of Crisis (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1994). 8 Merton, Seven Storey Mountain, p. 372. 9 Thomas Merton, Turning toward the World: The Pivotal Years, Vol. 4 of The Journals of Thomas Merton (HarperSanFrancisco, 1996), p. 146. ~0 Thomas Merton, The Courage for Truth: The Letters of Tbomas Merton to Writers (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1993), p. 39. ~1 Thomas Merton, The Hidden Ground of Love: Letters of Thomas Merton on Religious Experience and Social Concerns (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1985), p. 452. ,2 Thomas Merton, The New Man (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Cudahy, 1961), pp. 178-179. 13 Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation (New York: New Directions, 1962), p. 199. 14 Thomas Merton, The Monastic Journey (Kansas City: Andrews and McMeel, 1977), pp. 66-68. is Wuthnow, After Heaven, p. 6. ~6 Merton, Monastic Journey, p. 110. 17 Merton, Monastic Journey, p. 40. ~8 Timothy Fry, ed., The Rule of Saint Benedict (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1982); Brian C. Taylor, Spirituality for Everyday Living: An Adaptation of the Rule of Saint Benedict (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1989); Joan Chittister, Wisdom Distilled from the Daily: Living the Rule of Saint Benedict Today (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), Eviatar Zerubavel, Hidden Rhythms: Schedules and Calendars in Social Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981). 19 Mark Twain, cited in Witold Rybczynski, The Most Beautiful House in the World (New York: Penguin Books, 1989), p. 171. Review for Religious 20 Michael Mott, The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984), p. 208. 2, Oscar Handlin, The Uprooted (New York: Little, Brown, 1951). Class Reunion The women, this fiftieth June after June Graduations, have buried the men: at this Table for ten, there are two husbands, Their two wives, a nun, and a quintet Of well-dressed, well-coiffed survivors, Not one a mere relict, but all Junoesque, Carrying Junoesque handbags at arms" ends. The nun carries nothing. The pair of men Draw together, only to be drawn apart Again by the women who treasure their presence: All that is left as stand-ins for the children. Amiably passed from widow to widow and back To spouse, they are lost, hosts at a table With too many partners, until saved, saved By the nun whose last name no one can Remember, sistering them with shy veiled Smiles, her innocence bridging the gap Between that June and this, seeming fifty Years younger than all the rest. The banquet Is served . Could Sister please bless? Nancy G. Westerfield 63.2 2004 LAURA SWAN Paradox in the Monastery: Lessons from Two Ammas Mwost of us have grown up with family stories that e have "always" been "familiar" with. This is oral tradition. Certain stories get told over and over, recalling the colorful, poignant, even troubling members and events of our families and congregations. Stories are retold among friends, families, and religious communities because the memory of them touches us deeply. They tell us something of who we are and where we have been. Stories unpack the mystery of the present and give us guidance into the future. We pass particular stories on because they have shaken something awake within us and we desire to share this awareness with others. We want to remember the lessons learned. Vowed religious remember stories retold about religious over the centuries along with the stories of their own monasteries and congregations. Which stories are dusted off and retold (and embellished) often says much about who we are and what we struggle with. Stories contain and sustain our cultural values. They assist in Laura Swan OSB, author of The Forgotten Desert Mothers, is prioress of St. Placid Priory; 500 College Street N.E.; Lacey, Washington 98516. Web page www.stplacid.org, and email to lswan@stplacid.org. Review for Religious passing on the traditions of our monasteries, congre-gations, faith communities, and families. In the desert of the early Christian movement, stories were collected, remembered, and passed on. Even today stories preserve the memory and teachings of the desert ascetics, the ammas and abbas who lived at the beginning of Christian monasticism. They sought the desert, a place of intense solitude, in order to focus their pursuit of the Holy One with single-minded devotion and limited distractions. Their goal was union with God. These stories formed an early oral tradition now known as Sayings (apothegms, apophtheg~nata). Side by side with this movement into the desert was a movement toward an evolving Christian monasticism. The desert ascetics were often associated with monastic communities. Eremitic communities were little more than groups of cells in the desert where the seekers occasionally met for teaching, prayer, and exhortation. There was no standard monasticism at this period. Religious life was quite diverse in all its expressions; every monastic community had its own rule and traditions. Two leading figures in the development of monasticism in Egypt were Pachomius (ca. 282-346) of Tabennisi in upper Egypt and Shenoute (ca. 348-464) of Atripe, also in upper Egypt. Writings of their followers, often called Lives, give us insight into the struggles and aspirations of early religious life and of Christianity itself. Many stories from the desert reflect the tensions of diverse expressions of Christianity and tensions between those seeking to articulate statements of belief, as in the Arian and Trinitarian controversies. The Holy Drunken Woman I would like to look at two stories. They confront us with paradox, and their themes are repeated in other stories from the desert) As the first story goes, on the feast 63.2 2004 Swan * Paradox in the Monastery of Abba Apollo, Abba Daniel went to the Upper Thebaid, visiting first the monastic community of men and then the monastic community of women. The community of three hundred women was called the Monastery of Abba Jeremiah, led by a "mother archimandrite.''2 In this story the women "violate" the tradition of not permitting men in their monastery in order to welcome a particularly venerated and beloved elder of the desert. In the tradition of desert hospitality, these monastic women welcome Abba Daniel and his companion into their monastery chapel and wash their feet. The women then bless themselves with the water used. Then they ask for a blessing and a word of teaching or exhortation. As the women seek a wise word from Abba Daniel--a common trait of desert stories--the scene shifts to an anonymous member of the women's monastery who remained away from the rest of the community. This anonymous nun believed to be drunk is asleep in the forecourt of the church, wearing clothing that is in shreds. Abba Daniel asks the mother archimandrite who this nun is, and he is told: "She's a drunk and we don't know what to do with her; we're afraid to take the responsibility of throwing her out of the monastery, and if we let her stay she demoralizes the sisters." 3 The community then redirects Abba Daniel to their refectory for a shared meal. Interestingly we are told that the women served the men simple vegetarian fare while they themselves ate well. When Abba Daniel inquires about this seeming disparity and violation of hospitality, the mother archimandrite responds: "You are a monk, and I served you a monk's food. Your disciple is a monk's disciple, and I served him a disciple's food. We, however, are novices, and we ate novices' food.''4 By example the women have exalted the venerable teacher by lowering themselves in an eccentric yet enticing paradox. Before leaving, Abba Daniel again concerns himself Review for Religious with the "drunken" nun, who was seen sleeping by the toilets. The men had been watching her. As the monastery retired for sleep, the woman rose and stood in a position of tearful supplication or prostrated herself in contrition. Whenever a nun came out to use the toilet, she would throw herself on the ground and snore. Abba Daniel calls the mother archimandrite, who joins him in observing this behavior. Realizing that the nun is merely feigning drunkenness and remembering her own mistreatment of her, the mother archimandrite confesses her own sin with deep conviction and contrition. When the "drunken" nun realizes that she has been discovered, she cleverly steals Abba Daniel's cowl and staff and disappears into the desert. The story concludes with Abba Daniel and the mother archimandrite declaring the "drunken" nun to be one of God's hidden servants. The woman rose and stood in a position of tearful supplication or prostrated herself in contrition. The Woman Who Feigned Madness From Palladius we learn of a women's monastery at Tabennisi in which a member feigned madness and demon possession.5 She was treated with contempt, and the other nuns avoided her company. This "mad" nun voluntarily worked at the most menial jobs in the kitchen. She wore a rag on her head while other members cropped their hair short and wore a cowl. She ate the scraps and leftovers only. She was never angry and never grumbled; she rarely spoke--all in the midst of being treated with contempt. She was insulted, cursed, and loathed by the other nuns. 63.2 2004 Swan ¯ Paradox in the Monastery An angel appears to Abba Piteroum, another venerated desert ascetic, inviting him to meet someone more holy then he, and a mere woman at that! The angel sends him to Tabennisi with a challenge: This woman is continually mistreated by her community and yet never takes her heart off God, while our venerable abba dwells in his cell yet wanders about the cities in his mind--a theme found throughout desert teachings, including the Sayings ofAmma Syncletica.6 For his angelic lesson, Abba Piteroum arrives at the women's monastery to see this holy woman, whom the nuns call "touched." She resists meeting him, but is physically forced into his presence. He immediately recognizes her as spiritually mature by an intuition of mind and heart. He falls at her feet seeking her blessing, and she responds by falling at his feet seeking his blessing, both vying to express their humility. The nuns are aghast. Abba Piteroum declares the touched nun to be the community's true spiritual mother. The nuns recognize the truth of his words and immediately begin to confess their mistreatment of this unknown amma and elder. Now elevated to "venerable," she cannot tolerate the place of honor and disappears from the community-- another common theme of the desert. The Paradox Most of us have experienced difficult people--in our congregations and monasteries, in our professional lives, in our faith communities and families. These are the people who know our buttons and hooks well. They have an innate ability to stir up our anger and impatience and frustration. These are the people who can make day-to-day living exasperating and an exercise in profound patience. Our inner reactions to these difficult people tell us more about ourselves than we care to admit. They gift us with all this opportunity for asceticism--and are Review for Religious usually quite unaware of it. While our history as religious seekers and as vowed religious includes eras of health-damaging fasts, hair shirts and nail beds, my Irish forebears standing for long periods in freezing cold water, and whips--these are all self-imposed ascetical practices of dubious value. These false ascetical practices betray our neo-Pelagian and neo- Jansenist hearts.7 Desert ascetics remind us that life hands us authentic asceticism: meetings, deadlines, "smallness" of income in the midst of aging, the ministrations that frail members call for, authority and obedience in tension in our individualistic culture, and difficult community members. Families have difficulty building and sustaining relationships in a culture that undermines those values and commitments. Desert ascetics sought to The desert tradition was intended to force the seeker to face self without distractions, illusions, or barriers. disappear, taking their wisdom with them. We know that the greater challenge is to build healthy communities and a healthy church. To us it seems the easier thing to disappear, to seek hiddenness. Yet the desert tradition was intended to force the seeker to face self without distractions, illusions, or barriers. Today's desert ascetics are, first and foremost, students of the desert and the spiritual difficulty encountered there. The desert teaches them self-knowledge and self-awareness. It teaches them to listen deeply and intensely. Daily they come to know a bit better who they are before God. While growing in awareness of who they are and who they are not, they detach themselves from reputation and any need to 63.2 2004 Swan ¯ Paradox in the Monastery defend themselves from those who may attack it. In the old and colorful stories, ascetics go beyond detachment from reputation to distancing themselves from others in order to live alone for God. We savor these stories because they invite us to multiple meanings, because they do not allow us a simplistic answer. Contemporary religious life recognizes--and painfully grows more aware of---fragile, disturbed, and disrupting members. Our call is to handle these troubling members wisely and compassionately, and at times firmly. We try to minimize the disruptions that wounded unruly members are capable of; we listen and ask ourselves what they are here to teach us. Often the stories we have retained and repeat pertain to the graced insights we have been given, the humor and lessons we have learned. Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann speaks of the capacity of the Psalms to move us from orientation, through disorientation, to a new position of re-orientationf We experience times of disequilibrium, yet when God is there with us beautiful psalms can be birthed. In many ways this experience occurred in the lives of the desert ascetics. They were thrust into disorientation by accepting the gospel and striving to follow its earnest call by living in the desert or monastery. After each new experience of reorientation, the desert ascetics would be thrust again into disorientation through continued ascetical practices that could bring them to ever closer union with God. This rhythm stripped the seekers of all that separated their truest selves from God. The nun who feigned madness and the holy "drunken" woman open up the paradox that troubled members, nonconforming members, and the mentally ill confront us with. These women speak to us of the paradox of ultimate detachment, of letting go of all that keeps us from an intense relationship with God and our truest selves. And they are paradoxes because their pursuit Review for Religious of interior freedom causes disruption for others. These women certainly speak to us of ways that God is found outside our concept of "normal." And yet these women of old both challenge and help us to provide pastoral care for our nonconformist members who struggle with the daily reality of living out their vowed commitment or are mentally ill. We anguish on behalf of troubled members around questions of ability and willingness to live the demands of our life calling. Careful discernment is demanded of us. Is this person confronting a systemic problem in the monastery or community? Is she a prophetic element? What does the fruit of her behavior tell us? These women remind us that our teachers and mentors may come in the form of Balaam's ass--or a holy "drunken" woman or a woman who feigns madness. Indeed our troubling members call forth the strength of compassion and steadfastness and vision in ways we did not ever foresee. Sometimes we discover our best selves-- and sometimes our worst self comes out. These stories clearly teach the paradox of who was actually troubled: the woman or the community? The holy "drunken" woman and the woman who feigned madness behaved in disturbing ways, but were revealed to have pure hearts intent on God, while others manifested conformity and even appropriate conduct (not always the same thing) but inwardly lacked something even to the point of behaving badly. We are presented with a paradox, with a teach-ing/ learning moment. Discernment is necessary. What appears as "bad" is shown to be "good." What is in us-- our purity of heart, or our lack of it--is exposed. We are presented with classic stories of the desert, stories that support the desert goal of apatheia. Apatheia is the interior state in which people no longer have to struggle against inordinate attachments. Through 63.2 2004 Swan ¯ Paradox in the Monastery The desert ascetics taught all to deliberately let go of whatever keeps us from the single-minded pursuit of God. profound interior freedom, they are not pulled hither and yon by various worldly, desires. Apatheia is a mature mindfulness, a sound sensitivity, and a keen attention to one's inner world and to the outer world in which one has been living. Apatheia is purity of heart. The desert ascetics taught all to deliberately let go of whatever keeps us from the single-minded pursuit of God: feelings and thoughts that bind us or others, cravings and addictions that diminish feelings of worth, and attachments to self-imposed perfectionism. The paradoxical questions are: Does my purity of heart support my fellow seekers' own interior journey? Is it inappropriate if my purity of heart disrupts your journey? How do we discern this together? Desert ascetics faced suffering with determination and courage. They understood that suffering often has roots in their own attachments to thoughts, attitudes, motives, relationships, and reputation. Suffering was the avenue towards freedom, and detachment the avenue towards maturity and humility. And yet there are innumerable stories from desert monastic communities--possibly Shenouteand the White Monastery being the most famous--where misbehavior and harshness were too common.9 Benedict of Nursia's own Rule reveals a monastic leader purified by the fire of members' unruly misbehavior and matured by his attempts to curb it. The "mad" nun and the "drunken" woman remind us that the pursuit of holiness is a lifelong journey. Review for Religious As in all good stories, we are not given easy answers to hard questions. Paradox lives on and calls for discernment. We need self-awareness in order to understand what power the stories have and why we repeat them in our dining rooms. The "mad" nun and the "drunken" woman confront us: Who are our teachers? From whom are we willing to learn? At whose feet do we sit to receive the wisdom of desert cell and monastery? Are we alert to unexpected opportunities to learn? What do we do when our presumptions, prejudices, and expectations are exposed and thwarted? How do we discern? With whom do we discern? Who are our wise elders? Notes l I am drawing from Tim Vivian, "Witness to Holiness: Abba Daniel of Scetis," Coptic Church Review 24, nos. 1 and 2 (Spring and Summer 2003): 2-52. See also L~on Clugnet, "Vie et R~cits de l'Abbd Daniel de Sc~t~," Revue de l'Orient Chr~tien 5 (1900): 67-70. See also Witness to Holiness: Abba Daniel of Scetis, ed. Tim Vivian (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, forthcoming). z Archimandrite is a term usually used only in the Orthodox and Coptic Christian traditions, referring to a leader of the monastery. 3 Vivian, "Wimess," p. 36. 4 Vivian, "Witness," p. 36. 5 Primarily I am using Palladius, Lausiac History, ed. and trans. Robert Meyer, Vol. 34 of Ancient Christian Writers series, ed. Johannes Quasten (New York: Newman Press, 1964), pp. 96-98. 6 Palladius, p. 97, and see The Life of Blessed Syncletica by Pseudo- Athanasius, ed. and trans. Elizabeth Bryson Bongie (Toronto: Peregrina Publishing, 1995). 7 Pelagius's name is given to the heresy that denies original sin and claims that human beings can choose the good on their own and thereby effect their own salvation. We see echoes of this in the posunodern North American and western European culture. Jansen's name is given to the heresy that human nature is so flawed by original sin that special grace is needed to follow Christ. His teachings around determinism are quite similar to Calvin's teachings on predestination. Jansenism was a rigorous and austere movement. I suggest that much of our perfectionist drive comes from the Jansenist influence on our culture. 63.2 2004 Swan * Paradox in the Monastery 8 See Walter Brueggemann, Praying the Psalms (Winona: St. Mary's Press, 1986). 9 See Susanna Elm, Virgins of God: The Making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), and Rebecca Krawiec, Shenoute and the Women of the White Monastery: Egyptian Monasticism in Late Antiquity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001). They Who Sow in Tears. These are not hollow hours that the spirit spends in tortured wrestling with a loneliness trenchant and piercing. Even this ache that rends our subtlest calm beyond each day's regress with sharp-toothed gnawing at the being's core is heaven-sent, is calculate, is more than all our orisons, presaging joyous yield. This is the "sowing in tears" within His field. Agnes Margaret Humbert CDP (nursing home, age ninety-one) Review for Religious PATRICK SEAN MOFFETT Viewing Chapters as "Authoring" Our Congregations' Narratives ~hSU~S offers us his story. While walking the streets, lls, and lakesides of his homeland, he authored in Spirited word and action the initial chapters of the defin-ing narrative of Christianity. All eyes were on him in his hometown synagogue as he proclaimed that the words of Isaiah were being fulfilled in their hearing: "The Spirit of God has been given to me and has anointed me. God has sent me to bring the good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and to the blind new sight" (Lk 4:18-19). Chapters have a unique function in the lives of reli-gious congregations and their members and in the wider church. They merit re-viewing and re-hearing from a number of vantage points. Here I present a perspective that emphasizes the storytelling nature of these eccle-sial events. Stories We Live By In the stories people tell about themselves, psychol-ogists find a manifestation of two great motivational forces: agency and communion.~ Agency refers to behav- Patdck Sean Moffett CFC writes again from Christian Brothers, Central Harlem; 74 West 124th Street; New York, N.Y. 10027. I.LJ~K.~'O"~ 63.2 2004 iors that individuals perceive as uniquely their own: I think, I feel, I do. Communion refers to people's percep-tions of relatedness, of belonging, of being integral mem-bers of a group that they experience as us or we. In chapter preparations, various "Emmaus Walks" have gained favor as ways of fostering shared discern-ment. They are making a reappearance, displacing a pre-vious decade's preference for evaluations and sorting exercises' designed to evoke an exchange on personality types or styles of human interaction. Gospel based and focusing on people's unique life journeys, Emmaus Walks facilitate personal narration. Participants are usually assigned a partner randomly. After a time of reflecting by oneself (perhaps on a given theme or a text of Scripture) or checking in on one's own current affect, the pair simply take a walk during which they express what is happening within them. These exchanges are sometimes followed by testimonies within small or large groups or by a period of shared silence and a concluding blessing or hymn. The Emmaus Walk serves as an example of the story-telling which begins anew with the announcement of a coming chapter and characterizes much of what happens throughout the time of chapter. Individual members are invited to reflect on the movement of the Spirit within their individual and. communal experiences and then to share their observations with their sisters or brothers in local, provincial, and eventually congregational contexts. "Time of chapter" is the full period extending from the first announcement through, the preparations, the prechapter gatherings, the formal opening, and the issue and voting sessions to the chapter's formal conclusion. Consecrated Life in a Time of Chapter "Why is this day different from every other day?" The child's question opening the Hebrew Passover ritual Review for Religious might be applied to the time of chapter. Consecrated life in the Christian tradition is nourished by daily atten-tion to the Spirit of Jesus working in and through the individual and the community. A call to chapter is an invitation to each and all of the members to engage in discernment that goes beyond the usual daily praxis. In personal reflection, in personal and communal prayer, in speaking and listening, the focus in the time of chap-ter is our unity within our brotherhood or sisterhood in Christ. Our individual stories are narrated within the communal story. We attend individually to movements of the Spirit that may be intended for the whole community. I attend within myself, within the community, and within the people we are called to serve. I willingly risk asking if there is something in our shared life that I am called at this time to affirm, to question, to challenge, or to propose. I risk accepting a call to prophesy, a call to speak to my brothers or sisters in the name of God. I listen with special attention to those who speak in ways that challenge me, that call me to deeper levels of relationship with them and with our God. I test the spir-its that are stirring among us. I listen with mind and heart, noting particularly what evokes strong signs of passion, dissonance, or consent. Collectively, the members of the congregation under-stand that a general chapter is a defining moment in the ongoing story of their institute. Canon law is quite explicit: In an institute the general chapter has supreme author-ity in accordance with the constitutions. It is to be composed in such a way that it represents the whole institute and becomes a true sign of its unity in char-ity. Its principal functions are to protect the patri-mony of the institute . . . and to foster appropriate renewal in accord with that patrimony. It also elects the supreme moderator, deals with matters of greater importance, and issues norms which all are bound to obey. (c. 631, §i) 63.2 2004 Moffett ¯ Viewing Cbapt~ The New Testament offers what might be considered models of chapter. Stories within a Story The New Testament offers what might be considered models of chapter. Jesus gathers the disciples on the return from their first mission. They share stories marveling at all they had done and taught (Mk 6:30). Jesus chooses a committee consisting of Peter, James, and John to wit-ness the transfiguration. As Jesus approaches the time of his passion, he gathers the full group as friends at a meal in an upper room. He ritualizes his role among them as one who serves, and he enjoins them to follow his example. He speaks with great intimacy of his rela-tionship with his Father and with them, and of their incor-poration into his continuing story. He announces a new commandment revealing the defining characteristics of their agency and their commu-nion. "As I have loved you, you love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples" On 13:3 4). Several postresurrection encounters are similar. Peace, self-reve-lation, and a shared mission are the recurrent themes. In the Acts of the Apostles, as the members of the early church confront issues of leadership, community management, and inclusiveness, there is a coming together to consider what is happening among them, to recall the story of tlieir mission, and to decide--"we and the Holy Spirit"--where to go from here. Religious hold as a treasure, but also as a memory of painful moments, the chapter stories of their congrega-tions- times of jubilee, special fervor, and renewal, but also of schisms, suppressions, and even denunciations of their founders. In the treasures of Franciscan lore, the gathering of the friars in 1217 at Pentecost continues to suggest Review for Religious images and hopes for new generations of the sons and daughters of the Poverello. He writes to those who were to gather, encouraging them to have a listening heart and to be "cleansed and enlightened interiorly and fired with the ardor of the Holy Spirit": Listen, then, sons of God and my friars, and give ear to my words. Give hearing with all your hearts, and obey the voice of the Son of God. Keep his com-mandments wholeheartedly, and practice his counsels with all your minds. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; extol him in your works. This is the very rea-son he has sent you all over the world, so that by word and deed you may bear witness to his message and convince everyone that there is no other almighty God besides him. Almighty, eternal, just, and merciful God, grant us in our misery that we may do for your sake alone what we know you want us to do, and may always want what pleases you; so that, cleansed and enlightened interiorly and fired with the ardor of the Holy Spirit, we may be able to follow in the footsteps of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and so make our way to you, Most High, by your grace alone, who live and reign in perfect Trinity and simple Unity, and are glorified, God omnipotent, for ever and ever. Amen.2 In 1976 Eduardo Cardinal Pironio, in his role as pre-fect of the Sacred Congregation for Religious, offered a vision that anticipated many of the directions that chap-ters have taken during the past quarter century: A chapter is not a mere study meeting, a superficial gathering or a short-lived revision of life. A chapter is essentially a paschal celebration. For this reason it is above all a "penitential" celebration which aims at liv-ing two things deeply: a sincere attitude of conver-sion and a deep and painful search., for God's will in the present necessities of consecrated life. But, since it is a real paschal celebration, it is not just the penitential aspects that interest us in a chap-ter. It is the whole extent of paschal newness, a fresh- 63.2 2004 ness in the church and a good dose of pasc.hal opti-mism. If the chapter has been celebrated well, in poverty, prayer, and brotherly charity, it is a re-cre-ation of the institute, and its spiritual riches overflow upon the church and the world. Because of all this, the chapter is a salvific event, an ecclesial event, a family event. (L'Osservatore Romano, English edition, 16 September 1976) For many congregations the "time of chapter" has become increasingly inclusive of individuals and groups with whom they are associated in life and ministry. Coworkers and those served are invited to share in many aspects of the chapter preparations and celebrations. They respond with helpful and often challenging insights, genuine affirmations, and earnest testimonies to possible applications of the congregation's charism. They clearly have a role in the story of the institute. As the chapter moves into its more formal role of supreme authority with respect to the congregation's members and its choice of leaders, the various associates join with the universal church in prayerfully awaiting, outside closed doors, the moment of a new Pentecost. The church, historically the chief beneficiary of these charismatic moments, is most attentive in protecting the members' rights and asserting their duty to discern among themselves the movement of the Spirit. J Planning the Chapter Groups engaged in chapter preparations, when asked what outcomes are most desired, readily speak of a greater unity--unity in who they are and what they are about in the name of the Lord. "By this they will know that you are my disciples." A steering committee approaches the design of a chapter with the guidelines of canon law and with the congregation's constitution, statutes, directives, and cus-toms, but also with aspects of the "Zeitgeist" or cultural Review for Religious climate of contemporary religious congregations. Resources, facilities, travel possibilities, witness, means of communication, inclusiveness, ministerial pressures, and solidarity are some of the issues that have evoked creativity and diversity in the conduct of chapters. The Spirit has been called on to adjust to a great variety of venues. Faith is supported by Jesus' promise that, wher-ever two or three are gathered in his name, he will be around for whatever will be happening. Canon law offers chapter planners two notes: § 1. Participatory and consultative bodies are faithfully to carry out the task entrusted to them, in accordance with the universal law and the institute's own law. In their own way they are to express the care and par-ticipation of all the members for the good of the whole institute or community. §2. In establishing and utilizing these means of participation and consultation, a wise discernment is to be observed, and the way in which they operate is to be in conformity with the character and purpose of the institute. (c. 633) The initial request for community members' sug-gestions about the chapter tends to elicit many concerns about content and process that go well beyond what a large gathering could address within the limited time available, and so standing or ad hoc committees are assigned the tasks of: ¯ sorting through the initial input, ¯ performing or commissioning the research necessary for a more thorough study of stated expectancies and issues, ¯ developing preliminary drafts of papers or pro-posals, and ¯ offering opportunities for the members to share an emerging story in a variety of ways. (Letters, emails, calls, community and intercommunity gather-ings, retreats, liturgies, and assemblies become part of an extended effort to incorporate into the "time of chap-ter" the experiences and issues that may not find space and time in the formal chapter gathering.) 63.2 2004 Moffett ¯ Viewing Chapters A sacred history informs the narrative of our times. All recent retellings of the story of "consecrated life" make reference to defining characteristics articulated in the Vatican II Decree on the Appropriate Renewal of Religious Life, Perfectae caritatis. Religious hear a call to be faithful as men and women of our times, as followers of Jesus and his gospel, as members of the people of God sharing the mission of the church in the world, and as religious gifted with the charism of our particular congregation? The specification of a "time of chapter" is an invita-tion for members of a congregation to become more intensely engaged in sharing stories about the action of the Spirit in our personal and communal lives. My sisters and brothers encourage me: ¯ to attend to revelation I am receiving for the group, ¯ to share that truth in love, ¯ to attend to the prophecy of my sisters and brothers, ¯ to explore the differences, and ¯ to seek in faith the light, the direction, and the leadership that will guide our shared lives and mission toward the next chapter. When the members of the congregation or their del-egates come together for the formal affairs sessions and elections, it is a time for refinement, affirmation, and actualization of a consensus that has been emerging dur-ing several months of prayerful discernment, prophetic sharing, thoughtful listening, and rearticulation of the group narrative. In the process it is the movement of the Spirit that matters. The concluding chapter sessions, in their distinct moments, are a point of arrival and a new departure. Having clarified a shared vision for the life and mission of the congregation over the next few years, the members select those who will have a leadership role in helping Review for Religious membership remain attentive to the Spirit as together-- membership, leadership, and Spirit--they author the beginning lines of a new chapter in the continuing story of the congregation. The Zeitgeist and Some Dangerous Ideas As men and women of their times, members of reli-gious congregations, especially those working at the mar-gins of society, have a special vantage point for observing the surrounding culture, but also the risk of being affected by it. Much of what once happened only at general chap-ters has become part of congregations' ongoing admin-istration. Instant communication, travel opportunities, greater exposure to global issues, international and inter-cultural exchange, shared ministries, and increased col-laboration with governmental and nongovernmental organizations have broadened our ministerial vision and reduced our corporate response time. In the process, congregations have been exposed to prevalent cultural influences; sometimes they have regressed in search of past glories and a lost sense of security. Marist Father Gerald Arbuckle sounds the alert for "Avoiding Cultural Seduction in General Chapters" (Human Development 23, no. 3, Fall 2002). Recent terrorist activity has heightened awareness and concern about what propels groups toward conflict. Researchers are examining belief systems that seem to be fueling intergroup hostilities. Psychologists Roy and Judy Eidelson, in a review of the growing body of liter-ature, have identified five belief domains particularly important for further study: superiority, injustice, vul-nerability, distrust, and helplessness.4 They suggest a consideration of what happens as these ideas are incor-porated into the self-definition of individuals and then of the group to which they belong. 63.2 2004 Moffett ¯ Viewing Chapters Extraordinary times offer obstacles and opportuni-ties for evangelization. As in all instances of empathic ministerial response to hurt and evil, we are called to find within our own stories traces of what we seek to address. Our own sinful history attunes us to what makes Congregations sometimes have regressed in search of past glories and a lost sense of security. others particularly vulner-able to prevalent cultural influences, to what the Eidelsons call "dangerous ideas." Religious need not be suicide bombers or look beyond their own congre-gational experiences to have an initial insight into the dynamics of such ideas: "I and we are the superior ones. I and we have been the victims of injustice. I and we are particularly vulnerable. I and we cannot trust those who are not like us. I and we cannot do anything to change the situation." Significant insights become apparent in the telling of our stories. Chapters in an era of world conflict are called to attend afresh to the cry of the poor within and beyond the congregation. Those whose daily ministry affords them intimate interaction with the suffering Christ have stories that can lead to new life in the con-gregation. So can the stories of those who feel the dull pain of not having such opportunities. The challenge of chapter is that of evoking and attending to all these voices and recognizing the promised Spirit within them. From Our Stories to Our Story The current ages of those telling their stories can affect the themes that arise within the group. For exam-ple, a congregation that has numbers of older members and fewer young ones may find itself discussing genera- Revlew for Religious tivity (vs. stagnation) and integrity (vs. despair) and may be left with little time or energy for issues of identity, ministry, and intimacy, issues likely to concern the younger members. Accommodations may need to be made to assure that the group story will include the graces and struggles of all the members, not just the majority. Erik Erikson was in his eighties when he published a revision of his influential description of the life cycle. He focused on the way that personal identity, the "I," becomes ever more fully integrated into a "we." He said, "The sisterhoods and brotherhoods of the 'we' come to share a joined identity experienced as most real.''s A chap-ter needs to hear the congregation story as it is expressed anew in the lives of individuals and groups within the congregation. Not all the results will accommodate tran-scription onto paper or into electronic storage. Certain matters need to be transcribed. Constitutions and statutes govern the lives of the congregation's mem-bers. The approval process needs to be enlightened with all of the knowledge, wisdom, and grace available to those whose vote on specific matters will affect the future of all of their brothers or sisters. Records of valid voting procedures legitimate the transfer and continuity of lead-ership. Accounts and decisions concerning the patrimony of the congregation affect mission feasibilities and mem-bers' welfare, and they require skilled attention. All such matters are guided by canon law and by the law and cus-toms of the congregation. The experience of chapter, of specially shared broth-erhood or sisterhood and of the participants' careful pro-cedures and conscientious voting, is not easy to share with those who were not present. When words no longer adequately describe the lived reality of our being and doing, we struggle to find new words. We have a shared understanding of our collective story, about which words 63.2 2004 Moffett ¯ Viewing ~hapten The experience of chapter is not easy to share with those who were not present. fail, but the story is accurate. We measure other stories against that one. We likewise have intuitions of ourselves and of one another. By such intuitions we know for our-selves and others what is individually appropriate or not. Some words could be mine but not yours, some clothing would be comfortable for you but not me. In music, art, recreation, and so forth, in some way all that we become engaged in carries our unique signatures. Our collective images are shared. We can identify what is Franciscan, Dominican, Jesuit, typically Christian Brother, Mercy, or CND. Every document that is "ours" will have to fit within the domain of this collective vision. No document will ever capture it fully. As most of us sur-vive quite well without a definitive autobiography, so too our congregations. While described in a plethora of his-torical documents, as long as the congregation lives in its members, the story remains "in process." On the mountain Peter offered to capture in a build-ing project the brilliant manifestation of Jesus with Moses and Elijah. John probably had in mind a first draft of the account he never needed to write. James? For cen-turies great numbers of pilgrims to Compostela in Spain have touched into stories of this apostle's own manifes-tations. They speak of conversion and special graces. Yet all we know with some degree of certainty is that this James earned the crown of martyrdom in Jerusalem early in the story of the infant church (Ac 12:1). The words of Jesus reported in the synoptic accounts of his transfiguration suggest that each of the chosen delegates took from the mountain something to be cher-ished unspoken until it was time to proclaim the Son of Review for Religious Man's resurrection. Their privileged vision was not of something that was to come, but rather of that which always is. Together they beheld for a moment the light of the one God in whom they live and breathe and have their being. Such are our chapter stories. Notes t Dan P. McAdams, The Stories We Live By (New York: Wm. Morrow and Company, 1993); David Bakan, The Duality of Human Existence: Isolation and Communion in Western Man (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966); P.S. Moffett, "Promoting Agency among Children and Adolescents at the Margins" (invited address, American Psychological Association), Journal of Pastoral Counseling 30 (1995). 2 Taken from The Writings of St. Francis of Assisi, trans. Benen Fahy OFM (London: Burns and Oates, 1964), pp. 104 and 108. 3 Perfectae caritatis, Decree on the Appropriate Renewal of the Religious Life; Instruction on Essential Elements in the Church's Teaching on Religious Life as Applied to Institutes Dedicated to Works of the Apostolate, Congregation for Religious and Secular Institutes, 31 May 1983; lHta consecrata, apostolic exhortation of Pope John Paul II, 1996; Ytarting Afresh from Christ: A Renewed Commitment to Consecrated Life in the Third Millennium, CICLSAL, 19 May 2002. 4 Roy J. Eidelson and Judy I. Eidelson, "Dangerous Ideas: Five Beliefs That Propel Groups toward Conflict," American Psychologist 58, no. 3 (March 2003). s Erik Erikson, The Life Cycle Completed (London: W.W. Norton and Co., 1982). May Drunk on the wild plum, heady with endless stretches of bluebells surrendered to the woods (such are spring's goods, not to sell, but to sate novice eyes so long accustomed to the late gray winter's moods); all, all is given from these places where you, 0 Trinity, hide your faces. Eileen Haugh OSF 63.2 2004 J. THOMAS HAMEL Our Lady's Presence in the Spiritual Exercises gnatian tradition The first mention of our Lady in the Spiritual Exercises is in the first exercise of the First Week. "Preamble 1. This is the composition, seeing the place., the material place where the object I want to contemplate is situated . By 'mate-rial place' I mean, for example, a temple or a mountain where Jesus Christ or our Lady is to be found, according to what I want to contem-plate." ~ Is it by chance that the two examples given are a temple and a mountain? Major events took place in the temple (finding the lost twelve-year-old there) and, twenty years later, at the mount called Olivet (Jesus' ascension)--and who can doubt that our Lady was among the disciples there? (Lk 24:50-53; Ac 1:12-14). As a young child Mary was presented in the temple accord-ing to legend, even as later she presented her newborn to the Lord (Lk 2:22). Temple and J. Thomas Hamel SJ does spiritual direction and lives at College of the Holy Cross; 1 College Street; Worcester, Massachusetts 01610. Review for Religious mountain bring to mind what scripture scholars have long noted, that Mary was the only human person pre-sent to Jesus' life from beginning to end. The same is eminently true of her presence in the Spiritual Exercises. The first contemplation of the first day of the Second Week, on the incarnation, not only embraces the sacred event itself, but even invites retreatants to speak to "the eternal Word [so altogether newly] incarnate" in Mary's womb (§109). All of a sudden her womb is sacred space, a living temple. On the same first day, the presence and activity of our Lady is highlighted in the three points on our Lord's birth (§264). The second point simply quotes St. Luke: "She bore her firstborn son and wrapped him in swad-dling clothes and laid him in a manger" (Lk 2:7). In the third point the angelic choir sings "Glory to God in the highest" for Mary and Joseph and the child lying in the manger. (Ignatius conveniently forgets that the angels sang to the shepherds.) Putting her Son in a manger is our Lady's way of presenting him to the world. We can assume that Ignatius thought of that, and that the thought included a loving gaze at Jesus' entire life, the Life of the world. So aware of Jesus' birth in utter poverty, Ignatius recalls the arduous journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Ignatian contemplation is the exercise of being present first of all to details of some material things: the width of a road, its length, its smoothness or roughness, the width and depth of a cave, the size of a manger or trough, the height of a hill like Calvary. Imagined details about the route to Bethlehem invite us to be aware of the child pre-sent in Mary's womb on that long and arduous journey-- a prelude to journeys from Bethlehem to Egypt, and back to Galilee, later to the Jordan, to Samaritan territory, to Judea and Calvary. Jesus in the manger under his mother's care was the visible beginning of our finding our Savior 63.2 2004 Hamel ¯ Ou~ Lady's Pre~ence present everywhere in the world. Such is the way of the Holy Spirit at work in Ignatian contemplation. Our Lady's offering of her Son to the shepherds and to the world was a revelation, the source of Ignatius's own mysticism of apostolic gervice. Ignatian retreatants are invited to serve the needs of the mother, of Joseph, and the servant girl (§114) and, following the contem-plative gaze of Ignatius, are led on a journey that includes Christ carrying his cross to Calvary (§ 116). The mys-tery of the birth of Christ our Lord, or rather the mys-teries surrounding his birth, glow with something mystical. How else explain what Ignatius did when it was no longer possible for him and his first companions to go to the Holy Land? Thirteen months after his ordination to the priesthood, he celebrated his first Mass in the Church of St. Mary Major on 25 December 1538 at the altar of the manger in which Christ was said to have been placed. Once again Ignatius was reliving that sacred moment when our Lady placed her Son in the manger. Was the manger all along a kind of mystical manger which later prompted that long-standing desire of Ignatius that our Lady be pleased to place him with her Son? It is no sur-prise that her response was the mystical vision of La Storta in November 1537: He had resolved to remain a year, once he became a priest, without saying Mass, preparing himself and praying our Lady to be pleased to put him with her Son. And being one day

Issue 61.3 of the Review for Religious, 2002. ; Review for Religious helps people respond and be fait~hful 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 bimonthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 Telephone: 314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: review@slu.edu ¯ Web site: www.reviewforreligious.org Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ° St. Louis, MO 63108-3393 Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP Mount St. Mary's Seminary; Emmitsburg, Maryland 21727 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©2002 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for persQnal 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. vie w for religious LIVING OUR CATHOLIC LEGACIES Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Clare Boehmer ASC Philip C. Fischer SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Judy Sharp James and Joan Felling Adrian Gaudin SC Sr. Raymond Marie Gerard FSP Eugene Hensell OSB Ernest E. Larkin OCarm Bishop Carlos A. Sevilla sJ Miriam D. Ukeritis CSJ MAY JUNE 2002 VOLUME 61 NUMBER 3 contents 23O spiritual growth Transformative Aspects of Spirituality George A. Maloney SJ emphasizes the need for us to rediscover the personal, interrelational, triune creator God and thereby find a spiritual renewal in our Christian practices of prayer and asceticism. 242 St. Alphonsus and Today's Spiritual Direction Dennis J. Billy CSSR examines St. Alphonsus's relevance as a "spiritual master" and identifies elements that people can use in their own practice of spiritual direction. 252 265 dialogue Louise de Marillac and Elizabeth Seton: Women of Spirit Anne Higgins DC and Betty Ann McNeil DC allow Louise de Marillac and Elizabeth Seton to speak out how their lives as wives, mothers, widows, and spiritual leaders model the life of the Spirit for contemporary women in ministry. From Paschal Mystery to Reconciliation, from ASCs tO Adorers Regina Siegfried ASC traces the expansion and maturing of her own religious congregation's foundational charism, modeling for other congregations how to discover their still relevant and appropriate gift in contemporary society. Review for Religious 272 religious life culture Distinctiveness, Diversity, and Commoness in Consecrated Life Deborah M. Cerullo SSND proposes ways of dealing with diversity and externalizing our new reality so that we sustain the distinctiveness that is religious life. 281 The Culture of Religious Life within Asian Culture Nihal Abeyasingha CSSR outlines some considerations that Asian religious need to observe when adapting to Asian culture, not merely fitting in but challenging the culture to conversion. 299 reflections Why Only Three Evangelical Counsels? Brendan Kneale FSC offers some new reasons to the traditional ones for our having three defining vows for consecrated life. He echoes Pope John Paul's challenge to clarify the anthropological significance of the counsels. 3O8 Religious Life Revisited Lucy Fuchs reflects on some aspects of religious life, with her reflections occasioned .by a fifty-year reunion of those wh.o stayed as religious and those who left. departments 228 Prisms 313 Canonical Counsel: Voluntary Departure 320 Book Reviews May-June 2002 prisms In several ways, known to us all, Christianity is a scandalous religion. The GreeE word skandalon means a small stone that causes one to trip or fall. "To scandalize," then, is to be a stone that, deliberately or not, causes another to fall. In the Old Testament, God is sometimes a scandal. By his manner of acting or not acting, especially in their times of exile, the Israelites see God as a scandal. The prophet Isaiah identifies God as the stone of scan-dal and the rock that causes the two houses of Israel to fall (Is 8:14). In the New Testament, we find this text of Isaiah applied to Christ in the first letter of Peter (1 P 2:8). Jesus is a scandal, a sign of contradiction against which people's hearts become hardened. Paul bluntly proclaimed that our preaching Christ crucified is "a scandal for the Jews and folly for the gentiles" (1 Co 1:23). If we place ourselves within a Buddhist or Muslim culture, we begin to realize how much a scan-dal the mysteries of the incarnation, the crucifixion, and the resurrection remain for people. God becom-ing man?--why would God ever want to do that? God dying shamefully as a criminal?--that is no reason-able or respectable idea of God. God being raised from the dead and. keeping a human body for eternity?-- that is too much even for those who like science fic-tion. Jesus Christ truly is a scandal. Just like the ubiquitous stones that cause us to trip .and fall, so Jesus knows that scandals in human life Review for Religious are inevitable. When at our best, we Christians in our good-ness will sometimes appear and even be scandalous to others. Our belief in Christ can scandalize. Perhaps our sacramental worship--eating and drinking the Body and Blood of Christ-- gives scandal. Franciscan poverty was a scandal to burghers of the 13th century. To some in the 16th century, there was scan-dal in Jesuits claiming to be religious but not singing the Divine Office and not having distinctive religious garb. Maybe 2 lst-century religious women serving the poor and needy on all sides of a civil conflict are a scandal. Just as Jesus himself is a scandal to certain people of his time, so "goodness" can be a scandal even within Christ's church. Like Jesus, we do not want our goodness to be a scandal to others so that their faith in God is shaken or their charity is lessened. While trying to avoid scan-dal in our doing good, we know ourselves to be part of a scan-dalous Christianity. But there is the dark side of scandal in Christianity. Jesus speaks harshly about those who deliberately cause another to fall into sin and to lose faith in God. "It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea., than that he should trip up a single one of these little ones" (Lk 17:2). Jesus had a sharp word for Peter, accusing Peter of trying "to trip him up" by saying the crucifixion should never have to happen (see Mt 16:23). The church in the United States is being buffeted by scan-dals centering on priests sexually abusing young people and on bishops for their lack of oversight. The stumbling blocks have been experienced not only by the victims, but also by many parishioners whose trust of the church and faith in God are undermined. Our human scandal, causing others to fall into evil or distance themselves from God, is a sin. Sin demands repen-tance, seeks God's forgiveness and, if possible, our wronged neighbors' forgiveness too. The darkness of human scandal in all too many places is lightened only by the scandal of a God we call Savior and Redeemer, a God who is just, but also patient and merciful. Thank God we belong to a scandalous Christianity. David L. Fleming SJ May-3~une 2002 spiritua growth GEORGE A. MALONEY Transformative Aspects of Spirituality The human race has entered a new age. We are too close to the launching of it to know what is really happening or to see where it will lead us. We are like adolescents seeking meaningfulness in newfound powers emerging inside them and exploding confusedly around them. We feel a tension between pessimism, even fear, and optimistic dreams of a world of increasing richness. Through satellites we are in immediate contact not only with people and events all around planet Earth, but also with other planets as well. In a way our universe is shrinking, for distant parts of it are becoming more and more present to us. But we also stand in frightened isolation against the reality exploding before us into mysteries that we cannot handle with our limited human knowledge. One way to cope with such richness and apparent meaninglessness is to retreat into ourselves. We can build physical and psychological walls around us; George A. Maloney sJ has taught theology, edited the jour-nal Diakonia, conducted and directed many retreats, written articles (including four in this journal, 1965 to 1995), and published sixty-three books. His address is Contemplative Ministries; 13338 Del Monte Drive, #3-K; Seal Beach, California 90740. Review for Religious within the narrow confines of ~elf-centered consumerism, sports, cults, and new and old religious ideas that favor ghetto living, we can live in "splendid isolation" from the rest of the world. Traditional Western Christian views, based largely on Scholastic philosophy and theology and Newtonian physics, no longer seem adequate. An overemphasis on impersonal dogmas and structures and rituals is yielding to a search for revitalization. People seek transcendence and personal experience of God in their lives. Carl Jung has shown how some people use the institutional, dogmatic, and ritual aspects of their religion as a defense against subjective, inner religious experience. His writings strongly advocate that the quest for religious experience is an integral and necessary part of the search for our true self) The rationalistic framework that has been used to present Christianity to the West is in need of a complementary vision. Such a vision would not really be new. It is found in the Old and New Testaments. It is an openness to God as mystery, meeting the transcendent God in reverential awe and wonderment. It takes our eyes away from ourselves as the exploiting center of the universe and focuses on a humbly adoring response to God's invitation to share his divine life. Abraham J. Heschel, the great Jewish mystic and theologian, captures this contrast between a heavily accentuated, rational approach and one of perceptual intuition: "Most of our attention is given to the expedient, to that which is conducive to our advantage and which would enable us to exploit the resources of our planet . But there is more than one aspect of nature that commands our attention. We go out to meet the world, not only by way of expediency, ~ but also by way of wonder. In the first we accumulate information in order to dominate; in the second we deepen our appreciation in order to respond.''2 A Transcendent but Als0 Immanent God Most of us grew up with a Newtonian understanding of the universe, of God, and .of ourselves. In this paradigm God is "up there," a static observer of a .mechanical world. He directs the world through the laws of mechanics which are built into the cosmos. What moves through abs'olute space and time are May-June 2002 Maloney ¯ Tran~formative Aspects of Spirituality God is seen as energizing Love, acting on all of his creation from inside as well as outside. material particles called ,atoms: small, solid, indestructible things, the basic building blocks for all material creatures. In 1905 Albert Einstein published his special theory of relativity and "slew a beautiful theory with an ugly fact," in the words of T.H. Huxley. He proved that space and time form a four-dimensional continuum (space-time) and showed that all reality is relational. Norman Pittenger, a process theologian, describes this dynamic universe well: "We live in and we are confronted by a richly interconnected, interrelated, interpenetrative series of events, just as we ourselves are such a series of events."3 In such a view, all of us being part of God's creation, God is seen as energizing Love, acting on all of his creation from inside as well as outside. He is seen, not as a God up there or over there--as an object--but as a triune community of personal love, interacting with all his creatures, ordering all seeming chaos into loving unity. He leads all things in a dance of harmonious motion, stretching toward greater complexity hnd yet greater union. This God is truly, as St. Paul told the Athenians, not far from us, "for in him we live and move and have our being" (Ac 17:28). ~ Einstein describes how science and religion are in intimate relationships with each other~through the gift of mystical wonderment: "The most beautiful and most profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms--this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness.4 Such wisdom and beauty can come .only in the religious insight that all human beings and all of our material cosmos are interrelated and interdependent, through a sense of community, of belonging together and sharing the riches that God has given. It is through interior prayer, through humble and loving Review for Religious adoration, that we can encounter God as a personal, loving, infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere, and who embraces each of his creatures in the unity of his dynamic, loving creativity. Only in such intimate oneness with God can we receive living knowledge that is also transforming love. Only such experienced love will allow us to see our unique place in the whole of creation. Transformed by such oneness with God, we can stretch out creatively to bring about a more loving universe. Before we can rediscover some Christian practices to help in our renewal in this young millennium, we need to rediscover the personal, interrelational, triune creator God. This brings up the perennial question asked by Eastern and Western Christianity: How does God, who in his true essence is unreachable and unknowable, come to us? If he is perfect and unchangeable, how can he relate to us? "No one has ever seen God" (1 Jn 4:12, Jn 1:18). We would have to be God in order to know him fully. Yet the good news Jesus brings us is that God so loves this world as to give us his Son so that we may share in God's own nature, even in this life and more fully in the life to come (2 P 1:4). This is why the early Eastern Fathers always insisted on the distinction between God's essence and his uncreated energies. It preserves the awesome transcendence of God that can never be totally possessed by finite creatures. God Is Primal Grace Of all God's material creatures, only we human beings are an unfinished nature that has been gifted by God with spiritual faculties to communicate with his knowledge and love. We are capable of freely receiving God's communications and responding to his call to become divinized children of so loving a Father (1 Jn 3:1). The redemptive work of the crucified and risen Jesus consists in giving us his Spirit of love, through whom we may know the Father and the fullness of the Son On 17:3). Thus we can become true children of God On 1:12, Rrn 8:15, Ga 4:6). This "going forth" of God, to use Pseudo-Dionysius's term, is simply grace in its primal sense. It is God in 'his hesed, covenantal love, pursuing his people by stretching out his "two hands-- Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit," in the words'of St. Irenaeus. May-~une 2002 Maloney * Transformative AspectsofSpirituality God is, therefore, grace as he goes out of himself in his uncreated energies to share with us his very own life. We can truly know God and experience him intimately. Mthough in his Godhead or essence he is totally incomprehensible, yet in his energies he can be experienced as perfect love giving itself to us. In this experience of God as free gift of love, we can know him in his personal love toward us and can cooperate with his loving energies toward others. God's energies are the loving relationships of the Persons of the Trinity with regard to ourselves. God's activities are not divided.into sacred and secular, the supernatural and the natural. These energies are not "created things." They are God himself in self-giving to us in one essence of love, yet in three distinct Persons. The energies are personal. They are the whole Trinity acting in loving self-giving to all creatures. In such a view, God is never inactive.regarding us and his created worlds~ Grace, then, is not a created "thing" that God heaps upon us when we pray ardently. God permeates all persons, all things, all events by his personal, loving, uncreated energies. Every thing, every event, in the universe is "graced" and penetrated by God at each moment. It is for us to find new eyes to see this presence. This is possible through Jesus' resurrection. He brings us this "new life" as a Person, fully God and fully human. We are branches of his life-giving vine; he is our bridge to the Father. Body-Soul Relationships The way we perceive ourselves as human beings is the way we relate to other human beings and to God. For centuries we have viewed human beings as entities existing all by themselves. We have failed to see ourselves as persons oriented toward others in body-soul-spirit relationships. Instead, through Platonism's way of expressing Western Christianity, the human being was seen as a cgmbination of a body and a separable rational soul. The body was seen as material and perishable, the soul as immortal by its nature: it could live forever after being separated from the body in death. In the 17th century, Descagtes did more than any other thinker to create the impression of the body and soul being two Review for Religious distinct, objective entities. Such an objectivization of the body and the soul left its heavy mark upon our Western Christian idea of how we relate to God, ourselves, others, and the world around us. Such a view of the human person does not fit well with the biblical vision of human beings' relationships with God, others, and the entire created world. St. Paul describes a human person as being in the process of becoming holy and blameless, "spirit, soul, and body, for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Th 5:23). The Bible does not present a human being as one who "possesses" a living soul, but rather as a living "ensouled" body-person. A human person does not have a body as a possession; the ensouled body is the whole person. This human person, accordingly, in his or her totality, exists in relationship with all of matter and with the trinitarian God, whose being pure spirit does not prevent the Son from being incarnate among us. God (as ruah) breathes into human beings and restores them to a new love relationship with God. If God, then, is so dynamically present to us, why do we not "see" him everywhere? Because, as we have said, our concept of ourselves as "possessing" several objects, a body and a soul, has led us to think of God as an object outside of ourselves, usually in a lofty region called heaven. We :have forgotten the immanence of the passionately loving Trinity, God dwelling within us. In our prayer we approach God "rationally,".as persons who see ourselves as the center of our own activity and who see God as the "object" out there to whom we pray. The philosopher Martin Heidegger can furnish us with insights for a new vision of God and ourselves. For him God is a dynamic, energetic force, never static, but always revealing himself to us in the events of each day. Truth is an event, not an abstract concept. It is an event of "nonconcealment," a "revelation," a stripping away of the veil so that the fullness of Being may shine forth,s The infinite God, of course, never becomes fully revealed to human beings. ~ The fullness of God's infinite Being, his Godhead, remains hidden, but is glimpsed as We have forgotten the immanence of the passionately loving Trinity, God dwelling within us. May-3~une 2002 Maloney ¯ Transformative Aspects of Spirituality the Ground of all created beings. To see God in his revelation is to love ourselves and all other creatures by a created participation in the uncreated and all-powerful love of God. Diaphanous Matter God is present in all things with his loving activity. In our contemplation, then, we should see God existing in all of his material creation and working in our very own bodies to bring them into the harmony of "spirit, soul, and body" that Paul speaks of'(1 Th 5:23). Jesus used his human body in communicating with his heavenly Father, finding his Father working in and through his human body. Jesus could enjoy the Father's love in being there, in his body. His body was also the place where the Father's energies were at work. If Paul could write, "Your body, you know, is the temple of the Holy Spirit" (1 Co 6:19), how much more must Jesus have known the sacredness of his body? He used his body as a gift to communicate God's Spirit in love to all whom he met. We too are to use our bodies integrally as part of ourselves: who we are as whole persons living lives as receivers and givers, as persons who are loved and love in return, growing into greater likenesses of Christ by God's presence within us. If God's energies touch us in our bodily relationships, then our bodies can experience the effects of God's loving activity. The idea that our bodies are basically evil, or at least not very sacred, must change to a more incarnational view. We should find God's goodness in the feeding and clothing of our bodies, in our sexuality, even in various postures of our body as We pray. Praying with Our Whole Being We find in the Old and New Testaments the command "You shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength" (Dr 6:5). In prayer we should use not only our mind and memory, but our whole being, body, soul, hnd spirit. We need in the West to learn how to use our body in praying before God. All mystical traditions of East and West agree that a certain amount of exterior silence, a certain amount of aloneness, is necessary for interior concentration. True silence Review for Religious is an integration of all the powers of body, psyche, and spirit for the hearing of God's word. We Westerners need inner silence in order to reach the still-pointedness that the mystics speak of. A way of becoming "one-pointed," suggested by the disciplines of yoga, is to look intently upon a flower, a painting, or some other beautiful object. In Eastern Orthodoxy worshipers focus or center on the Trinity, Christ, Mary the mother of God, or a saint by using icons to lift them into the presence of the one represented in the icon. Through such focused consciousness, they begin to lose their focus on themselves and become immersed in the presence of God, the Giver of all beauty. They find themselves transcending the limitations of place and time and the tyranny of their "conditioned" self, with its unruly desires. Through such concentration they not only begin to perceive a oneness with the world around them, but also a slowing down of their mental activities, with a feeling of peace and quiet as they enter the numinous presence of the Divine. Breathing properly is the first step toward finding ourselves as integrated persons. Rhythmic breathing tends to make us detached, relaxed, and hence more free to focus and reflect steadily, calmly, and effordessly upon the indwelling Trinity. A form of body-prayer almost lost to Westerners is prostration. Lying on the floor, face down, fosters a great awareness of our creaturehood before the awesome Allness of God. Our body is exposed and defenseless; we feel truth .and simplicity tangibly. The empirical ego disappears, and only the true self remains. Throughout the history of Christianity, many reform movements have sought to recall Christians to a simpler, more pristine vision of Christianity and away from an exaggerated attachment to religion's externals. !n the 16th and 17th centuries there rose up in Europe a puritan protest against Roman Catholicism. Material techniques that had been in use from Apostolic times--such as sacraments and sacramentals, pictures, statues, icons, incense, candles, water, oil--were removed from many Christian churches during and after the Reformation period. As we are "whole" persons whet/we enter into prayer, it is only natural that material aids can help us to move from one level to another in a fuller integration of our total human nature May-~une 2002 in our prayer. We can be helped by memories of specific human experiences and by symbols and pictures; they are likely to be filled with spiritual meaning, elevating our consciousness to greater awareness of God. We should not be afraid of such things if they truly do help us to pray better. In our relationships with God and neighbor in this world of ours, perhaps our greatest need is external and internal discipline, that is, asceticism. Important Principles We need to keep clearly in mind the distinction between God's freely bestowed grace and our free cooperation in using various techniques to dispose ourselves to receive God in his grace. First, we must remember that God wishes to give himself to us directly through an immediate experience. This communication is made to a human person, a whole being, not to a separated soul or a detached intellect. It is important, therefore, to prepare ourselves for prayer and worship through asceticism and. psychosomatic techniques to bring our whole being to a point of receptivity or single-mindedness to receive God's communication on the highest level we can attain. Second, we must recognize that all such preparatory acts are only conditions for prayerful union with God through grace. Our own best efforts, by themselves, leave us absolutely impotent to attain such union. Union with God is a free and gratuitous gift whose bestowal cannot be dictated by our human wills nor be assumed after long and careful preparation. Most importantly, if our uses of psychosomatic techniques are truly to help us receive God's life-giving grace, they must conform to the whole plan of salvation as revealed by Holy Scripture and church teaching and illustrated in the lives and writings of the saints. In our relationships with God and neighbor in this world of ours, perhaps our greatest need is external and internal Review for Religious discipline, that is, asceticism. The more exclusively rational our religion is, the less discipline of body, soul, and spirit do we find. In our lives, is there an habitual attitude of self-control and inner discipline? In all of our body, soul, and spirit relationships, do we exercise an alertness and a turning to God whereby we keep things in balance? St. Paul exhorted the new Christians of Corinth to bring every thought and flight of fancy of theirs into captivity and into obedience to Jesus Christ (2 Co 10:5). Jesus insisted that we first clean the inside of the vessel (our heart) and then the outside (Mr 23:26). A Means to Love God and Neighbor The end of our Christian life is to love God with our whole heart and to love our neighbors as ourselves (Mt 22:37-40). But there can be no new level of awareness in prayer that God is our all unless we courageously strive to put to death all affections and attachments to lesser loves that are obstacles to our full love of God and neighbor. Many Christians have heard distorted teachings on asceticism. The "worldliness" within human hearts has all too often been equated with the material world which God created and saw as "very good" (Gn 1:31). Is it any wonder that with a more holistic, biblical approach to theology and anthropology, informed by the behavioral sciences of psychology and sociology, we have turned from an old "traditional" view of asceticism? But have we replaced it with something better? Today, in our pleasure-oriented culture, our bodily appetites are more in need of discipline than ever. The way we approach this must be determined by the goal, namely, to love God and neighbor as perfectly as possible. Jesus had to go against his own desires in order to do at all times whatever most pleased his heavenly Father. His ascetical practice was always subordinated to the Father and had its full meaning insofar as it brought him into more intimate union with his Father (Lk 22:42). Ascetical principles include the following: (1) Any and all ascetical practices are means to attain the end of the spiritual life. (2) The whole person needs continual discipline of body, soul, and spirit in relationships with things, other people, and God. (3) Certain areas of our being are more important in determining ll/lay-~une 2002 Maloney ¯ Transformative Aspects of Spirituality our choices than others. Without neglecting any area of our being, we especially need control of our interior faculties of memory, understanding, and will, for it is through these faculties that our moral decisions to commit sin or practice virtue are made. (4) The areas needing discipline, then, include the body with its five exterior senses, the interior senses (the emotions, imagination, memories), the intellect, and the will. Exaggerated selfqove in the will is the root of all movement away from God. The great ascetics of the desert advise us to be guided in the spiritual life by a "soul-mate" or spiritual director, someone who is learned in the science of the spiritual life and is also holy. They advise us to reflect often, in the presence of the Trinity, and especially at the end of each day, on what we have done moment by moment in thought, word, and deed and so to discover the roots that prevent our cooperating with the Holy Spirit's gentle inspirations. The athletes of the desert, men and women "intoxicated with love of God," can also tei~ch us, in our world of sense pleasures and comforts, the value of fasting. Jesus in the Gospels teaches the necessity of fasting, almsgiving, and prayer and shows that they are intimately related. These things can be done quietly and humbly. "Your Father, who sees what is hidden, will repay you" (Mt 6:16-18). Fasting, to be truly Christian, must include turning to God ~metanoia) with a corresponding openness, to love and serve our neighbor. We experience a oneness with every human being, especially the poor and the hungry. Fasting perhaps once a week from our habitual eating habits can help us be inwardly attentive to God's loving presence in our daily life. ---24o Living the Transfiguration Feast We have presented some of the transformative elements of Christian spirituality that may help our daily living-out of the Feast of Transfiguration. This feast, celebrated on August 6, is a major feast among Eastern Christians. They bring to the church the first fruits of their harvest to be blessed and offered to God, but a deeper faith-vision penetrates this simple ritual, the mystery of the seed falling into the e~rth to bring forth fruit a hundredfold. We Christians in baptism each become a seed Review for Religious planted in the church. We are to grow to full maturity in Christ Jesus. A transfiguring process takes place over the spring, summer, and autumn years of our Christian lives. The seed grows from within, but also in the outer world. God's transfiguring power, his divinizing energies of love, work in us and in the world around us. The same loving God is the source both of our being and of all the beings around us. With this thought, this vision, we realize that the world has not changed, but we have changed. God's presence was always there as active love, but we took little notice of it. What we felt as darkness is now suffused with light. Seeing our uniqueness in God's love for us, we now see the uniqueness of all other beings in God's love for each of them. The true test of how Christian we are and to what degree we have been baptized in the Holy.Spirit is the degree of our involvement in bringing mercy and love to those suffering. "I was hungry and you gave me food . . ." (Mr 25:35-40). The presence of God within us becomes a swelling ocean wave that flows out to inundate the entire world with God's love. What was hidden now becomes revealed. Through our loving cooperation, what seemed absent now becomes present and transfiguring. As the Holy Spirit broods over us, baptizing us with his love and fire, we become a transfigured microcosmos in the incarnate Christ. We image the macrocosmos of the heavenly Jerusalem. Notes ~ See Carl Jung, Psychology and Religion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972). 2 Abraham J. Heschel, Man Is Not Alone (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Young, 1951), p. 36. 3 Norman Pittenger, Process Thought and Christian Faith (New York: Macmillan, 1968), p. 13. 4 Quoted by Lincoln Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein (New York: New American Library, 1962), p. 108. s See Martin Heidegger, "Plato's Doctrine of Truth," trans. John Barlow, in Philosophy in the Twentieth Century, ed. William Barrett and Henry D. Aiken (New York: Random House, 1962). May-yune 2002 DENNIS J. BILLY St. Alphonsus and Today's Spiritual Direction ~Lhigeuno drei a(l1i6n9g6 w-1it7h8 t7h)e, tlhifee daoncdt owr oorfk ps roafy eSrt .a Andlp thhoen psautsr odne saint of confessors and moral theologians, we cannot expect to find precise, ready-made advice about spiritual direction for today. But this is not to say he has nothing to offer our current understanding of this ministry. Although Alphonsus was lim-ited by the general spiritual outlook of his day, he also had a way of surpassing it, and he brought great benefit to the people he served. In understanding Alphonsus's relevance for spiritual direction today, much will depend on how we approach his thought and which aspect of it we emphasize. In this essay we will examine the basis of his reputation as a "spiritual master" and identify the elements that people can use in their own practice of spiritual direction. A Gospel Spirituality At the outset it is important to recognize Alphonsus's missionary fervor. The major projects of his life--his mission preaching, his writing, his founding the Redemptorist Congre- Dennis J. Billy CSSR, a frequent contributor to our pages, writes from Accademia Alfonsiana; C.P. 2458; 00100 Roma, Italy. Review for Religious gation, his prayer--were all motivated by his desire to bring the Good News of plentiful redemption to others, especially the poor and most abandoned. Alphonsian spirituality is first and foremost a gospel spirituality, one which takes seriously the person of Jesus and his injunction "to make disciples of all nations" (Mr 28:19). In 18th-century Naples, Alphonsus inter-preted this calling in a very personalized way. Rather than going to faraway lands, he looked to his own "backyard," where peo-ple did not have easy access to the church's ordinary means for spiritual growth. This option for the poor, this willingness to go where others were not interested in going, led Alphonsus and his small band of followers to small moun-tain villages on the back roads of the king-dom of Naples. Their evangelizing efforts for the poor, illiterate peasants they found in the forgotten hamlets of Campania, Puglia, Basilicata, and Calabria helped change the spiritual landscape of south-ern Italy. These early Redemptorist missioners reminded peo-ple that God had not forgotten them, but was very much with them in their desire and thirst for spiritual growth. To ensure that such growth would continue, Alphonsus and his followers set up various devotional structures (confraternities, Eucharistic devotions, evening chapels) that would foster prayer and devo-tion in these fledgling faith communities after they left. Alphonsus's gospel spirituality helps us appreciate the var-ious nuances in the old debate whether there is a single Christian spirituality or many2 Inasmuch as every expression, of it must be rooted in the person of Christ, Christian spirituality is one. At times, however, individuals and groups have followed Christ in various particular works, spiritual practices, or styles of living. The great number of religious congregations, secular institutes, and lay movements that have appeared in the church's history suggest the almost infinite number of ways of following Christ. In this sense there are many Christian spiritualities, and many still to come. For our present purposes, Alphonsus's own prac-tice of the love of Jesus Christ can be seen as both different from and united to all other authentic Christian spiritualities. Throughout his life Alphonsus's overriding purpose was to draw others closer to Christ. May-June 2002 Billy ¯ St. Alphonsus and Today's Spiritual Direction Because of its flexibility and popular diffusion, moreover, his particular brand of gospel spirituality reminds us thatlthe term spirituality itself allows for various nuances and can be treated on a number of levels.2 A Man of Prayer Throughout his life Alphonsus's overriding purpose was to draw others closer to Christ. He believed that everyone could share an intimate relationship with Jesus and that the key to such a relationship was to be dedicated and persistent in prayer: "He who prays is certainly saved. He who prays not is certainly damned.''3 These strong words show Mphonsus's emphasis on prayer in fostering a mature relationship with God. Prayer, for him, was "the great means of salvation.''4 Everyone, he believed, receives sufficient grace to pray. Meditatio or mental prayer is particularly important for turning one's whole heart and mind to the Lord.s Alphonsus developed a simple formula for mental prayer that could be easily taught to the rustics of the Italian hill country, thus introducing them to one of the great riches of the church's tradition. In doing so he was criticized by a number of "enlightened" Neapolitan clerics for "casting pearls to swine" and thereby desecrating the church's treasures by sharing them with people who could not appreciate them, let alone put them into practice. Alphonsus, however, had little time for such judgmental remarks or for those who made them. Throughout 'his life he popularized the church's teaching on prayer. He met people where they were and helped them little by little to pray to God as inti-mate friends .speak with one another. "Paradise for God . . . is the human heart," he liked to say.6 Prayer was for him the means par excellence for enabling this divine indwelling to occur. He never tired of emphasizing the centrality of prayer for the spir-itual life: "There may be some who, after the perusal of my spiritual works, will accuse me of tediousness in so often rec-ommending the importance and necessity of having, continual recourse to God in prayer. But I seem to myself to have said not too much, but far too little.''7 Not only did he emphasize prayer in his own writings, but he also encouraged others to do the same: "I say, and repeat, and will keep on repeating as long Review for Religious as I live, that our whole salvation depends on prayer; and, there-fore, that all writers in their books, all preachers in their sermons, all confessors in their instructions to their penitents, should not inculcate anything more strongly than continual prayer.''s It is no small coincidence that Alphonsus is often referred to as the "doctor of prayer.''9 For him, we can get nowhere in the spiritual life without it. With it we have access to the copious redemption made possible by Jesus' passion, death, and resurrection. Leading Others to God Leading others to Christ was what Alphonsus's missionary vocation was all about. This conviction helps explain his Marian piety. Mary's life and her role in the church center on this same calling. By staying close .to Mary, Alphonsus felt assured that his own life of leading others to her Son would intensify and bear much fruit. This explains why his writings are full of the-ological references, edifying stories, and heartfelt prayers to the Madonna. Mary, who pondered in her heart all that happened to her son, is the Christian disciple par excellence. In his own efforts to follow Christ and to contemplate the great events of the paschal mystery, Alphonsus relied on Mary's generous help and protection?° When taken under the heading of the "care and cure of souls," spiritual direction encompasses virtually every aspect of the church's pastoral ministry. Such an assessment would be dou-bly true for Alphonsus, who through his preaching, writing, direction of souls, and general pastoral care did all he could to lead people to a more intimate relationship with God. Everything that Alphonsus did can be considered a kind of spiritual direction. Even activities that did not directly touch the lives of others (his prayer, his spiritual reading, his own private devotions) had a missionary dimension. These activities had a Marian dimension as well. What is more, the subtle balance between contemplation and action that appears in Mary's joyfulfiat is characteristic of Alphonsus's missionary activity. For him, prayer and action are two sides of the same apostolic coin. To separate them or to give undue emphasis to one or the other could do grave damage to missionaries and the people they serve. May-~une 2002 Billy ¯ St. Alphonsus and Today's Spiritual Direction When taken as "a helping relationship focusing on a person's spiritual growth," Alphonsus's spiritual direction is "directive" in nature and closely tied to his confessional practice.~ This is not to say that he did not sometimes give spiritual direction through correspondence or in conversation outside the confes-sional.~ 2 In fact, his practical temperament and his eclectic use of the church's spiritual tradition led him to take circumstances into account in his pastoral praxis with individuals. In general, however, Alphonsus saw a close connection between spiritual direction and sacramental confession. While he was aware of the distinction between the two, he was firm in his insistence that the confessor be someone who not only forgives sins, but also leads penitents further along the path of sanctity.~3 Alphonsus's strong penchant for uniting the two appears most clearly in his Praxis confessarii, where he delineates in descending order the four offices of the confessor: father, doc-tor, teacher, and judge.'4 For Alphonsus, every confessor has the responsibility of guiding souls to sanctity. This is so because all the faithful (not just a select few) are called to the perfection of Christian living. The term "spiritual director," in other words, is not simply for those who guide people through the rarified states of mystical experience, but for all confessors helping peo-ple in all states of life to walk the path of holiness. Alphonsus thus went a long way in demystifying the role of spiritual director in the Christian tradition. His efforts brought nourishing spiritual sustenance to ordinary people. This "meat and potatoes" approach was a benchmark of Redemptorist practice and char-acterized the Alphonsian approach to direction for years to come. More specifically, the principal characteristics of the Alphonsian confessor-director are: (1) an attitude of being more of a father and doctor than a judge, an attitude of charity, good-ness, and mildness in welcoming and treating penitents and in disposing them to penitence (so that their absolution need not be deferred or denied); (2) an attitude of kindness in giving penance, seeking rather to heal the soul than exact punishment for faults; (3) a marked preference for the poorest and most ignorant of the social classes; (4) a concern for giving the pen-itent the means not only to avoid a relapse into sin, but also to advance along the way of holiness; (5) recognizing the rela-tionship between preaching and confession, with preaching Review for Relig4ous preparing the way for confession and continuing its work.15 These characteristics of the Alphonsian confessor-director demonstrate the practical orientation of Alphonsus's mission. He sought to preach the good news of plentiful redemption to as many people as possible. He saw the wisdom of treating the confessional not as a tribunal, but as a means for educating the faithful in the ways of holiness. The connection he saw between preaching and confession reveals that he understood spiritual direction as something that extends to the ordinary care of souls. Ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue was not a viable option in his day. There was still too much polemic and mutual antag-onism among the various Christian denominations for constructive dialogue to take place, and the church's stance toward non-Christian religions was characterized by out-right condemnation of their tenets and a call to conversion. In Western Christianity, moreover, the church had to struggle not only against proselytizing by Protestant reformers, but also against the secularization stem-ming from the Enlightenment. In dealing with these threats, the church adopted a "fortress mentality"; it tried to shelter the faithful from as many harmful influences as possible~ It should not be surprising that Alphonsus, a foyal son of the church, espoused similar views. He sought, on the other hand, to preserve a certain "com-munion" of the various spiritual traditions within the church. He displayed a remarkable openness to the various approaches he encountered. If they passed the critical test of orthodoxy, he felt free to borrow whatever might be useful in his mission to bring about a fundamental conversion in the hearts and lives of people, especially the poor and most abandoned. This prag- When taken as "a helping relationship focusing on a person's spiritual growth," Alphonsus's spiritual direction is "directive" in nature and closely tied to his confessional practice. May-June 2002 Billy ¯ St. Alpbonsus and Today's Spiritual Direction matic openness to other spiritual traditions stood in contrast to quarrelsome petty arguments among some religious orders of his day. Such unhealthy competitiveness focused on small points that separated their approaches to the spiritual life, rather than on what united them. Alphonsus much preferred to emphasize what bound them together. His rule of thumb was whether a particular spiritual practice draws people closer to Christ. A corollary was that it be beneficial to as many people as possible~. This practical eclecticism led him to a synthetic approach to direction that was peculiarly his own. To cite just one example, he valued highly the spiritual doctrine of Teresa of Avila on the interior mansions of infused contemplation and encouraged directors to follow it whenever they encountered someone with tendencies toward mysticism. Unlike some representatives of the Carmelite school of spirituality, however, he affirmed with the Jesuits that not everyone is called to infused contemplation in this life. Accordingly, in his direction of souls, he focused on meditation and acquired contemplation.~6 In the final analysis, Alphonsus was convinced, it is not a method or approach that leads people to metanoia or a "change of heart," but a personal encounter with Jesus Christ. To this end Alphonsus probed various spiritual traditions within the church and used whatever he thought would benefit the people he served. Doing so, for Alphonsus, was an exercise of Christian love. He would have agreed wholeheartedly with Bernard of Clairvaux's assessment of families of spirituality in the church: "I admire them all. I belong to one of them by observance, but to all of them by charity." ~7 Doctor of Prayer As mentioned earlier, Alphonsus's reputation as a spiritual master eventually earned him the title of the "doctor of prayer." 18 His renown as a spiritual director comes from his cre-ative, eclectic, and pragmatic use of the traditions that preceded him. As an interpreter of these traditions, he focused on the one thing which, in his judgment, ultimately mattered in life, to enter into an intimate relationship with Jesus, the Redeemer. Prayer, for Alphonsus, was the primary means given to us to accomplish this end. Spiritual direction, for him, was both gen- Review for Religious eral and particular. It could take place in many contexts, but primarily had to do with the confessor's task of helping people grow in holiness. While Alphonsus saw a distinction between confession and spiritual direction, his zeal for souls and his popularizing sen-sitivities brought him to the conclusion that he and other priests in his day and age could best serve the people of God by draw-ing a close bond between the two. Sacramental confession, after all, was an application of Christ's redemptive love to the life of the penitent. Since, for Alphonsus, redemption was "plentiful," it followed that people's experience of sacramental reconcili-ation should include not only for-giveness of sin, but also guidance to help penitents grow in holiness. He believed that spiritual direction was for the masses--not a select few-- and for people of all walks of life. The close bond that he saw between preaching and the confes-sion- spiritual direction experience also suggests an organic (even circular) relationship between the general and more personal elements of anyone's receiving spiritual direction. These considerations have great import with regard to the relevance of Alphonsus's spiritual doctrine for today. His walk-ing with the Lord was both like and unlike our own. Walking in his footsteps today cannot mean following his teachings to the letter. That would be to overlook the prudenc.e of Alphonsus's own pastoral decisions; it would mean neglecting to take into account the pressing concerns and very different pastoral needs of our own day. Following Alphonsus today must mean making creative, eclectic, and pragmatic use of the spiritual traditions that have come down to us as they first came to Alphonsus along with what he himself has handed down to us. Following him must mean sifting through what he considered beneficial for the peo-ple of his day and finding .practical applications for the people of today. It must mean a way of spiritual direction that helps people get word of Christ's plentiful redemption and fosters a Alphonsus's reputation as,a spiritual master eventually earned him the title of the "doctor of prayer." May-June 2002 Billy ¯ St. Alpbonsus and Today's Spiritual Direaion lifelong conversation with God deep in their hearts. Spiritual direction in the Redemptorist tradition today must neither pre-tend to be, nor try to be, nor be an exact replica of what it was during Alphonsus's day. It should resonate with his teaching, however, and glow with his missionary fire, his yearning to lead as many people as possible into a deep friendship with the Lord. Notes 1 For references to this debate, see Walter H. Principe CSB, "Toward Defining Spirituality," Studies in Religion / Sciences religieuses 12 (1983): 129, esp. n. 3. 2 For a discussion of levels of spirituality in relation to Alphonsus, see Dennis J. Billy, Plentiful Redemption: An Introduction to Alpbonsian Spirituality (Liguori, Missouri: Liguori Publications, 2001), pp. 98-101. 3 Alphonsus de Liguori, Prayer: The Great Means of Obtaining Salvation and All the Graces Which We Desire of God, in The Complete Works of Alphonsus de Liguori, ed. Eugene Grimm (New York: Redemptorist Fathers, 1886-1894; reprint, Brooklyn, St. Louis, and Toronto: Redemptorist Fathers, 1927), Vol. 3, p. 49. Hereafter, Complete Works, Vol. 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 6. 4 Complete Works, Vol. 3, pp. 19-22. 5 Alphonsus de Liguori, Mental Prayer and the Exercises of a Retreat, in Complete Works, Vol. 3, pp. 252-258. 6 Alphonsus de Liguori, The Way to Converse Always and Familiarly with God, in Complete Works, Vol. 2, p. 395. 7 Alphonsus de Liguori, The Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ, in Complete Works, Vol. 6, p. 456. 8 Alphonsus de Liguori, in Complete Works, Vol. 3, p. 240. 9 See Pope Pius XI, "Allocuzione del 20 Settembre 1934," in Annuarium Apostolatus Orationis (Rome, 1935), p. 73; also Dizionario di Mistica (Rome: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1998), s.v. "Alfonso Maria de Liguori (santo)," by G. Velocci. 10 For the theological and pastoral dimensions of Alphonsus's Marian devotion, see Hamish EG. Swanston, Celebrating Eternity Now: A Study of the Theology of St. Alphonsus de Liguori (Chawton Alton Hampshire: Redemptorist Publications, 1995), pp. 220-230. ,1 For various definitions of spiritual direction, see Dennis J. Billy, "The Relations of Spiritual Direction," Studia moralia 36 (1998): 67, n. 1. t2 For spiritual direction in Alphonsus's correspondence, see Sean Wales, "The Ministry of Spiritual Direction: Saint Alphonsus, the Review for Religious Spiritual Director as Seen though His Letters," in Reflections on the Spirit of Saint Alphonsus, ed. M. O'Shea (Monroe, Michigan: IHM Publications, 1987), pp. 93-107. ,3 Emilio Lage, "S. Alfonso e la direzione spirituale," Spicilegium historicum CSSR 48 (2000): 22-25. 14 Alphonsus de Liguori, Praxis confessarii ad bene excipiendas con~ fessiones, chap. 1, in Theologia moralis, Vol. 4 (Rome: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1912; reprint 1953), p. 528. ,s Emilio Lage, "S. Alfonso," p. 14 (my translation). ,6 Joseph W. Oppitz, Alphonsian History and Spirituality: A Study of the Spirit of the Founder Saint Alphonsus M. Liguori and of the Missionary Institute, The Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (Rome and Suffield, Conn.: privately published, 2nd printing, 1978), p. 30. 17 Bernard of Clairvaux, Apologia to William of Saint Thierry, IV.8 (PL 182.903), cited in Pope John Paul II, Vita consecrata (1996), §52. ~s See endnote 9 above. "erat lux vera" here shines that light soft and luminescent brilliant and incandescent firefly by night and sun by day ember and inferno manifold, multifarious, multifaceted variegated and diverse that light which mothers every honest light the stars and their stones incendiary and catoptric candlelight and firelight and the light which warms and dances tender glowing in the eyes of the one you love through every shuttered window bolted door and locked gate in every place which shows a space there shines that light which all the world illumines enkindles and enflames Se~n Kinsella May-June 2002 ANNE HIGGINS AND BETTY ANN McNEIL Louise de Marillac and Elizabeth Seton: Women of Spirit dialogue Although separated by a century and more, Louise de Marillac (1591-1660) and Elizabeth Seton (1774-1821) were bound together by the Holy Spirit in ways of charity and wisdom.~ Their lives mirror one another. As wives, mothers, widows, and spiritual leaders, they model the life of the Spirit for contemporary women in ministry, for all whom the Gospels inspire to tend the fire of divine love in their own hearts and in the lives of others. Elizabeth made the first English translation of the original (French) biography of Louise.2 With the support and guidance of the French Sulpicians in Maryland, Elizabeth founded the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph's (31 July 1809) in Emmitsburg. For her sisterhood, the first to be founded in the United States, she adapted the Rule that Louise de Marillac and Vincent de Paul (1581-1660) had developed for the Anne Higgins DC, poet and English instructor, also does campus ministry at Mount St. Mary's College and Seminary, Emmitsburg, Maryland. Betty Ann McNeil DC is province archivist for the Daughters of Charity and a member of the Vincentian Studies Institute. They write from St. Joseph's Provincial House; 333 South Seton Avenue; Emmitsburg, Maryland 21727. Review for Religious Daughters of Charity, founded in Paris 29 November 1633. The Setonian legacy expresses their charism today. This article compares and contrasts the themes common to their lives, and notes how they saw themselves until devastating things happened to them, .changing their lives forever. Through devastation and change they remained faithful to God, and God created something new through them.3 In her new life Elizabeth found "peace"--"enjoying the liberty of solitude, country life, and plenty of every good." We invite you to enter into "Sabbath moments" as Louise and Elizabeth tell us about themselves in first-person vignettes, which include or are based on their own words. May the Spirit guide this reflection on roots and be a source of blessing for all who live or are listening in on the Vincentian and Setonian legacy.4 (At intervals, we invite you to pray and reflect on their story, which may also be yours.) Like the five modern women discussed in a 1990 book called Composing a Life, Louise and Elizabeth "were engaged in that act of cremation that engages us all--the composition of their lives." Like these women--and guided by the Holy Spirit and fueled by their faith--"they worked by°improvisation, discovering the shape of their creation along the way, rather than pursuing a vision already defined." And they "combined familiar and unfamiliar components in response to new situations. Their commitments were continually refocused and redefined." s LOUISE: I had been looking at my life in one way. I was born into an upper-class Parisian family, but I never knew my mother. And my father referred to me as "ma' fille, ma naturelle." From infancy I was raised in a convent and a boarding school. When I was four, my father remarried, and his new wife did not accept me. ELIZABETH: I had been looking at my life in one way. I was born into an upper-class New York family, but my mother died when I was three. When I was four, my father remarried, and his new wife did not accept me. LOUISE: "God, who has granted me so many graces, led me to understand that it was his holy will that I go to him by way of the cross. His goodness chose to mark me with it from my birth, and he has hardly ever left me, at any age, without some occasion of suffering." 6 ~lay-June 2002 Higgins and McNeil * Women of Spirit ELIZABETH: "Will not Jesus Christ be with me? Was I not signed with the cross of salvation in baptism?''7 "You and I must meet him - we must be crucified - it is in vain to start [recoil], or think of escaping." 8 "The thirst and longing of my soul is fixed on the cross alone.''9 "We are never strong enough to bear our cross; it is the cross which carries us, not so weak to be unable to bear it, since the weakest become strong by its virtue." 10 LOUISE: "O God, I have resolved to admit no love unless it be for you!" 11 Ihad been looking at my life in one way, and then things happened to change it. When I was nineteen, I had my heart set on joining a contemplative order of nuns, the Capuchins. I even made a private promise to join them. But my spiritual director, P~re de Champigny, who was the provincial of the Parisian Capuchins, said no. He said I was not physically strong enough, and he said, "I believe that God has other plans for you." 12 ELIZABETH: I had been looking at my life in one way, but then things happened to change it. When I was nineteen, I fell in love with William Magee Seton (1768-1803). I married him, and we moved into our house in lower Manhattan. Then the children came: Anna Maria, William, Richard, Catherine, and Rebecca.13 "Sitting on a litde bench before the fire - the head resting on the hand, the body perfecdy easy, the eyes closed, the mind serene contemplating, and tracing boundless Mercy and the source of all excellence and perfection - how pure the enjoyment and sweet the transitions of every thought - the soul expands . . . all earthly interests recede - and heavenly hopes become anxious wishes. "I can patiently, submissively, submit to thy holy will, adoring in sweet confidence of thy mercy - preserve me but this heavenly peace, continue to give me this privilege beyond all mortal computation of resting in thee, and adoring thee my father - friend - and never failing support - for this alone I implore, let all other concerns with their consequences be entirely and wholly submitted to thee." 14 LOUISE: So, at twenty-two, I was married to Antoine Le Gras (1581-162'5). He was a good man, conscientious, deeply religious, and charitable to the poor, and I grew to love him. We had one son: Michel-Antoine [1613-1696]. We lived in a town house on the right bank of the Seine. It was a pleasant life in those first years. Review for Religious I had been looking at my life in one way, and then things happened to destroy it. to change it. In 1617, when I was twenty-six, my kinsman the Marquis d'Attichy and his wife had both died, and we took charge of their seven children . . . Then, my own husband, Antoine, became ill. I remembered my old promise to God to enter religious life. I began a dark journey through doubt. Everything seemed to be filling apart for me. I entered into a great desolation of spirit which lasted until Pentecost, because of a doubt as to whether l should leave my husband, as I wished to do in order to repair my first vow and have freedom to serve God and neighbor . I feared further that the attachment I had for my director might prevent me from taking another, thinking myself obliged to quit him . . . I had great pain because of doubt concerning the immortality of the soul. These three uncertainties gripped my soul in agonies which now seem to me unimaginable. On the day of Pentecost, at Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs during holy Mass, all of a sudden my spirit was cleared of these doubts. I was made to understand that I must dwell with my husband and that the time would come when I would be in a position to make vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience and that I would be in a small community where others would do the same. I then understood that I would be in a place where I could help my neighbor [although] there would be much coming and going . , . I was also assured that God would give me another director, who was then, so it seems to me, shown me in a vision, and I felt a repugnance to accept him. I submitted, nevertheless, although it seemed to me that it would not be necessary to make this change yet. My third difficulty was banished, by the assurance I felt in my soul that it was God who revealed all this to me, and that, there being a God, I must not doubt the rest)s Reflect for a few minutes now on your Pentecost experience. "I believe that God has other plans for you." LOUISE: Some months after that, I met Vincent de Paul, who became my spiritual director. And I took care of Antoine, with great love, for four years, until he died in December 1625. I was thirty-four. I had been looking at my life in one way., and May-June 2002 Higgins and McNeil ¯ Women of Spirit then things happened to destroy it. to change it. and in the midst ofthe"destruction, in the midst of the changes, I remained faithful to God. I held on, and God created something new. ELIZABETH: I had been looking at my life in one way. and then things happened to change it. When I was twenty-three, pregnant with Richard, my father-in-law died, and we took charge of the seven young Seton children . . . and then things happened to destroy my life. William's health became a real worry for me. When I was twenty-seven, my father died . . . Around that time, too, the family business suffered terrible losses., and William was so ill that we decided to travel to Italy for his health. After thirty terrible days, quarantined in the Lazaretto near Livorno, we moved to a house in Pisa, rented for us by the Filicchis.~6 Will died there, with Anna Maria (Annina) and me at his side. I was twenty-nine. He was buried in Livorno. Each time I visited his grave, I wept over it for a long time with inexpressible tenderness and "unrestrained affection." It seemed that I loved him more than anyone could love on earth.17 I had been looking at my life in one way., and then things happened to destroy it. to change it. - "the sharp thorn in the heart."~s And in the midst of the destruction, in the midst of the changes, I remained faithful to God. I held on, and God created something new. It was in those months in Italy after William's death that I was exposed to the full radiance of the Catholic faith. You drew me to it, Jesus - you and your Mother. Through storms of tears and questions, of doubts and anguish, you drew me to the Catholic faith. @hrough fifty-six days on the ocean voyage home, with Annina, and in the company of Antonio Filicchi, through desires and temptations, I remained faithful to you, God, and you created something new. In New York, on Ash Wednesday 1805, I turned the corner of Barclay Street, where St. Peter's Catholic Church was, and said to myself: "Here, my God, I go, heart all to you!" ~9 Reflect for a few minutes now on your conversion experience. LOUISE: Ultimately I came to embrace the God of both light and darkness and proclaim, "God is my God.''2° "I gave -~2~5~6-] him my full consent to work in me by his power whatever he Review for Religious willed to see accomplished.''2~ In 1629 1 met a young woman of Suresnes named Marguerite Naseau [1594-1633], who had presented herself to Monsieur Vincent. She was the first to serve in the Charities.22 Vincent de Paul asked me to organize and form the growing group of country girls who had come to Paris to serve the poor. "God, my only hope, your love impels me." My urgency impels my sisters. "Continue, [my sisters,] to love His service by observing your Rules, especially by the cordiality and support you show one another. You can be certain that God is with you.''23 Give yourselves entirely to God in order to serve God in the poor24 "As for your conduct with the sick, may you never take the attitude of merely getting the task done. You must show them affection, serving them from the heart, inquiring of them what they might need, speaking to them gently and compassionately.''2s "Perfection is not to be found [in excessive introspection], but in the practice of true charity.''26 "Be very gentle and courteous toward your poor. You know that they are our masters and that we must love them tenderly and respect them deeply.''27 Our Savior has taught us charity in order to make up for our own powerlessness to render him any service,z8 "Oh, what a happiness it would be, provided God were in no way offended, were the Company to serve only the totally destitute.''29 I had been looking at my life in one way., and then things happened to destroy it. to change it. and in the midst of the destruction, in the midst of the changes, I remained faithful to God. I held on, and God created something new. Reflect now on what God has created new in your life. In the midst of the changes, I remained faithful to God. ELIZABETH: I had been looking at my life in one way., and then things happened to destroy it. to change it. and in the midst of the destruction, in the midst of the changes, I remained faithful to God. I held on, and God created something new. On Pentecost 1806 1 received the sacrament of confirmation May-June 2002 Higgins and McNeil ¯ Women of Spirit from Bishop John Carroll. Later I wrote to my spiritual advisors: Things are so bad in New York for me, and so financially tenuous--should I move to Canada? While I was waiting for some reply, I chanced to meet Father William Du Bourg, who invited me to Baltimore to open a school for girls. Bishop Carroll and all my priest friends supported me, and in June 1808 we began our journey to a new life, in Maryland. LOUISE: I put my trust in Providence. I said to my sisters: "If you completely entrust everything to the guidance of Divine Providence and love the most holy will of God, this will contribute greatly to your peace of mind and heart. In fact, this is one of the most essential practices I know of for growth in holiness.''3° "We can have no peace with God, with our neighbor, or with ourselves unless Jesus Christ gives it to us.''3~ "Vows have their origin in Love. in the cross." 32 "One of the principal graces God has given you, my sisters, is your call to this Company and your vocation of charity; I will tell you, then, what your thoughts about it should be - there may be both very highs and very lows and still without contradiction.,,33 ELIZABETH: I had been looking at my life in one way . . . and then things happened to destroy it. to change it. and in the midst of the destruction, in the midst of the changes, I remained faithful to God. I held on, and God created something new. While I was trying to figure out a way to teach poor little girls, God sent into my life Mr. Samuel Cooper, a convert, who was becoming a priest and was disposing of his wealth. He wished to fund education for Emmitsburg's poor, and also various services for the elderly and for needy families. "Our Lord will direct all, whatever you say or do I shall consider as his voice and will.''34 "I set out on a new career: peace and silence and submission the whole aim.''35 "Do we serve God in hope, looking to his promises, confiding in his love, seeking his kingdom, and leaving the rest to him?''36 "Providence has disposed for me a plan after my own heart.''~7 Reflect awhile on your eJcperience of Providence. ELIZABETH: Not only would I have a school there, but a new religious community. I wrote to a friend in New York: "Mr. Cooper has given a handsome property for the establishment of such females as may choose to lead a religious life. We are going Review for Religious to begin our novitiate in a beautiful country place in the mountains." 38 I rejoiced in my new home, communing with God amidst "woods, rocks, walks.''39 "Peace . enjoying the liberty of solitude, country life, and plenty of every good.''4° I wrote to my lifelong friend Julia Sitgreaves Scott: "It is true also that I shall be at the head of a community which will live under the strictest rules of order and regularity.-41 Even in Emmitsburg I remembered my last home in New York, on State Street. I wrote to my dear friend Eliza Craig Sadler: "Think of me when you pass it again. Can a heart swell so high and not burst? Yet would I change one shade or trial of it? That would be madness, and working in the dark.''42 The building and nurturing of my new religious community was my next challenge, for "one can't talk of making nuns like making bread.''43 I cautioned about the danger of being "lovers with our lips rather than our heart, while a true lover of Christ can never have enough of his cross.''44 I told my young sister-in-law Cecilia Seton: "Rejoice to bear your share in the cross, which is our passport and seal to the kingdom of the Redeemer.''4s At our council meeting we agreed that "no personal inconvenience should prevent Sisters of Charity from doing what duty and charity required.''46 From its inception I felt loved by my sisters. I told my New York friends that they should come and see my community's black gowns and demure faces, "which hid a set of as lively and merry hearts as ever met together.''47 As grateful as I was for the plenty of every good, the Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament was for me the best of all God's gifts. It was the treasure of my soul.48 Sickness and death were never far from us in Emmitsburg. In 1810, when my sister-in-law, now Sister Cecilia Seton, died, I told Julia Scott: "I am sending my rosebuds to bloom in heaven." 49 On 12 March 1812 my beloved daughter Annina died. Through the stark days after her death, I found myself "begging, crying to Mary to behold her Son and plead for us, and to Jesus to behold his Mother - to pity a mother, [this] poor, poor mother." S° On 3 November 1816 my youngest, Rebecca, died. She was only fourteen. "I am sending my rosebuds to bloom in heaven." May-June 2002 Higgins and McNeil ¯ Women of Spirit "God is with us - and, if sufferings abound in us, his consolations also greatly abound, and far exceed all utterance. [I was] not only willing to take my cross, but kissed it too.''sl "My own troubles.will teach me, I hope, how to comfort others." s2 Reflect on troubles that taught you how to comfort others. --- 260-J ELIZABETH: In 1811 I met Father Simon Gabriel Brutfi, "a true cordial to my heart."" He was my soul's friend and guide. The Scriptures continued to be God's wellspring for me. "Nothing in our state of clouds and veils can I see so plainly as how the saints died of love and joy, since I, so wretched and truly miserable, can only read word after word of the blessed 83rd and 41st psalms in unutterable feelings - God - God - God - that the supreme delight, that he is God, and to open the mouth and heart wide that he may fill it." s~ "I long and wish to serve our Lord with every breath I draw."" "Oceans of LOVE to plunge in for eternity, every faculty of our soul dilated!!!!! - heavenly pure supernatural love undivided - God alone - ,,s6 Love love love, when will I love enough? "This world of separations must have its course. We must take its good and evil quietly as it passes - for my part I am now so accustomed to look only at our God in all that happens that it seems to me [that] the most painful things in the order of his providence can but increase our confidence and peace in him, since all will draw us but nearer to himself." ~7 "If it succeeds I bless God, if [it] does not succeed I bless God, because then it will be right that it should not succeed.''s8 LOUISE: In my prayer at Chartres, where I dedicated the Company to God through the prayers of the Blessed Virgin, I asked God to destroy the Company "rather than let it be established contrary to his holy will." s9 ELIZABETH: God, your love impelled me. and my urgency impelled my sisters. "Our God is God, and I know.all will turn out well at last., the ways of Providence are mysterious indeed as to the human nature, but most clearly we may distinguish in them the progress of the divine, pervading all.''6° "Be children of the church . be children of the church .,. May the most just, the most high, and the most amiable will of God be accomplished forever!''61 LOUISE: I had been looking at my life in one way., and Review for Religious then things happened to destroy it. to change it. and in the midst of the destruction, in the midst of the changes, I remained faithful to God. I held on, and God created something new. My life with the Company of Charity captured my heart, focused my mind, stabilized my soul for the single-minded search for the living reign of God, of God who was justice for the poor, healing for the sick, light for those in darkness. My story, like yours, is about bringing spiritual presence to a world lost in the mundane.62 ELIZABETH: "Let your chief study be to acquaint yourself with God because there is nothing greater than God." 63 "How grateful, then, should we be for our vocation, which is in itself a practice of the two principal commandments - obliging us to give every moment of life to charity, serving her [our vocation, charity] exteriorly in our care of the body, but principally in our care of souls, speaking to them of God, and helping them to know and love him eternally. Besides, how grateful we should be to God for choosing us for this manner of life.''6~ Notes ~ A version of this article was first presented at Seton Legacy III, a symposium on Elizabeth Seton and Incarnational Spirituality for a Contemporary World (Sisters of Charity Federation, 2001). 2 Nicolas Gobillon, La Vie de Mademoiselle/sic] Le Gras: Fondatrice et Premikre Superieure de la Compagnie des Filles de la Chariti, Servantes des Pauvres Malades (Paris: Andr~ Pralard, 1676). 3 This reflection may incorporate music and song into a multimedia presentation. The opening song could be "I Heard the Voice of Jesus" (Kingsfold). An entrance procession could be orchestrated with a solo flute, then flute and piano, then flute, piano, and guitar, then singing. As the song is sung, a processiofi could begin, with candle, incense, and LOUISE and ELIZABETH. Reflective interludes could be enhanced by sung verses of an arrangement of Elizabeth's favorite psalm, Psalm 23 (such as Marty Haugen's "Shepherd Me, O God"). The reflection could conclude with "Sing a New Church" (Nettleton). 4 See Ronald Rolheiser, The Holy Longing (New York: Doubleday, 1999), p. 165. 5 Mary Catherine Bateson, Composing a Life (New York: A Plume Book, 1990), pp. 1, 9. 6 "On Charity," in Spiritual Writings of Louise de Marillac, ed. Louise May-3~une 2002 Higgins and McNeil ¯ Women of Spirit Sullivan DC (New York: New City Press, 1991), p. 71 I. 7 "Mother Seton's Baptism," in Mother Seton Guild Bulletin 16 (November 1945), p. 3. 8 Elizabeth Seton to George Weis, 13 May 1810, quoted in Mother Seton Notes by Simon Gabriel Brute, ed. Loyola Law DC (Emmitsburg, 1884), p. 98. 9 To Philip Filicchi, 21 January 1809, in Elizabeth Seton: Selected Writings, ed. Ellin M. Kelly and Annabelle Melville (New York: Paulist Press, 1987), p. 244. ~0 "Exercise of the Presence of God," in Archives Saint Joseph's Provincial House, Daughters of Charity, Emmitsburg, Maryland (hereafter ASJPH), 1-3-3-23B, 58. Quoted in Joseph I. Dirvin CM, The Soul of Elizabeth Seton: A Spiritual Portrait (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1990), p. 103. ,l Ec. 848. ~2 Joseph I. Dirvin C2vl, Louise de Marillac (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1970), p. 22. ~3 Anna Maria 1795-1812, William 1796-1868, Richard 1798-1823, Catherine 1800-1891, and Rebecca Mary 1802-1816. ~4 31 December 1799, ASJPH 1-3-3-3:1. ,5 See "Light," in Sullivan, Spiritual Writings, p. 1. ,6 Antonio and Filippo Filicchi, devout Catholics who lived in Livorno (Leghorn), were longtime business associates of the Setons. Filippo married Mary Cowper in Boston; Antonio's wife was Amabilia Baragazzi. ,7 See letter to Rebecca Seton, 5 March 1804, in Elizabeth Barley Seton: Collected Writings, 3 vols. projected, ed. Regina Bechde SC and Judith Metz SC (New York: New City Press, 2000), Vol. 1, p. 294. ~8 To Julia Scott, 5 March 1805, in Bechde and Metz, Elizabeth Barley Seton, Vol. 1, p. 345. ~gJoumal for Amabilia Filicchi, 27 February 1805, Ash Wednesday, in Bechde and Metz, Elizabeth Bayley Seton, Vol. 1, p. 375. 20 To Vincent de Paul, 24 August before 1650, in Sullivan, Spiritual Writings, p. 341. 2~ "Renunciation of Self," in Sullivan, Spiritual Writings, p. 720. 22 Dirvin, Louise de Marillac, p. 87. See also "On the Love of Our Vocation and on Helping the Poor," 13 February 1646, in Conferences of Vincent de Paul to the Daughters of Charity, ed. and trans. Joseph Leonard CM (Westminster, Md.: Christian Classics, 1968), Vol. 1, p. 217. zs To Catherine Gesse, 4 May 1659, in Sullivan, Spiritual Writings, p. 639. 24 See "On the Love of Our Vocation," in Conferences of Vincent de Review for Religious Paul to the Daughters of Charity, Vol. 1, p. 223, and "On Serving the Sick and the Care of One's Health," 11 November 1657, also in Conferences, Vol. 3, p. 292. 2s "Instructions to the Sisters Who Were Sent to Montreuil," October 1646, in Sullivan, Spiritual Writings, p. 773. 26 To the Sisters of the H6tel-Dieu of Nantes, 13 July 1658, in Sullivan, Spiritual Writings, pp. 600-601. 27 To Sister C~cile Agn~s, 4 May 1650, in Sullivan, Spiritual Writings, p. 320. 28 See "On the Spirit of the Company," 9 February 1653, in Conferences of Vincent de Paul, Vol. 2, p. 204; also Vincent de Paul to Anne Hardemont, 24 November 1658, in Vincent de Paul, Cor-respondence, Conferences, and Documents, ed. and trans. Marie Poole DC (New York: New City Press, 1997), Vol. 7, pp. 396-397. 29 Ec. 994. 3o To Mathurine Gu6rin, 23 December 1659, in Sullivan, Spiritual Writings, p. 662. 31 To Our Very Dear Sisters, the Daughters of Charity at Nantes, in Sullivan, Spiritual Writings, p. 197. ~2 Ec. 845. 33 "Thoughts of Mademoiselle Le Gras On [the] Vocation of [the] Sisters of Charity," trans. Elizabeth Ann Seton, in Reflections of Saint Louise, ASJPH 1-3-3-24B. This manuscript in Elizabeth Seton's own handwriting is the first English version of the final book of Nicolas Gobillon's/~e de Mademoiselle Le Gras. 34 To Philip Filicchi, Baltimore, 21 January 1809, in Kelly and Melville, Elizabeth Seton, p. 244. 3s To Rev. Simon Gabriel Brute, November n.d., ASJPH 1-3-3- 12:81. 36 "The Sisters of Charity meditate on the service of God," ASJPH 1-3-3-20E, 37. 37 To Julia Scott, 2 March 1809, ASJPH 1-3-3-6:76. 38 To Rose Stubbs, Baltimore, 20 February 1809, ASJPH 1-3-3- 2:103. 39 Dear Remembrances, ASJPH 1-3-3-26A, quoted in Kelly and Melville, Elizabeth Seton, p. 352. 40To Julia Scott, 20 July 1810, ASJPH 1-3-3-6:83. 41To Julia Scott, 23 March 1809, ASJPH 1-3-3-6:77. 42To Eliza Sadler, Baltimore, 20January 1809, ASJPH 1-3-3-7:35. 43To Julia Scott, 29 October 1812, ASJPH 1-3-3-6:95. ~ "Exercise of the Presence of God," ASJPH 1-3-3-23B, 57, quot'ed May-June 2002 Higgins and McNeil ¯ Women of Spirit in Dirvin, Soul of Elizabeth, .pp. 102-103. 45 To Cecilia Seton, 1 October 1803, Bechtle and Metz, Elizabeth Bayley Seton, Vol. 1, p. 224. 46 First Council Book," Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph's, 20 August 1814, ASJPH. 47 To Julia Scott, 20 September 1809, ASJPH 1-3-3-6:79. 48 See Dirvin, Soul of Elizabeth, p. 74. 49 To Julia Scott, 20 July 1810, ASJPH 1-3-3-6:83. 50 To Rev. Simon Gabriel Brute, 22 September 1812, ASJPH 1-3-3- 12:33, quoted in Dirvin, Soul of Elizabeth, p. 82. 5t To Rebecca Seton, 20th [November 1803]. Archives Mount St. Vincent, Sisters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul of New York, N/P 110: M, II, 12. 52 To Archbishop Carroll, 6 August 1809, Archives of the Archdiocese of Baltimore 7M4. 53 To Julia Scott, 20 May 1815, ASJPH 1-3-3-6:106. 54 ASJPH 1-3-3-12:44, n.d. Psalm 83 (Ps. 84 in present-day Catholic Bibles) and Psalm 41 (Ps. 42) are prayers of longing for God. 55 To Antonio Filicchi, 22 May 1810, quoted in Kelly and Melville, Elizabeth Seton, p. 280. s6 Kelly and Melville, Elizabeth Seton, p. 327. 57 To Mary FitchBayley Bunch, 26.June 1819, ASJPH 1-3-3-7:88. 58 To Antonio Filicchi, 6 May 1805, in Bechde and Metz, Elizabech Barley Seton, Vol. 1, p. 362. 59 "Account of the Pilgrimage to Chartres," October 1644, in Sullivan, Spiritual Writings, p. 122. 6o To Cecilia Seton, Friday, July [1806], ASJPH 1-3-3-8:92. 6, Law, Mother Seton Nobles by Simon Gabriel Bruti, p. 26. 6z See Joan Chittister OSB, Fire in These Ashes. 63 To Cecilia Seton, 19 November 1802, ASJPH 1-3-3-8:87. 64 "Thoughts of Mademoiselle Le Gras on [the] Vocation of [the] Sisters of Charity," trans. Elizabeth Ann Seton, in Reflections of Saint Louise. Review for Religious REGINA SIEGFRIED From Paschal Mystery to Reconciliation, from ASCs to Adorers ~thodate smcoritbivea tietss ca hcaornigsmreg? aWtiohna tto p ursoem dpiftfse trhenatt tsearmmein coolomgy-munity to find another name for itself, for use within the com-munity and for others' use too? The Adorers of the Blood of Christ have recently experienced these two developments. For a community of women religious whose charism is rooted in a cen-tral mystery of our redemption, the answers to those questions flow from a developing appreciation of our rich charism. Some excellent recent studies of religious life and charism provide the background for this article.~ But, rather than focus-ing on distinctions and nuances of charisms, this article takes note of one congregation's growing understanding of its charism and maintains that "history changed the expression of our charism," as Joe Nassal CPPS says in "Reclaiming Our Name.''2 While 19th-century terms often sound antiquated to 2 lst-cen-tury ears, the founding charism, now expressed in today's lan-guage, still resonates for our' congregation. In a letter to Biagio Valentini CPPS, dated 28 June 1841, Maria de Mattias, founder of the congregation, wrote: "The Regina Siegfried ASC, known to many of our readers, writes from the Department of Theological Studies; Saint Louis University; P.O. Box 56907; St. Louis, Missouri 63156. May-June 2002 SiegiCried * From Paschal Mystery to Reconciliation spirit of this holy work., is all charity., charity toward God and the dear neighbor." The preface to the 1857 constitution describes the charism in these words: Now this our lowly Congregation that lives and labors under the glorious title of the most precious Blood of Jesus Christ must be patterned and shaped into a living image of that divine charity with which this ¯ divine blood was shed and of which it was and is sign, expression, measure, and pledge. Maria de Mattias understood our sharing in the redemption in terms of our practice of "charity toward God and the dear neigh-bor." In violent 19th-century Italy, where political and social strife were the reality of life, Maria de Mattias knew that the "divine charity with which this divine blood was shed" spoke to the hearts of her "dear neighbors," especially the women and children, who needed education and longed to hear a word of peace. Recent Developments in the Founding Charism After Vatican Council II, the congregation, now worldwide, missionary, and ministering in truly needy places, rephrased the founding charism in its 1968 "Life Charter," and kept the same wording in the 1992 revision of the constitution: Our charism as Adorers of the Blood of Christ is deeply rooted in the death-resurrection mystery of Jesus. Ours is a paschal identity, signed in the blood of the Lamb. As a congregation we are to bear witness in hope and joy to the living presence in our world today of Christ's adoring, redeeming love, which gives meaning to human suffering and can render it power-fully liberating and life-giving. (§22, "Paschal Mystery in Our Charism") Although the title of our congregation has changed slightly over the years, "adorers" has always been a decisive part. The original document, written in Maria's own hand, has "Adorers of the Divine Blood." A later shift was to "Adorers of the Blood of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." In 1968 the congregation's name was changed from "Sisters Adorers of the Most Precious Blood" to "Adorers of the Blood of Christ" to reflect a more contemporary and holistic under- Review for Religious standing of the theology of the Blood of Christ. The United States expression of the charism moved from devotionalism to a concentration on the paschal mystery. We began to give more attention to life, death, and resurrection in the life of Jesus, in the life of the church, in the life of the congregation, and in its members' lives. Immersed in this mystery of our redemption through community education and personal prayer, we hoped to grow to be "more credible witness[es] of God's tender love, of which the blood of Jesus is vibrant sign and unending covenant pledge" (Life Charter, §2). Becoming credible witnesses meant (and still means) living lives of simplicity, involvement in social-justice issues, solidarity with the poor, and improving our community living through communication workshops, conflict resolution, and prayer. Reflecting on the intensely apostolic implications of the charism helped us understand more fully that ministry flows from prayer and prayer floods ministry, much as the classic "Gift of the Nile" provided thriving stands of wheat. "Adorers" in our tide is contemplative; "Blood of Christ" keeps us mindful of the work of redemption. The one title expresses the unity of con-templation and mission. Along with other communities, we researched our roots, wrote histories, and reclaimed a charism that had been in us from the beginning. We .were proud to be Adorers of the Blood of Christ, confident that our paschal-mystery charism continues to be a fiery and energizing spirit for the church and us. The United States expression of the charism moved from devotionalism to a concentration on the paschal mystery. From Paschal Mystery to Reconciliation In "Reclaiming Our Name," Joe Nassal CPpS writes: "The charism does not change . What changes is our response that is shaped by the currents of history." This is precisely what hap-pened to the Adorers of the Blood of Christ and to other May-June 2002 Siegfried ¯ From Paschal Mystery to Reconciliation Precious Blood congregations in the early 1990s. After our two decades of highlighting the paschal-mystery facet of the charism, historical events drew our attention, prayer, and reflection to another facet of our theologically complex charism. Our international congregation has a province in Bosnia and had United States missionaries in Liberia, West Africa. In the early 1990s war raged in both places. While we dreaded that sisters might be killed in Bosnia, it was the five United States Adorers shot and killed in Liberia in October 1992 that gave the Croatian sisters who ministered in Bosnia the courage to stay with the people, to witness to peace, and to attempt to bring reconciliation there. Matija Pavic, one of the Croatian Adorers who experienced the war and destruction of that country, wrote: Since their martyrdom I can say we feel greater close-ness among us, at the level of the province and of the congregation as well . We experienced the truth of the Word that we are called to witness Christ even to shedding of our own blood. We were overwhelmed by feelings of worry, compassion, and prayer; it was as if their suffering spilled over into us.3 Reconciliation is p.ossible only when we have embraced the paschal mystery. The violent shedding of blood in our lifetime--in South Africa, Central and South America, Croatia, Bosnia, Rwanda, and Indonesia, in the crime and violence on U.S.A. streets, and in the terrorist attacks here, there, and there too--this bloodshed cries for reconciliation rather than revenge. As Adorers, we understand the seemingly impossible hope that the shedding of the Blood of Christ gives to Christianity. Christ's death was not the end, but the beginning of salvation and reconciliation. So, too, the bloodshed and suffering of our world today need not be just a sad series of endings; it can be the beginning of a new, though painful, reconciliation for this world of ours today. While bloody violence in South Africa and Central America and elsewhere horrified us, much of it was far away from our-selves, or so it seemed. Liberia and Bosnia, similarly far away, were made personal, close up, and full of grief for us Adorers because of the presence, suffering, and death of sisters of ours in those countries. We were now immediate sufferers, with raw Review for Religious and public sorrow. We knew, however, that our sisters gave their lives in the service of the Liberian people and that the Croatian sisters of our congregation willingly suffered along with their people. As Robert Schreiter CPPS has written, "repentance can orig-inate from the side of those who have perpetrated violence, but reconciliation and forgiveness must come from the side of those who have suffered violence.''4 Revenge is anger with an ugly face and the wielding of weapons. The retaliator is reduced to the level of the perpetrator; revenge continues the cycle of violence, spinning it out of control into more madness. Reconciliation is love tempered by suffering, immersing the wounded in the depths of the paschal mystery of our redemption. Reconcilers seek to restore wholeness, and not cause more fragmentation and division. Reconciliation and revenge are not mutually exclusive things separated by an unbridgeable chasm. Rather, they are participants in a con-versation earnestly seeking deeper understanding. For either partner to demonize the other destroys the communication. In a homily during a prayer service for peace shortly after 11 September 2001, Joan Range ASC told us "we must reflect on the cost of bringing peace through reconciliation." She prayed that Jesus would "heal our wounds and give us [his] Spirit so that we can be ambassadors of [his] reconciling presence in the world." Peace and peacemaking on many levels become the work of those who reconcile. Robert Schreiter describes three characteristics of the spir-ituality of reconciliation: an attitude of listening and waiting, attention and compassion, and a postexilic stance.5 As we tell our own stories of the violence done to us, we learn to listen to other sufferers, to wait with them as the pain becomes trans-formative. Reconciliation keeps us conscious of the suffering of others; we become compassionate in ways we never dreamed possible. We learn to live in a new place, beyond the circum-stances that abruptly or gradually exiled us from our former existence: "For those who are reconciled, reconciliation becomes Reconcilers seek to restore wholeness, and not cause more fragmentation and division. May-~une 2002 Sie~ffHed ¯ From Paschal Mystery to Reconciliation a calling. They move to a wholly new place, from which they call oppressors to repentance and serve in a prophetic way for the whole of society.''6 From ASCs to Adorers Why, in the last year or two, have we in the United States province of the Adorers of the Blood of Christ begun to refer to ourselves as "Adorers" instead of using the convenient acronym "ASCs"? (Our website is now even !) Is it merely a way to greater name-recognition, an attempt to dis-tance ourselves from the elaborate code of Catholic religious-congregation abbreviations? While Adorers seems easier to understand and to have better name recognition, I think there is more to it than that. The shift from ASCs to Adorers highlights the contemplative dimension of the charism and provides for the balance of prayer in the midst of activity. Helen Lindsey ASC believes that "Adorer is a statement of who we are; adoration is what establishes the uniqueness of our charism.''7 We have become comfortable with "Adorers" because we have contemplated the paschal mystery, we now realize and internalize more fully what reconciliation means and demands, and we wonder where next the vitality of our charism will lead us. Perhaps Maria de Mattias sensed the link between adoration and reconciliation when she wrote to her bishop on 13 November 1838 that our work is to "establish that beautiful order of things which the great Son of God came to establish in his blood." Contemplation and adoration urge us to reconcili-ation and restoration of right relationships. Theresa Wetta ASC succinctly describes the unfolding of the charism when she says: Reconciliation as a current expression of our charism was prompted, I believe, by the work the CPPS men were doing on spirituality coupled with the increasing need for reconciliation in our more violent and disturbed world. Love and unity have always been expressions of our charism. Now we see love and unity achieved through efforts at reconciliation--the same deep union that Jesus achieved for/with us through the shedding of his blood.8 Review for Religious While this article concentrates on one small community, I think it has implications beyond the Adorers of the Blood of Christ. If we believe that all religious congregation charisms are vibrant, flaming gifts and graces given to our founders and living in us, they do indeed grow, develop, and breathe in us for today's world. Communities can trace the expansion and maturing of their foundational charism to discover how that gift is still relevant, appropriate, and significant in contemporary society. Notes ~ See Marianne Stevens RSM, "Revitalizing Charisms Inspiring Religious Life," and Joseph Nassal CPPS, "Reclaiming Our Name," Review for Religious 53, no. 6 (November-December 1994): 847-859 and 840-846, respectively; Margaret Susan Thompson, "Charism or Deep Story? Towards Understand Better the 19th-Century Origins of American Women's Congregations," Review for Religious 58, no. 3 (May-June 1999): 230-250; Sandra M. Schneiders IHM, Finding the Treasure (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 2000): chaps. 9 and 10. z Review for Religious 53, no. 6 (November-December 1994): 843. 3 Email to author, July 2001; trans. Viktorija Tomic ASC. 4 Robert J. Schreiter CPPS, Reconciliation: Mission and Ministry in a Changing Social Order (Maryknoli: Orbis Books, 1992), p. 21. See also Joseph Nassal CPPS, Premeditated Mercy: A Spirituality of Reconciliation (Leavenworth: Forest of Peace Publishing, 2000), for another fine study of reconciliation. s See Schreiter, Reconciliation, pp. 70-73. 6 Schreiter, Reconciliation, p. 73. 7 Helen Lindsey ASC in email to author, 31 December 2001. 8 Therese Wetta ASC in email to author, 24 January 2002. May-June 2002 DEBORAH M. CERULLO Distinctiveness, Diversity, and Commonness in Consecrated Life religious life culture Much is being written these days concerning where we are currently situated in religious life. Some are calling it the dark night of the souU Others see it as a time for courageous waiting,2 comparing it to being inside a cocoon, developing as we are meant to develop, but at risk of being impatiently opened too soon? While these images are helpful, especially as they allay some of the fears that surround the uncer-taihty of our times, I wonder if there is more clarity about who we are becoming than we sometimes give ourselves credit for. We have spent many years devel-oping those aspects of our life of faith that we share with others' outside our communities, including spirituality, ministry, community, and even charism. We have deconstructed our boundaries and empha-sized an inclusiveness in keeping with Vatican Council II's renewal of the universal call to holiness. As our understanding of what we share with others continues to develop, we are now also beginning to hear the call Deborah M. Cerullo $$ND wrote "Charism and Membership" in our September-October 1999 issue. She is visiting associate clinical professor of law at Boston College Law School; 885 Centre Street; Newton, Massachusetts 02459. Review for Religious to discover our distinctiveness. We are being asked to explore what makes the lifestyle of religious life distinctive, not because it is better or holier, but simply because it is different. This article will explore questions about distinctiveness, diversity, and commonness as we continue our movement from the high-walled boundaries of the pre-Vatican II era to our cur-rent search for new boundaries. It will also propose one method that religious institutes might use to answer these questions. My bias in this project is a belief that we are in a criti-cal time. If we wish to sus-tain the distinctiveness that is religious life, we must deal with our diversity and externalize our new ~reality in a more common way. My thoughts are from the view-point of one who did not experience religious life before or during most of its Religious life is a lifestyle that inculcates and fosters interior and exterior habits that have proved helpful in following Jesus Christ closely. deconstruction, having entered in the mid 1980s. I do not claim that others who entered when I did necessarily have the same thoughts as I do, nor do I think that only those who entered after Vatican II have thoughts like mine, but I do think that we who never experienced religious life's preconciliar uniformity have a different perspective on "commonness" than those who did.4 From my perspective commonness is not the same as uni-formity. I take for granted that diversity is good and that respect for the needs of individuals is important for our future. Distinctiveness and Diversity The distinctiveness of religious life comes from its primary focus, which is God. It is a lifestyle that inculcates and fosters interior and exterior habits that have proved helpful in follow-ing Jesus Christ closely. The means that are most distinctive of the lifestyle of consecrated life are the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, shared governance and finances, and a perma-nent commitment to religious life. Except that unmarried lay life excludes sexual activity, no other Christian lifestyle requires May-June 2002 Cerullo ¯ Distinctive'hess, Diversity, and Commonness --- 294A people to renounce private property, sexual activity, marriage, and autonomy (sharing financial resources with other members and abiding by decisions made by other members), all on a permanent basis. As religious life does too, other Christian lifestyles, of course, call for ministry, community, prayer, and social justice. For some, these calls come from within the charism of a par-ticular religious family through various associate programs,s Although religious and others still ask whether those making only temporary commitments might be invited to full mem-bership or whether some dedicated people should be invited to make permanent but partial commitments that would, say, include participation in government but not the life of the vows, these are questions without present answers. Meanwhile, other questions about joining with others in ministry, promoting social justice, forming alternative communities, and praying and grow-ing spiritually have all been answered with a resounding yes, and the only questions left are whether there need be any limits to this sharing. There are diverse views in religious life today and diverse choices being made. I believe that exploring this diversity is crucial to understanding the distinctiveness of religious life.6 Because being nonjudgmental and tolerant is such a strong cul-tural value today, many have adopted a live-and-let-live attitude that can prevent dialogue from being meaningful. While this attitude reduces tension and conflict within our congrega-tions, there is danger of our not engaging one another at enough depth to keep our passion alive, the passion inside each of us that enlivens our commitments for shared mission. In discussing diversity we must ask whether there are essen-tials in the living o]: consecrated life beyond which we venture at our peril. If so, how do we decide what they are? For exam-ple, most would agree that an active sexual relationship is incon-sistent with the commitment to consecrated celibacy. The boundary is fairly well established, with little, though some, disagreement. Even the disagreement, however, is more in the-oretical terms thari in. open behavior. Can we identify similar boundaries for gospel poverty and apostolic obedience? Gospel poverty seems to be an area that permits a wide variance of opinion, but at the same time includes silent disapproval of the Review for Religious way some members' choices undermine community relation-ships. Apostolic obedience seems to enjoy wide support for the view that the distinctiveness of our living the vow of obedience is limited to who we invite into our discernments (that is, lead-ership instead of a spouse or friend), rather than something qualitatively different. Even here, however, there would be wide disagreement about how and when leadership is invited into our personal discernments. Although these issues are significant, the questions sur-rounding the areas that we share with nonmembers are, I believe, even more significant. In our age of respect for the individual and in our reaction against religious life's preconciliar unifor-mity, we are strongly supportive of a wid~ diversity of choices in ministry and in styles of community and prayer, including when and with whom we engage in these aspects of our life. This diversity is so great that many of us have difficulty finding members with whom to share our work, homes, and prayer, especially on a daily basis. For like-minded members to come together once or twice a month is seen as an acceptable alter-native to daily sharing, especially by those whose entered before Vatican II, the majority of our membership. This opinion is not shared by most members who entered after the council and is a growing source of difficulty.7 This issue is at the heart of our different belonging needs. For mem-bers who have a well-developed sense of belonging after decades of membership, living, working, or even praying with other members of the congregation does not appear to be a strong need so long as the intermittent connection is maintained. The same practice would also likely satisf3, those who do not have a strong sense of belonging within the congregation, but still desire some of the benefits of membership. The question that remains is whether our diverse choices about ministry, community, and shared prayer so detract from our distinctiveness that our current support for them will con-tribute more to the loss of our lifestyle than to its flourishing, or whether the values and social movement that generated this diversity are so important that diversity must be allowed to con-tinue unabated. VChile in theory the answer probably lies some-where between these extremes, that middle ground can be achieved only if enough members keep trying to achieve it. May-.~une 2002 Cerullo ¯ Distinctiveness, Diversity, and Commonness The area where we seem most united, with very little articulated diversity, is in our social-justice views. The area where we seem most united, with very little artic-ulated diversity, is in our social-justice views. Vghile tolerance of different perspectives on living the vows, prayer, community life, and ministry are, in my view, the norm, this is not true of our justice perspectives. In her recent book Finding the Treasure, Sandra Schneiders has gone so far as to suggest that this social-justice work on behalf of the poor and marginalized (which she calls the prophetic dimen-sion of religious life) isin fact a primary distinguishing characteristic of religious life.~ While Schneiders's work as a whole is a major contribution to any analysis of contemporary religious life, this assertion seems to me quite extraordinary, con-sidering the latitude she gives in all other categories. Her descrip-tion of our prophetic role as standing on the margins of church and society, lamenting the iniustices of our world, and offering hope to the oppressed seems appropriate for some of our mem-bership, for whom social justice is a passion. It seems all the more appropriate, then, for some congregations whose charism involves such social protest. But, though I believe that most of us would support and affirm the need for a social-justice dimen-sion in our lives and our congregations, I am not convinced that we would agree that this dimension is the distinguishing char-acteristic that all members must espouse with the fervor and ded-ication of a prophet. Rather, many would assert that our prophet role as witnesses of hope and love in a broken world is meant for everyone, and that service to others is legitimate in its own right, not simply as it affects the poor and marginalized. But, even if I am wrong and most religious would claim that social justice deserves a primacy in our lives, where does that leave us on the issue of diversity? Is there a place among us for those who do not experience social justice as the primary motivating or sus-taining aspect of our vocation? What about those with minority political views? These examples highlight the difficulties we are experienc-ing as we decide what areas of our lives to emphasize and what, Review for Religious if any, boundaries should be set or maintained. Is it ever appro-priate to claim that a practice or belief is normative, or would we too likely return to a conformity that has been rejected or a majority rule that is not sufficiently respectful of individual per-spectives? I believe that how we answer these questions together within our own individual institutes will determine whether we hold on to the distinctiveness that is religious life, at least in its North American manifestation. Externalizing Our Common Reality The renewal of Vatican II brought many changes to reli-gious life, deconstructing a world where the externals had become ends in themselves. Externals became suspect, and inter-nalizing new understandings of our lifestyle became the norm. Diversity and respect for individual choices became so highly valued that the value of commonness for the sake of shared mis-sion was overwhelmed. Our challenge now is to discover ways to integrate these values so that the common life may reemerge, not in its preconciliar form, but in a way that maintains dis-tinctiveness and provides religious with sufficient support. One way to do this, I believe, is to identify the parts of our new real-ity that we regard as common and to give them external expres-sion. Symbols, myths, public rituals, and expected standards of behavior are identity markers which we need in order to embody our commitment? We must do this in a way that respects legit-imate diversity and individual needs, but does not make diver-sity and individualism ends in themselves, valued at the expense of the common life. So how might religious, together, go about answering some of these questions? In my own community we have begun with a process of theological development, especially in the areas of Christology and ecclesiology as they relate to diverse world-views from the classical, modern, and postmodern eras. Other communities are doing the same~° or are engaging in ongoing dialogue on significant.theological issues, i1 Another step in this process could include corporate theological reflection on the various elements discussed above. A group would discuss these in relation to their lived experience and with a view toward tak-ing action. It would aim at practical action, not theory, working May-June 2002 Cerullo ¯ Distinctiveness, Diversity, and Commonness out of specific contexts rather than generic truths and drawing upon lived experience as much as classical texts. It would cor-relate this experience with the sources and texts of the religious tradition and then draw out practical implications for living.12 The action goal would be commitment to living these practical implications. This process could be used in local communities, geo-graphical areas, provinces, or even entire congregations. It could involve members, associates, coworkers, or guest contributors, but decision making would be left to those planning to live the commitment. Givefi the potential difficulty of this level of dia-logue, perhaps the use of certain rules for dialogue would be useful, such as those articulated in the Common Ground ini-tiative, where Catholics with differing viewpoints are encouraged to dialogue:13 ¯ We should recognize that no single group or view-point has a complete monopoly on the truth. ¯ We should test all proposals for their pastoral realism and potential impact on living individuals. ° We should presume that those with whom we differ are acting in good faith. ¯ We should put the best possible construction on differing positions, addressing their strongest points rather than seizing upon the most vul-nerable aspects. ¯ We should be cautious [about] ascribing motives. ¯ We should bring the church [or, in our case, religious life] to engage the realities of contemporary cul~re by acknowledging both our cul-ture's valid achievements and real dangers. ¯ It could be helpful to have a skilled facilitator who is not a member of the group. Such a person can help participants to hear all voices in the dialogue, not only those that are loudest or most articulate. Another way for the group as a whole to hear different voices might be to practice by bringing together smaller groups that have types of ministry in common or simi-lar ages or similar community lifestyle experience, and then dis-cussing differences that occur even among themselves. In all such efforts, what is important is the honesty and depth of our dialogue and a true commitment to its results, neither of which is quickly or easily achieved. Summing up, I believe that we are in a critical time in reli- Review for Religious gious life when we must deal with our diversity and externalize our new reality in a more common way if we wish to sustain consecrated life's distinctiveness--the very reason why we entered religious life. The development of new symbols, myths, public rituals, and expected standards of behavior--or perhaps reclaiming some of the old with a new understanding of their meaning in our lives--is essential if we are to survive as a dis-tinct lifestyle. If we identify, and perhaps create, more of what can hold us together in this life we share, it will lead to a deep-ening of our individual and community spiritual life and empower us for more effective ministry. I believe, too, that more will want to join us if we can tell them with greater clarity who we are and how our life is different from theirs. While this can never be the primary motivation for our choices, without new members it will not matter how much diversity, respect for indi-viduals, prophetic witness, or postmodern sensibility religious life fosters, except in the lives of its last generation. Notes ~ Sandra M. Schneiders II-hVl, Finding the Treasure: Locating Catholic Religious Life in a New Ecclesial Context, vol. 1 of Religious Life in a New Millennium (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 2000o), chap. 5. 2 Barbara Fiand SND, Wrestling with God: Religious Life in Search of Its Soul (New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 1996). 31 could not locate the source of this image, but I remember read-ing it on more than one occasion. 4 See Patricia Wittberg SC, Pathways to Re-Creating Religious Communities (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1996), p. 126. s See John Paul II, Vita consecrata, §54. 6 1 am indebted to Mary Maher SSND for first raising this point in a workshop titled "SSND: Living in Many Worlds," held in 1999 in Chattawa, Mississippi. 7 See Catherine Bertrand SSND, "Common Threads: Are We Weaving or Unraveling?" Review for Religious 57, no. 6 (November- December 1998): 566-577. 8 Schneiders, Finding the Treasure, pp. 137-149. 9 Nihal Abeyasingha CSSR, "Refounding by Honing the Purpose Concept," Review for Religious 57, no. 4 (July-August 1998): 417. ~0 Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary have been leaders in developing materials for this process and have been gener- May-June 2002 Cerullo ¯ Distinctiveness, Diversity, and Commonness ous in sharing them with others. And see Marie Chiodo DW and Mary Irving SSND, "An Itinerant Approach to Theological Updating," Review for Religious 57, no. 3 (May-June 1998): 247-259. n For example, the Congregation of Notre Dame, with whom I live, is engaged in such a dialogue on the topic of Eucharist. 12 See Robert L. Kinast, What Are They Saying about Theological Reflection? (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 2000). 13 National Pastoral Life Center, Called to Be Catholic: Church in a Time of Peril, Origins 26, no. 11 (29 August 1996), pp. 169-170 passim. Walking by St. Cecilia's Convent Still taking that side of the street And the convent's brick sidewalk For the memories that it had: Behind bricks" barred recesses, the lives Lived by bells that to children Seemed gladder than children's; what wrinkles Of feature or fate those wimples hid, stayed Hidden from us, singing gaily "St. C! St. C!" For the school team. Where is she now, Virginal martyr and mistress of musics, Who sheltered our years and sheltered Her servants, the habited girls? And if I knocked at her convent And said, "Take me back in" to my innocence, Sisters, to a life lived by bells, Would I find her and them? or myself only Behind bricks still quixotic as ever, Impossibiy dreaming the St. C Of me has yet to begin. Nancy G. Westerfield Review for Religious NIHAL ABEYASINGHA The Culture of Religious Life within Asian Culture Tqe battle cry of the Fr,e, nch Revolution was "Liberty, uality, and Fraternity. The revolution in France and other revolutions that followed in Europe are well known. Two hundred years later it is almost ironical that Neil Kinnoch, onetime transport commissioner for the European Union, would almost parody that battle cry, saying "A car, a pair of jeans, and a burger are the new evidence of liberty, fraternity, and equality." Innovations within a Culture Innovations almost always stem from individuals. Yet, as Max Weber has remarked, no intellectual has ever established a religion. What becomes of the innovations is what the many other individuals who constitute society make of them. Often the results have little to do with the intention of the innovator2 To have some idea, then, of the likely direction an innovation will take, one has to look at who constitute the society into which the innovation is introduced. People differ not in soundness of reasoning, but in the principles and modalities that govern its exercise. Human experience is shaped, molded, and in a sense constituted by cultural and linguistic forms. Nihal Abeyasingha CSSR wrote two articles for our pages in 1999. He may be addressed during his sabbatical year (till mid January 2003) at St. Hilary Parish; 5465 Citronell Avenue; Pico Rivera, California 90660. May-June 2002 Abeyasingba ¯ Religious Life within Asian Culture The vast majority of international religious institutes rose in the West, with its long Christian tradition. Only after the 16th century were numbers of them planted in Asia. Of these, many accepted local members for the first time only in the late 19th century. With few exceptions, the first Asian superiors were named only in the mid 20th century. Today there are very few foreign religious in Asia (except for some that have come to Asia to seek members to staff their establishments in the West). Hardly any foreigners are superiors. The organization and direction of religious life have been entrusted to local personnel. But the principles and modalities that govern the course of religious life as lived in Asia need to be reflected on more carefully. The fact that international religious institutes are well established in India in terms of numbers, buildings, and involvement in many forms of apostolate does not mean that these institutes have adapted themselves to the Asian context. The question that needs to be raised is: Do these religious institutes give indications of the innovative witness of their founders and foundresses according to the principles and modalities of the functioning of the Asian mind? Unfortunately, it would seem that many Asian branches of religious institutes seek direction from their general administrations for the resolution of their local problems. The general administrations are for the most part non-Asian, and so the question arises: On what principles and modalities of reason do they offer direction'to their units in Asia? That one must keep the institution going at all costs because most present-day vocations come from Asia and Africa? Or that what the local unit decides must be right? Or that what the local unit judges to be good is good also for the institute? These modalities of reasoning can be legitimate and valid in specific instances, but are they the correct general modalities for the Asian context? The numerical growth of religious life in Asia is evident. These numerous Asian members must certainly not function or seem to function like foreign implants within the Asian culture. On the other hand, they must not simply be part and parcel of the Asian culture. Religious life must always be a challenge to the existing culture. It must be an innovation, one that witnesses to the Source of its incarnate newness. The present article oudines some considerations, in the working out of this process of Review for Religious adaptation to Asian culture--not merely reflecting the culture, but challenging it to conversion. I shall do this in the form of theses for discussion (italicized below). They are not exhaustive treatments of the issues. The Movement of Adaptation The movement of adaptation #from the gospel to the culture and back to the gospel, which is then proclaimed in its originality in a cultural modality. In his address to the first meeting of the Pastoral Council for Culture, Pope John Paul 1I pointed out that the Vatican Council committed "the whole church to listen to modern man in order to understand him and to invent a new kind of dialogue which would permit the originality of the gospel to be carried to the heart of contemporary modalities." The human situation, however, is ambiguous. People have forces in their own hands: The operative question is: What is worth losing in a culture in favor of what is to be gained in life ? either they control them or they become enslaved by them. In every instance, then, the operative question is: What is worth losing in a culture in favor of what is to be gained in life? Life is not just a dimension of the human situation that involves the satisfaction of biological or aesthetic or other needs. It is, rather, the way revealed in Jesus Christ, and it is to this life that the Christian is committed. As Pope John Paul has said, "man is the way of the church." But "man" must be understood in terms of the man, Jesus Christ. It is the proclamation of Jesus Christ that is the mission of the church) It is through inculturation that the church becomes an intelligible sign of what it is and a more effective instrument of mission. Adaptation's Goal By their witness to escbatological values, religious are called to bring the Good News of conversion into the heart of the culture. May-d~ne 2002 Abeyasingba ¯ Religious Life within Asian Culture (Religious institutes began as innovations; they must continue innovating or slowly fade away.) Pope John Paul has said that mission is contemplative action and active contemplation. Sometimes silent witness is the only way.3 Before him Pope Paul vI pointed out that "the gospel, and therefore evangelization, are certainly not identical with culture, and they are independent in regard to all cultures. Nevertheless, the kingdom which the gospel proclaims is lived by men who are profoundly linked to a culture, and the building up of the kingdom cannot avoid borrowing the elements of human culture or cultures . Therefore, every effort must be made to ensure a full evangelization of culture or, more correcdy, of cultures. They have to be regenerated by an encounter with the gospel,"4 beginning (we could add) with an encounter resulting in regeneration/conversion in the lives of Asian religious themselves. How does this happen? Perhaps the message to youth issued at the end of Vatican II can suggest a path. Each generation has to receive from its elders what they have to offer, but each generation is committed to build a better world than their elders had. In fact, the youth of today, despite many negative assessments of them, can surprise their elders. In 2000 almost a million young people gathered in Rome for the World Youth Day. The organizers were amazed at their restraint and gen-erosity. Founded as innovations, religious institutes challenge the existing forces within their culture by proclaiming the gospel afresh, bringing the good news that is able to convert and transform the culture. Such results follow in the early years, but new problems arise when the founding insight needs to be . adapted to circumstances and cultures that are quite different. As institutes increase numerically and spread geographically, their original creativeness requires some adaptation in ascetical practices, forms of work, lifestyle, and so forth. If the adaptation is not done carefully, religious life is likely to be of the world, not merely in it (rather than in the world and not of it). It would reflect the culture uncritically, without challenging it at all. Social structures in Asia, even at the present time, are feudals (at least in aspiration, if not always in fact). So the temptation in adaptation and proclamation would be toward conforming to social aspirations and doing the things that are respected and Review for Religious likely to gain recognition in society. But there must be no letup in looking for ways that the gospel and the charism (innovations, both of them) can retain their relevant originality in the Asian context. Adaptation in Context Adaptation needs to take place, for the sake of being relevant within the Asian cultural traditions. Otherwise there is danger of the message being unintelligible or thoroughly misunderstood. As has been pointed out, the Gospels can be seen as reflecting the minds of the particular evangelists. Mark is factual; Matthew is holistic and gives the big picture; Luke follows a step-by-step approach and is systematic; John preaches love. Similarly, the historical books of the Bible are factual; the prophetic books view present situations within the big picture as God might see it; the wisdom literature attempts to be syste,natic; and the psalms and the Canticle of Canticles are odes to love. All the books are valuable, and no book is less the word of God than the others. Only the modalities are different, re

Issue 61.4 of the Review for Religious, 2002. ; Identities Spirituality Community Living \ Profiling JULY AUGUST 2002 VOLUME 61 NUMBER 4 Review for Rellgious hdp people respond aria bkfa thful ~ ° ~ to God's ~niversal call to holiness ~ by making available to t~em the ~piH~l legades that flow~om the'charisms of CathoUdeOnsecrated life. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bimonthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 Telephone:314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: review@slu.edu ¯ \Veh 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 iuside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©2002 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to COl)}, 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 distrihu-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 Adv#ory Board David L. Fleming SJ Clare Boehmer ASC Philip C. Fischer SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Judy Sharp James and Joan Felling Adrian Gaudin SC Sr. Raymond Marie Gerard FSP Eugene Hensell OSB Ernest E. Larkin OCarm Bishop Carlos A. Sevilla SJ Miriam D. Ukeritis CSJ JULY AUGUST 2002 VOLUME 61 NUMBER 4 contents 342 feature Reciprocal Identities: Apostolic Life and Consecrated Life Patricia Wittberg sc oudines the role apostolic institutions had in shaping the identity of religious congregations in the past and describes the role of a person who would be responsible for catalyzing a congregation's reformulation of its apostolic identity in the absence of these institutions today. 352 364 spirituality Diocesan Priesthood: Discerning the Fire in Our Midst George Aschenbrenner SJ describes four steps that are part of a discerning life and three dimensions of the human stage on which the drama of a personal love-relationship with God is played. Desert Spirituality Ernest E. Larkin OCarm examines the ancient traditions of desert spirituality and contemplative prayer and proposes ways to adapt them to our times. for l~eligious 375 community living Three Forms of Community Living: A Survey Report Barbara Zajac makes a sociological survey of sisters in one religious community to explore how they define and create "community." 395 Expert Practitioners of Union: Forming, Living, and Sustaining Community Joel Giallanza CSC reviews the complexities involved in defining or describing religious community and suggests strategies to form and live and sustain community. 407 profiling Merton and the Enneagram: The Ritual Enactment of His Myth Suzanne Zuercher OSB examines Thomas Merton from his journals, considering him as an enneagram 4, his true self more acknowledged over the years, then anguished over, and ultimately embraced. 419 Liberal or Conservative: Temperaments and Faith Edward Krasevac OP proposes that awareness of temperamental affinities for liberal/conservative positions can give us a greater and sometimes much-needed sensitivity to what others are saying and give us at least a partial understanding of why we b~lieve what we believe. departments 340 Prisms 430 Canonical Counsel: Involuntary Departure 435 Book Reviews j~uly-Aug~tst 2002 prisms ~hen we say "We had an extraordinary time," for example, at a family reunion or at a church conference, we imply that the event was better than usual. The ordinary, by contrast, seems to be of negligible value. Ordinary means normal, hav-ing the implications of the usual routine. Often when we say that our time has been ordinary we signify that it has been just "more of the same." When the church makes use of the phrase ordi-nary time to describe a part of the liturgical year, we tend to .bring our everyday meaning to the phrase. We think of the routine of following one of the synoptic Gospel readings in weekday and in Sunday Eucharists. Church ordinary time seems not to emphasize cele-bration, just "more of the same." The church, how-ever, intends only to identify this part of the liturgical year as those weeks of the year proceeding in a long, numerical order (deriving from the Latin ordo) that are distinct from the holyday or holiday weeks iden-tified as Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter. And so there are some thirty weeks, liturgically, of "ordinary time" in every church year. But beyond the fact that ordinary time provides us with weeks in a numbered order, I believe that the church in her liturgy plants the seed that ordinary time is meant to be a time of wisdom. Wisdom might be described as "putting it all together," living an integrated life. For us Christians, wisdom means that we put our life together in the light of our being followers of Christ. The scrip-ture readings that flow through the Sunday and weekday read-ings for Mass and for the Liturgy of the Hours are both an inspiration for and a measurement of our living and acting as children of God. Jesus, as we see him living everyday life in the Gospels of ordinary time, remains the paradigm of what it means to be a human being, one created in the image and likeness of God. Being true God and true man, Jesus shares with us, through the Spirit, how to live our lives wisely in our own every-dayness as sons and daughters of God. We are baptized in Jesus' name; we are fed with his Body and Blood. The Son of God, Jesus, incarnate God--infinitely beyond Adam and Eve's mere creation in the image and like-ness of God--is our Brother. With him, we Christians experi-ence the new creation in his life, death, and resurrection. What our Scriptures in the church's ordinary time impress upon us is that we do not turn to the Gospels just for the high points of suffering or triumph or just for some code of rules. The Gospels are written to enter us into Jesus' wisdom way of living. Like St. Paul, we spend our lives trying to make it ever more true that "I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me." The church presents us ordinary Christians with a chal-lenging paradox. Ordinary time is wisdom time. Because we are being formed daily by the word of God and nourished by daily bread, we dare to say with Jesus: "Our Father." David L. Fleming SJ July-August 2002 feature PATRICIA WITTBERG Reciprocal Identities: Apostolic Life and Consecrated Life This year my congregation is celebrating its 150th anniversary. In special symposia and lectures, in liturgies and panel presentations, we have been encouraged to reflect about who ,we are as a community, who we have been--and who we will be. Since I have been researching relationship between religious congregations and their sponsored ministries, these events have spurred me to reflect on what it has meant--and what it will mean--that we are an apostolic congregation. I have, however, found it unexpectedly difficult to do this. How does our charism differ from that of an active monastic or evangelical order? In what way do our apostolates define who we are as a community, especially since very few of us still minister in the schools and hospitals we traditionally staffed? These are important questions to ask--and to continue asking--as we rearticulate our apostolic identity for the coming century. But I ,have come to believe that we lack an importfint kind of resource person who could facilitate our reflections. To the best Patricia Wittberg SC last wrote for us in September-October 2000. Her address is 2141 Dugan Drive; Indianapolis, Indiana 46260. Review for Religious of my knowledge, no religious congregation makes provision for such a person in its reflection processes. There is not even a name for her, so I will call her--however awkwardly--an Apostolic-Identity Catalyzer, or AIC for short2 In this paper I will first attempt to oudine the role apostolic institutions had in shaping the identity of religious congregations in the past. Next I will describe the kinds of activities an AIC might undertake to catalyze a congregation's reformulation of its apostolic identity in the absence of these institutions. Who We Were: Shaping a Reciprocal Identity Throughout their history, apostolic religious congregations have developed in an intimate dialectic with the institutions they created, staffed, and administered. On the one hand, Catholic hospitals, schools, and social-work agencies derived their religious identity primarily from the presence of religious congregations. Religious nurses, teachers, and social workers, all fully habited, served as living icons of the spiritual character of these institutions. As owners they also made the key decisions and policies. Their presence on the staff and in the administration meant that the culture of the congregation infused the entire institution. Without pointing to the congregation's presence, it would have been hard for a school or hospital to articulate what made it Catholic. Until the mid 1960s, however, the two were so intertwined that the question never even arose. In a similar manner, religious congregations derived their apostolic identity from the institutions they staffed. As Margaret Susan Thompson has pointed out in a previous issue of this journal,2 most U.S. women's apostolic congregations did not have a distinctive initial charism: rather, they have a "deep story" developed through years of lived experience. The distinctive identity of my own congregation was forged as sisters worked and lived together in our hospitals in Dayton and Albuquerque, Religious congregations derived their apostolic identity from the institutions they staffed. Wittber~ ¯ Reci~n'ocal Identities as they made bulletin boards together for our elementary schools in Detroit and Chicago, and as they cared for children in inner-city settlement houses and orphanages in Denver and Cincinnati. Young women got to know us through our ministries, and those attracted by our witness in these apostolates joined us. The congregation filled with new entrants who came expecting to perform institutional service, which further tied our apostolic identity to these works. Without citing the particular places where we served, it would have been difficult for many of us to articulate exactly what being an "apostolic" community meant. A Parallel: Mission-Effectiveness Offices in Catholic Institutions Most religious communities today have loosened, and some have completely severed, their ties with their institutions. Within their hospitals, colleges, and other agencies, this has led to some serious institutional soul-searching. Bereft of the iconic presence of the religious order, these institutions were in danger of losing their distinctive religious character. "Isomorphic" pressures from government regulations, professional associations, and economic competitors threatened to make them indistinguishable from other private schools or hospitals) The leaders of these organizations realized that retaining a distinct religious identity in the face of such pressures would require a deliberate effort. An institutional religious identity could not simply depend on the private spirituality the individual workers might bring to their jobs. Such spirituality was likely to remain private to each individual, since there are strong American cultural norms against sharing one's spirituality in the workplace. A school's, a hospital's, or a social agency's institutional religious identity had to be developed and shared in a way that would be transformative: grounding the daily operations of each department, underlying the administrative decisions, and spurring an ongoing, institution-wide search for new and creative ways to be a Catholic (or Jesuit or Vincentian) organization. Many religious hospitals, colleges, and other institutions, therefore, created special mission-effectiveness positions to address these goals. The person filling this role--often the last remaining member of the sponsoring congregation still in full- Review for Religious time ministry there--has typically been responsible for activities such as the following: ¯ orienting new staff and administrators to the charism or ethos of the sponsoring religious community (Jesuit scholarship, Vincentian caring, the spirit of Mercy); ¯ organizing periodic retreats and seminars for long-standing staff and administrators, in order to keep the spirit of the founding congregation fresh and alive; ¯ conducting various spiritual "leaven" activities: leading daily prayers over the public address system, organizing liturgies, providing short reflective prayers before meetings, disseminating newsletters or daily bulletins, erecting and maintaining religious iconography, and so forth; ¯ creating psychic and physical spaces where staff and administrators feel encouraged to share their spiritual journeys; ¯ estab-lishing awards for staff and administrators who most typify the founding spirit, and publicizing the winners of these awards; ¯ writing, updating, and promulgating the mission statement; ¯ raising ~ssues of mission and ethics at meetings of the board of trustees and other instances when key decisions are made; ¯ acting .as liaison with the sponsoring congregation, to help define what the implications of congregational sponsorship are for the institunon; ¯ serving as the religious-identity spokesperson to the media, overseeing public relations activities connected to the institution's religious identity. This is the ideal, of course. Many mission-effectiveness directors are marginalized, lacking any real input into the organization's decision making. A recent study found that "even in colleges that maintain the vice-presidential rank for the mission-effectiveness officer, there is no guarantee that the position will enjoy institutional prominence . Frequently the position operates on the .periphery of the college, resulting in compartmentalization rather than integration of mission concerns into daily senior-level academic or administrative decision making.''4 Mission statements may be mere words, Many mission-effectiveness directors are marginalized, lacking any real input into the organization's decision making. July-August 2002 PVi~tberg * Reciprocal Identities uncoupled from and alongside the day-to-day running of the institution. But at least the concept of mission effectiveness exists in our institutions, and we can readily articulate the kinds of activities such a position would involve. Apostolic-Identity Catalyzer: An Unknown (but Necessary) Role The same is not true for the position which I have termed the Apostolic-Identity Catalyzer. In fact, the apostolic congregations I know of do not have such a person. But, if mission-effectiveness offices are important for maintaining the religious identity of a school or hospital in the absence of its founding religious congregation, an apostolic-identity office should be equally important in helping maintain the apostolic identity of a religious congregation that is uncoupled from its institutions. In this section I will try to explain why I believe this to be so. When apostolic religious congregations withdrew from their institutions, they lost a key component of their former identity. Monastic and evangelical congregations, which had been inappropriately conformed to the apostolic model in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, could--and often did--simply revert to their original identities. But, to the extent that apostolic congregations had drawn their identity from their specific institutional works, they have had to devise a new articulation of who they are as a group and why they exist. "Isomorphic" pressures have also influenced this process. These pressures do not come from government regulations, professional standards, or economic pressures dictating what kind of identity an apostolic congregation should assume. Rather, they come from the ideals or "templates" current in the church and in society, which presume a primarily spiritual basis for the identity of religious groups. These spiritual foci commonly fill the void left by the loss of a congregation's institutional apostolate. Some apostolic communities have thus become more like small Christian communities, faith-sharing groups, or even parishes. The members minister in various locations and professions, pray privately every day, and meet regularly as a group for shared prayer and/or socializing: Other congregations Review for Religious have formed intentional communities that more closely approximate the monastic model: the members live and pray communally, but leave for separate ministries during the day. In either case, the conKregation begins to draw its identity more and more from the common spiritual activities of its members, and less and less from any common apostolic character. New entrants are attracted by the spirituality of the congregation, not by its distinctive common apostolates --which no longer exist. The metamorphosis continues. If apostolic religious life is to retain its distinctive identity, apostolic congregations must take deliberate steps to foster it. As with the religious identity of our former institutions, this will not happen automatically. Nor can we assume that our congregation is apostolic simply because we, as individual religious, give witness to God's love in our individual apostolates. (Surely all Christians are called to do that!) A congregation's apostolic identity must be transformative of the entire congregation, grounding the daily operations within the motherhouse, provincialates, and local houses, und.erlying the decisions of the council or leadership team, and spurring the community on its search for new and creative ways to be an apostolic congregation. This is where an apostolic-identity office would be useful. Since I know of no congregation that provides for such a role, the following list of suggested tasks is deliberately modeled on the activities which mission-effectiveness offices perform in our sponsored institutions. Within a given congregation, therefore, the AIC might be responsible for some or all of the following tasks: ¯ Orienting new members to the apostolic tradition of the congregation, as part of the formation program. This might include workshops or presentations, along with arranging visits to the former institutions and interviews with retired sisters who used to work there. ¯ Organizing periodic retreats and seminars for the professed and associate members of the congregation on the way(s) the congregation currently expresses its apostolic identity. This might include facilitating volunteer opportunities (whether single days throughout the year or six-week summer experiences) at some sites. Or theologians might be invited to community gatherings to discuss the various theologies of the interaction July-Augt*st 2002 Wittberg * Reciprocal Identities between spirituality and the apostolate. Or the clients served may be invited to give input on how they see the apostolic witness of the congregation and how it can be improved. ¯ Conducting various apostolic "leaven" activities within the congregation: circulating specially written prayers for specific apostolates and/or designating specific days of prayer for them; writing feature articles on the apostolates in the congregation's newsletter and/or disseminating a special newsletter on the apostolates; organizing the collection of money and goods; erecting and maintaining displays of apostolic artifacts at the motherhouse and elsewhere; initiating letter-writing campaigns to elected officials on apostolic issues; and so forth. ¯ Creating psychic and physical spaces where members are encouraged to share the insights, joys, and sorrows they have derived from their apostolates. The Daughters of Charity, with whom I currendy live, have a special monthly apostolic reflection wherein each member of the local house shares some incident from her ministry through which God has spoken to her that day. In a local house of another congregation where I once lived, we spent an afternoon and evening visiting each sister's work-place so that we could have a mental picture of the setting in which she spent a good part of her day. ¯ Establishing awards or other forms of recognition for individual members whose apostolic works witness to the character of the congregation, and publicizing these awards in the congregation and in the surrounding neighborhood or town or city. ¯ Leading reflections and other activities on the apostolic aspects of the congregation's mission statement (or facilitating the composition of such a statement if one does not currently exist). ¯ Raising issues of the congregation's apostolic identity at council meetings (which implies that the AIC is a member of the council). ¯ Initiating a congregational reflection to define exactly what the "sponsor" relationship requires of the congregation. As at least one critic has pointed out, the duties and obligations of sponsorship are often specified for the sponsored institution, but rarely are similar duties and obligations spelled out for the sponsoring congregation,s The MC might encourage meetings of both the leadership and the membership to outline the responsibilities the congregation has toward its institutions. Once these are determined, the AIC might be the one to see that they are met. Review for Religious ¯ Serving as a liaison with the various sponsored ministries. If the congregation has a separate board of sponsored ministries, then the AIC should be a member of it (and perhaps chair it). ¯ Serving as the apostolic-identity spokespdrson for the congregation to the media, overseeing public-relations activities connected with the congregation's apostolic identity. Again, this is an idealized picture. As with the mission-effectiveness offices in our former institutions, the activities of the apostolic-identity office may be marginalized in a given religious community. Many religious are so heavily involved in their ministries that they may resist invitations to set aside time to do this kind of communal apostolic sharing. Others may wish to forget about their jobs--especially if they find them draining and exhausting--and focus on more spiritual and recreational matters during the congregation's brief time together. Still others, formed in the days of common ministry within large institutions, may not - feel the need to discuss how apostolate is related to religious life today. And, since an apostolic-identity office is such a novel concept, many may not see why one is needed at all. Surely our congregation is already top-heavy with leadership? Why do we need to release another member from active ministry to do this? Perhaps the demise of the apostolic form of religious life is inevitable. Large hospitals, colleges, and other institutions may have become so bureaucratized and professionalized that they can no longer credibly represent a corporate Catholic vision of education, healthcare, or social service (although, of course, individual teachers or nurses--lay and religious--may still bring their private spiritualities to their jobs in these institutions). Fast-paced American culture, steeped in workaholism, may make it difficult to stop and be reflective about the work we do. There Many religious are so heavily involved in their ministries that they may resist invitations to set aside time to do this kind of communal apostolic sharing. Ju~-dugu¢ 2002 Wittberg * Reciprocal Identities may be a greater need for religious life forms focused on community and spirituality than on work--especially work in large institutions. Certainly monastic and contemplative religious communities are showing stronger growth than most apostolic ones.6 Religious life may thrive in monastic, evangelical, or future undreamed-of forms, even if its apostolic version becomes extinct. Perhaps an AIC would be a useless relic of a time already past. Or perhaps not. Perhaps what the world most needs is the witness of a group whose common vision for a transformative spiritual identity permeates the offices, factories, and marketplaces where its members work. Perhaps the reciprocal dialectic of religious community and sponsored ministry, each forming and transforming the other, is a longed-for alternative to the prevailing, "Enronized" corporate culture. Perhaps apostolic religious congregations possess the seed of a new corporate ministerial presence in the world, over and above the scattered individual ministries of their members. If so, then this vision, this dialectic, this presence, must be fostered and nurtured to growth. An AIC would have her job cut out for her. Notes i This is a terribly unattractive name, of course, but I am unable to think of any other. If this article persuades any congregation to establish the office of apostolic-identity catalyzer, they might consider naming it after a founding member who exemplified the apostolic dedication the congregation wishes to foster. 2 Margaret Susan Thompson, "Charism or Deep Story? Towards Understanding Better the 19th-Century Origins of American Women's Congregations," Review for Religious 58, no. 3 (May-June, 1999): 230-250. 3 According to sociologists studying organizations, "isomorphism" refers to the many pressures, both external and internal, which lead them to adopt similar practices. External pressures would include government regulations, professional accreditation standards, and the demands of customers/clients. Internal pressures would include ways of thinking that administrators develop from all of them being trained in the same schools, clinging to established practices in times of uncertainty, and needing to project an image of competence. See Walter W. Powell and Paul J. DiMaggio, eds., The New Institutionalfim in Organizational Analysis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991). 4 Dennis H. Holtschneider CM and Melanie M. Morey, "Relationship Review for Religious Revisited: Changing Relations between U.S. Catholic Colleges and Universities and Founding Religious Congregations," Occasional Paper No. 47, Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges. s Melanie M. Morey, Leadership and Legacy: ls There a Future for the Past? A Study of Eight Colleges Founded by Catholic VVomen's Religious Congregations, dissertation, School of Education, Harvard University, 1995, p. 203. 6 "Monasteries Enjoy Boom, with Some Help from Marketing," Religion Watch 17, no. 6 (April 2002): 2-3. Promissory In early March buds begin to swell on my peach tree. It is too soon. This uncertain month delivers snow and fro~t with its warm, sweet winds. But there they are, small, swelling promises of succulent fruit, nature's resurrective fiat silently shouting down my wintery worry with summer's certainty. Bonnie Thurston July-Aug~tst 2002 GEORGE ASCHENBRENNER Diocesan Priesthood: Discerning the Fire in Our Midst spirituality These are not easy days for the diocesan priesthood. Sexually inappropriate behavior has been making rousing--and saddening--copy in newspapers and magazines. This behavior can be, must be, viewed from a number of different perspectives. I mention just a few: the horrendous injustice and injury done to the victims; the sickness, often, of the perpetrator himself; the lack of honest dealing with sexual urges; the unjust accusation of some priests; the betrayal and undermining of the trust of many members of the church; and the faithful, generous service of many unheralded diocesan priests. I do not deny the seriousness of the present situation, nor am I insensitive to the many serious repercussions of the publicity. We all have much to learn from this difficult time for the diocesan priesthood. Seminary formation programs--indeed each individual priest--must honestly and carefully look at both sexual orientation and the swirling interior cauldron of sexual impulse, fantasy, and urge. Sexuality George Aschenbrenner SJ was cofounder of the Institute for Priestly Fbrmation at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, and.is director of the Jesuit Center for Spiritual Growth; P.O. Box 223; Wernersville, Pennsylvania 19565. Review for Religious is only one aspect, but always an important one, of the discerning presence 6f the diocesan priest in the midst of a local people. This article is not about the sexual aspect of discernment, but implications for that area of human experience will be easily recognized. I focus on a central constituent of diocesan priesthood, namely, the priest's discerning presence in the midst of a local people. (In a recent book I develop this and other charisms that are needed in diocesan priesthood.)! The desires and needs of his people seek, from the diocesan priest, discernment, the art of holiness, but these desires and needs may not be easily detected. Holiness, in itself, does not seem something most people are daily concerned with. But reflection may suggest otherwise. Though often thought of or spoken of in other words and with a deceptive indirectness, the longing of the human heart for more--for something beyond what we have and appreciate, beyond our present knowing--stirs in all of us from time to time, especially in quiet moments. If we sometimes find this longing in ourselves, we must assume it in others as well. And, when the glow has faded from life and still we cannot say or put into words what we are missing, we and others may recognize that this longing for more is really a desire for an ever greater goodness, for holiness, in fact a desire for God. The ordinary people of a parish feel this in many ways, but may seldom try to express it. They desire holiness, a relationship that gets them out of the narrow confines of their own self. They seek greater meaning, more happiness, and greater love in the humdrum of ordinary living. Other people in the parish are more explicit and direct. They want to pray better; they want to know God's love more; they want their faith to be more alive. Though some may have a counselor or friend with whom they speak of these concerns, the principal person to whom people bring such stirrings and longings is their diocesan priest. They look to him for help, for answers, for the solution to their dissatisfaction. But what can the priest do? What answers does he have? He is presumed to have the graced art of daily growth in holiness. This is precisely what we mean by discernment of spirits. It is a very human process, God's subtle inspiration enlightening us to interpret, make sense of, the fire of God's awesome love present in the ordinary daily experience of us all. In various ways the human psyche is always encountering our Ascbenlrrenner * Diocesan Priestbood loving God. And these experiences are indeed profoundly human, and yet so much more. In faith they are experiences of a love promising a joy that alone can satisfy our longings, to some real extent here and now, but fully only on the other side of death. This discerning art of holiness is not a catalogue of answers to be learned and then distributed on request. Rather, it is a life to be lived in the uniquely personal part of our hearts, and yet with extroverting implication for all our human brothers and sisters and for our union with them in the transformation of our whole expanding universe. This article, then, is not a minicourse on discernment, nor is it a review of the answers a priest will need for all the people's questions. Rather, I want to present something of what is involved in a priest's discerning understanding, in his radiating the fire of the Holy Spirit for the people of his parish. I will describe four steps that are part of a discerning life and then three dimensions of the human stage on which the drama of a personal love-relationship with God is played. As a spiritual leader in the midst of the parish, the priest must have a reflective understanding of the art of discernment, seen as the dynamics of any mature faith life. This charism prepares the priest to play two important roles of service among the people: as a guide into the mystery of God's fire of love and as a soul doctor for those being healed and purified in that same fire. Discernment: God's Story of Mature Faith Growth Holiness and growth in union with God always involve the full human person alive in his or her concrete circumstances. A person's spiritual maturity, then, involves good actions, but also much more. It involves feeling and emotion, but also much more. Together with concern for actions and feelings, spiritual maturity must go down into a person's inner core. It is from this core that God's love should radiate into holy action and feeling so that people can readily become aware of God's love in the world. This radiation is an invitation to notice and welcome God's love in every situation. Discernment of spirits means achieving such recognition. Sometimes discernment is mistakenly seen as one of any number of approaches to mature spiritual development. Indeed, Review for Religious some schools of faith growth have their own terminology. Under these different articulations, however, is one fundamental process of growth toward mature faith, a sorting of inner experiences. For this reason, discernment of spirits is the story of personal faith growth, God's story of it. This process has two roots: our human reality within God's creation and God's revelation in Jesus. Discernment of spirits is God's story of us, narrated both in our makeup as human creatures and in God's love for us all in Jesus. If only this love shone clearly, brilliantly, beautifully in every situation! At times it does, of course, but at other times the radiance of this love is stained by smog or hidden by a heavy cloud of evil. If all were goodness, grace, and beauty, how wonderful--and surely no need for any careful sorting in such a good world. Or, if all were evil, darkness, and wickedness, we would live on the brink of despair--but, again, no need for any sorting or sifting. But, when the world of human beings is ambiguous and mixed, and still we are c~lled to find the goodness in it and to display it in ourselves in our daily lives, then a discernment of spirits within ourselves assumes an essential importance. We must learn to distinguish our selfish impulses from the radiant inspirations of the Holy Spirit of God. Most people have not developed the skills for expert discerning of spirits, but, if they do no discerning at all, mature faith eludes them. The priest, then, the spiritual leader and soul doctor in the parochial community, must do the hard work of learning the theory and practice of soul doctoring, of discerning holiness. In the midst of such careful inner sorting, we must never forget this: God desires and is committed to each of us in Jesus more than we can fully realize--and the Holy Spirit is constandy active in our hearts and our world. Christian holiness always has its initiative in the fire of God's loving desires for us. It is never a figment of our imagination or a product of our willpower. It is the mystery of God's precious gift for us all. But each of us must The priest must have a reflective understanding of the art of discernment, seen as the dynamics of any mature faith life. 3~uly-du~lst 2002 Aschenbrenn~ * Diocesan Priesthood learn to recognize, receive, and nurture the gift. And we need a guide to lead us, in some special ways, into the fire, into the radiant glow of that mystery: God's love burning bright in Jesus. The Material of Discernment God wants each of us to imitate.Jesus uniquely. The great challenge and invitation that haunts us all is to discover our true self in Christ. For each of us God intends a unique revelation of Christ. Though the enterprise has very complex aspects, the point is as simple as it is startling: God wants each of us to imitate Jesus uniquely. The very self that God intends each of us to be is a unique, living imitation of Jesus. And that life of ours is meant to shine for all the world. This true self, this unique revelation, this treasure is camouflaged in the spontaneous interiority of our daily consciousness. This pearl of great price, this treasure beyond all value, must be searched for and recognized when stumbled upon. Into the daily spontaneous consciousness of the priest and of his people come many images, feelings, thoughts, impulses, and moods, sometimes quietly, some-times shockingly. This inner world has a variety of seasons, bright hopeful springs and dark threatening winters. We might wish we could glimpse our true self in Christ conveniently and directly, avoiding tentative efforts to interpret these various elements in ourselves like the weather. But we do not even have anything like a satellite picture of our ow~ inner world. God takes the complexity of our human condition seriously, and so Jesus usually comes to us at the place where our own consciousness tangles with today's large or small historical realities. To try to avoid this encounter would be to deprive ourselves--and other people, too--of our unique opportunity to reveal Jesus Christ as God intends, that is, in daily circumstances that without our presence may lack the glow and radiance of fire. Whenever one person avoids these opportunities, the radiance of us all is somehow dimmed. The diocesan priest, doctor of souls that he is called to be, must not fail to uncover the treasure in these moments; others, seeing it, will carry the glow far beyond him. Revie~ for Religiou~ This discerning search for the treasure of our true self can be described in four steps, steps easier to describe than to apply to real circumstances. My intention is to describe the steps so that the priest can learn to recognize them in his own experience and then make them his own. This discerning process can then help the priest, the soul doctor, to guide people in discovering and welcoming the mystery of God's love in their own hearts and lives. Turned toward God This first step is most important and profound: an identity in Jesus Christ. Until this identity has been cultivated enough, serious discernment is not possible. A serious turning to God readies the heart for discernment and so initiates any trustworthy searching for the treasure of God's personal, uniquely specific love. This turning is a real change that grades the ground of our heart to a new incline: away from ourselves and toward God. It is more than a passing fancy or a momentary quirk. The realization that we are conceived, marked, and shaped from the dawn of our existence by a God who always and only loves, this realization takes root and changes the landscape of our daily lives. This realization of a Love greater than the love we have for ourselves stops us in our tracks. It invites an about-face. It gets us out of ourselves. A whole new vista opens up. We have discovered and been turned toward Someone more beloved than we are to ourselves. Is this Love for real? Can this Beloved be trusted? What are we to make of all this, of these subtle perceptions. As we pay closer attention to them, the realization can come that receiving and responding to such Love assumes an importance beyond all else. The ground under our feet shakes and radically shifts. At this juncture, there is a clarity; something has clearly changed. A central question has been posing itself in our heart for a long time: Am I the ultimate meaning of my own life? As we heard that question, the winds of our contemporary culture kept howling their answer: "Yes, of course! Of course I am the ultimate meaning 'of my own life! If not I, who else could be?" But now that yes is radically shaken and splinters into a clear no. The tree of my life is changed. I am no longer the ultimate July-Augwst 2002 Ascbenlrrenner ¯ Diocesan Priesthood meaning of my own life. Now my life's meaning is God's Love-- as promised and present in the risen Jesus. A new sun has risen, and it will never set. Now life becomes, more and more, fascination with this mysterious Beloved and radical openness and readiness for whatever that Love draws me to. Something has deepened and developed. An early seedling of religious intuition has become the fragile sprouting of a realization that by being tested becomes stronger and more deeply rooted. An early surmise and semiconscious intuition becomes a resolute desire of will. No tall grass shivering in the wind, but a tree, deeply rooted and still growing. This resolute desire shapes and casts our lives in love: first, God's ever faithful love in the risen Jesus and then our own love, our carefully discerned response of love. From now on, life is about love, at times tough love, but love nonetheless, and always. Make no mistake about that! In some important way, we are no longer in charge of our own lives. God is! Life is not yes to self, but yes to God, as shown in Jesus ("with him it was always yes," 2 Co 1:19). Facing Our Spontaneous Life Insofar as the countercultural movement to God's love has begun to take serious rooting in our heart, a second step beckons. Only honest facing of our inner spontaneous life makes it possible for us to find, in faith, trustworthy understandings about God. This statement is true, but it prescinds from the ingenuity of human consciousness for dishonest avoidance and selfish projection. We must learn, as best we can, to stand clear of these deceits and deceptions, whether conscious or unconscious, if we are to discern God's loving desire in our hearts. This is no easy matter, and invites the priest to an asceticism leading to truth and love. Sometimes this asceticism, always motivated by a growing desire to live in God's consoling love, will involve unlearning some previous training. An overly rationalistic view of Christian spirituality downplays, even scorns, the role of spontaneity and feeling, while on the other hand a supersensitivity to feeling and sentiment can smuggle into Christian spirituality a presumption that proclaims, sometimes quite unwittingly, that whatever we feel is God's will for us. In both of these instances, a previous Review for Religious learning must be honestly acknowledged, judged as incorrect, and gradually changed. As difficult as this change may seem, especially when the previously learned viewpoint has taken deep root, such a conversion is always possible for two reasons: first and foremost, the mystery of God's steadfast desire to get through to us and, second, our own soul's desire for ever greater radiance. If the priest stays in close touch with these two desires, he will be capable of whatever transformation is necessary because it will really be the work of the radiant Holy Spirit of God beckoning him beyond his own depth and into the realm of greater mystery in faith. A Wisdom of Interpretation in Faith In the process of the discernment I am describing here, for someone clearly turned toward God and honestly sensitive to the flow of inner spontaneity, the issue becomes a matter of meaning: Where is God in all of this? The answer requires a certain wisdom and ability to interpret. But interpretation could spring from any number of different vantage points, for example, from lived common sense, from majority cultural opinion, from professional human development, or from Christian faith. All of these different "wisdoms" might overlap to a small or large extent, but each would produce a different conclusion when used as the central focus of interpretation. In discernment the focus is profoundly one of Christian faith, a faith radiating with the experience of Jesus Christ and revealed in the Holy Spirit. How God is present here, now, offering a love beyond all loves--that is the central concern for a person turned toward and identified in God. As we have seen already, God is always present in all of our present historical world and in all of our spontaneous inner experience, but never simply and completely present to us. That treasure of a love beyond all value, that revelation of our own unique imitation of Jesus, must be sought in the mixture and confusion of our inner lives. An enlightenment of the Holy Spirit springing from our experience of God's faithful love alone--that is the gift needed at this point. Such enlightenment and wisdom differ subtly, though sharply, from enthusiastic generosity and simplistic sincerity. By themselves, without graced wisdom, these two qualities lack a North Star and can be dangerously ~Tuly-Au~st 2002 Aschenbrenner * Diocesan Priesthood misleading. The wisdom referred to here has a profound paschal orientation and is found more and more decisively present and operative in Jesus as he moves into the depths of his Passion all the way to Calvary and into his resurrected glory. This wisdom and enlightenment is hot the result of taking an academic course or reading a book. And it is not some sleight of hand or guesswork either. It is a grace the priest must pray for regularly. It has a firm context, and this helps the priest to be sure about the giftedness of his insight. The insight is tested in relation to the polestar of our identity in God's love. The. presence of the Holy Spirit is revealed in anything that conforms to our resolute desire to keep God's love, not self-love, as our focus. And anything that violates this focus is not an inspiration from God, but a nudge, large or small, toward self-idolatry. A pleasure-pain instinct in all of us tries to tilt us toward self-idolatry. This instinct of liking pleasure and fearing pain is understandable and healthy. But, when we let it assume a priority and centrality, when it becomes the focal light for our interpretation, then we become narcissistic. This pleasure-pain principle, in itself, is never fully identified with the paschal enlightenment of God's love. It was not so identified in the experience of Jesus. The pleasure-pain instinct did not plot his course to his beloved Father. Escaping 'the dominance of this instinct demands an asceticism. We are not to renounce this instinct pure and simple; rather, we renounce it as the polestar of our identity. Developing in faith our interpersonal relationship of love with God in the beauty of Jesus will not completely get rid of this instinct, but will weaken it. God's love ~n Jesus has become the treasure beyond all value, and what a grace it is to know indescribable pain when deprived of that treasure. To learn how to stand with Jesus, sometimes in pleasure and at other times in pain--this is the mature wisdom of a person consciously living in God's love. It is to claim the treasure intended by God before the foundation of the world: a radiant true self uniquely imitating the mystery of Jesus. Tactics for Intimacy with God The final step in this process is decisive tactics in accord with the paschal-faith interpretation of the previous step. For Review for Religious someone whose heart is resolutely set on following the lead of God's love, anything experienced as an incarnation of that love (often called consolation) is to be embraced, claimed, and lived, and anything that deflects us from God's love and toward self-idolatry (usually called desolation) is to be rejected and courageously withstood. In this step the issue is courage and decisive generosity, something possible only when illumined and strengthened by paschal wisdom. The issue is whether we will follow, and how wholeheartedly, the revelation of the Holy Spirit. This is the time for the soul's character to be healed and for faith to be annealed in the fire of the Holy Spirit. This process helps the hidden self grow strong, so that the priest can be a discerning presence in the midst of the people. Discernment, a life of mature spirituality, always acknowledges, distinguishes, and then interrelates three different dimensions of human existence: external behavior, what I call the core of the soul, and inner spontaneity. To develop and live out of the core of our true self is never easy, if possible at all in our post-modern world, but is always crucial for responsible, mature living in faith. Today's culture has great need of doctors of the soul who can facilitate the development of this core sense of true self through the integration of these three dimensions of human existence. Though our external behavior is perceptible and often consumes enormous energy, it is nothing more than a superficial part of our being. The activity on this stage poses a question of meaning, a question that it cannot itself answer even though it may seem to contain adequate answers for others and even ourselves. In our daily activity we touch and influence many people. As the New Testament reminds us, the activity of sincere loving reveals the genuineness of our faith. In the midst of our busy lives, the question often rises in our hearts: Are we simply what we do? Some careful reflection is needed to answer correctly and accurately. The question often rises in our hearts: Are we simply what we do? 2002 .~chenbrenner ¯ Diocesan Prie~thood A Hidden Self Grown Strong The soul's core is the unique and deepest part of every human person. This core plays a crucial role in the discovery of our true self in the beauty of Christ. A deep-hearted personal world, a treasure beyond value, is gradually revealed, acknowledged, and then laid claim to, though this whole process is much more one of receiving than of making. This inner core has a depth and a simplicity that is beyond words. As we grow in our appreciation of this personal center, its presence dawns, alluringly shrouded in mist and mystery. In the shifting mists of this mysterious realm, a noisy world is hushed. God breathes eternal love and life into this core of our soul moment by moment and on into eternity. This same creative love, unique to each of us, is in all of us. Our experience of God and of ourselves becomes ever more profound, personal, and unique. Even as you now read, this profoundly personal inner experience, this quiet steady conversation of love at our deepest core, gives the lie to feelings of suffocating loneliness. It gives the lie to the hateful notion that anybody is rotten to the core. Because of Jesus' love, a buried treasure, a pearl beyond pricing, a hidden self waits to be discovered in each human being, to be embraced, and to grow strong. Spontaneity takes place in the "skin" of our soul, in the rational and affective human experience of us all. As mentioned earlier, this experience of spontaneity conceals the deep treasure of our true self in Christ. These spontaneities of thinking and feeling may skitter across the skin of our souls, but do not touch the core. Spontaneities of impulse, image, and mood can flail and crackle and roar across our lives like an electrical storm. Such skitterings, such storms, coming and going, can bother or frustrate or enrage us. But they do, finally, pass. This level, spontaneous unintended experience, has the unpredictability of shifting sands and is not capable of the rock-like dependability of the core of the soul. This skin of the soul poses its own question: Are we simply and wholly identified by what we spontaneously think or feel? Though "what I feel" is never equal to "who I am," in the midst of a temporary storm we can all too easily judge otherwise. These spontaneities, though, really are on a different level. They are part of a process of integration, of coming to spiritual Review for Religious maturity, but they have their meaning only in relation to the soul's core. The presen.ce of these three dimensions of our persons and the four-step discernment process for integrating them should be familiar to the priest. Such integration is the way to mature faith and to appropriate activity that mature faith leads to. This integration is sometimes easy and obvious, sometimes confusing and excruciating. But doing it in love, doing it in our own unique imitation of Jesus' way of loving us, makes it possible, encouraging and strengthening us. This is the realm of service for a doctor of the soul. If the seminary communicates this and if it continues long after ordination, the result of this integration, this purification, will be like gold, bright and not sadly tarnished. To his service of their souls, the priest will bring a radiance that can illumine and develop the bright potential of their own lives. This radiance will be God's love shining from the face of the risen Jesus, still serving in our midst. Notes I George Aschenbrenner SJ, Quickening the Fire in Our Midst: The Challenge of Diocesan Priestly Spirituality (Chicago: Loyola Press, 2002). 2 See George Aschenbrenner SJ, "A Hidden Self Grown Strong," in Handbook of Spirituality for Ministers, ed. Robert J. Wicks (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1995), pp. 228-248. "Hidden Self," pp. 236-240. In the Words of Meister Eckhart The soul loves the body tenderly, even when, like a child on edge, it runs rambunctious through desire collapsing at last and won&ring why. Maryanne Hannan ~Tuly-dugv~st 2002 ERNEST E. LARKIN Desert Spirituality Booth Christian Meditation and centering prayer come out f early monasticism, which itself is a development of desert spirituality? Christian Meditation is the prayer of the heart described by John Cassian, the historian of desert spiri-tuality, who brought the wisdom of the desert fathers and moth-ers of Egypt and the Middle East to the West. Centering prayer comes out of the Cloud of Unknowing, a 14th-century English text that enshrines the contemplative traditions of the desert. It is no accident that both these contemplative prayer forms came to us by way of Benedictine and Trappist monasteries. Desert spirituality was the beginning of Christian monasti-cism and the matrix out of which Western monks developed their lifestyle. Contemplative prayer was at the heart of their life, and desert spirituality was the context. This article proposes to examine those ancient traditions and adapt them to our times. Desert spirituality is a technical term that has biblical and early Christian roots. The desert experience is a staple of both the Old and the New Testaments, for example, in the Exodus story, in the life of Elijah and the prophecy of Hosea, in John the Baptist, the forty-day fast of Jesus, and the three-year novitiate of Paul in Arabia (Ga 1:17). This desert experience was devel-oped into a coherent spirituality by the desert fathers and moth- Ernest E. Larkin OCarm wrote for us twice in 2001. His address remains Kino Institute; 1224 East Northern; Phoenix, Arizona 85020. Review for Religious ers in the 3rd and 4th centuries of the Christian era. These fer-vent Christians fled to Egypt and the Middle East to escape the decadence of an effete Roman empire. The wastelands offered a stark and untrammeled setting for a life of penance and prayer. Its rugged emptiness and its silence and solitude invited the flight from the world OCuga mundi). A special appeal to heroic souls was the belief that the demons infested the wastelands and could be met there in open combat. It did not take long for the desert dweller to discover that the demons were within and to be engaged on the battleground of the soul. Life in the desert was simple. Manual labor broke the monotony of the silence and solitude of the cell and provided .its own asceticism as well as sustenance and something for almsgiving. Desert dwellers spent their days in soul searching and the pursuit of the living God. Community life, especially when the solitary life prevailed, and outreach in ministry were clearly sec-ondary and not really part of the inte-rior struggle. Continuous prayer was the focus, and the abbas and the ammas spent their time in lectio div-ina, reading the psalms and the breviary, celebrating liturgy, and cultivating the prayer of the heart. These are the main fea-tures of desert spirituality. In this setting Christian holiness was a kind of white mar-tyrdom, a total giving over of one's life to God, the shedding of all self-indulgence in favor of a single-minded search for God. The desert was a graphic symbol of the emptiness of life and the otherness of God. The emptiness translated into purity of heart, a heart freed from sinful affections and centered on God. Thus the beatitude that best sums up desert spirituality is "Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God." Contemplation is the goal, and letting go of all lesser aims and surrender to the living God the condition. This general principle is abstract and can be lived out in an imaginary as well as a real desert. The desert as symbol universalizes desert spirituality as a possibility for everyone. There is, however, still place for the physical desert in ordinary Christian life. We examine this role The desert as symbol universalizes desert spirituality as a possibility for everyone. ]My-August 2002 Larkin ¯ Desert Spirituality in the next two sections of this paper, and we will return to the symbolic desert in the third section. Our first question is this: What can the desert do for me? In other words, why should I go out into the desert? The second question is a prophetic one: What can I do for a desert that is now under attack by the forces of neglect or consumerism? How do my efforts to protect the environment or my failure to participate affect my personal life? After these two reflections we will return to the overall princi-ple of desert spiritfiality, the call to emptiness and encounter with God. What Can the Desert Do for Me? In Scripture the desert is primarily the wasteland, and it leads to the garden of the promised land, the desert come to life, as in Isaiah 35:1-2: "The desert shall rejoice and blossom . The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon." Both the bleak image and the flowering one apply to the physical desert as we use the term today. The desert means the wilderness, the great outdoors. This includes barren wastelands like sand dunes or the scrubby flatlands of Texas or Arizona, but also verdant gardens, scenic forests, majestic moun-tains, and rolling plains. The desert is all the places on this beautiful earth that are still largely untouched by city sprawl and offer themselves as a refuge for weary people. These lands can be gift for our spirits. They refresh us and challenge us. They beckon us to "come aside and rest awhile," away from the noise and congestion of the city with its polluted air and harried traffic. The desert is the place to hike a trail, fish a stream, pic-nic with friends, or just smell the sage and be with one's long thoughts. " Except for some few families that have declared their inde-pendence and homesteaded in the wild and some rare hermits who have also settled there, people today only visit this desert; they do not dwell there. They go out for physical exercise and emotional refreshment, for meditation and for fun. They enter desert places hostile to human habitation very gingerly, armed with water jugs, proper sun gear, and ideally with companions. Some visit these "fierce landscapes" (Belden Lane) for excite-ment, others to deal with a crisis, a limit experience, a sorrow Review for Religious that overwhelms them. Perhaps unconsciously they are looking for an environment that mirrors their troubled soul. A good example of this kind of match between soul and terrain is a retreat for middle-aged men described in a recent publication.2 It was conducted by Richard Rohr and designed to help men from many walks of life through their midlife crisis. The retreat took place at Ghost Ranch in northern New Mexico in the sum-mer of A.D. 2000. The men were challenged to let down their defenses and face themselves squarely. The retreat turned out to be a harrowing rite of passage. The torrid summer heat and the bleak lonely emptiness of the desert combined with soul-search-ing introspection and dramatic rituals to test the most stout-hearted. More often retreats or "a day in the desert" are spent in more friendly spaces. An attractive pastoral setting calms the soul and provides the quiet that people need for facing the real issues of their life. God seems closer in pristine settings. One popular formula for such outings is the poustinia, a concept pop-ularized by Catherine de Hueck Doherty. Poustinia means her-mitage, and folks become poustiniaks for a day, bringing along only a Bible and a bit of bread and cheese. The poustinia can actually be a back room or the attic of one's home, but there are advantages in going out to the woods or the seashore. Getting out in the country, breathing in the fresh air and fragrances of the meadows, walking around the lake or trudging along paths in hilly terrain, can be healthy physical exercise and spiritual refreshment. These are ways of slowing down, of refus-ing to be a couch potato and insuring the balance of mens sana in corpore sano (a sound mind in a sound body). Grace builds on nature, so a healthy body and soul are a good basis for the life of God in us. A good health regime works directly against anx-ious, workaholic tendencies or the equally bad habit of inertia and laziness. Recreational activities also develop the playful side of our lives. This is our contemplative side. Visitors to the desert know that God is everywhere and that they do not have. to go up to the heavens or across the sea to find the word of God. "No," Deuteronomy says, "the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe" (Dt 30:11-14). But the desert facilitates the search. The wide open spaces, the silence and solitude, reveal God. July-August 2002 Larkin ¯ Desert Spirituality Silence is the best conta.ct point with God, since God is always present, though beyond speech, images, and concepts. The desert fosters this silence, this emptiness, the letting go of every-thing that is not of God. The desert is built for kenosis, the self-emptying of Jesus, who was perfectly open to God and was therefore exalted with the pleroma, the fullness of the resurrec-tion (Ph 2:5-11). The desert way is the way of emptiness and fullness. These reflections belong to the first step on the spiritual journey, the appreciation of creation. Original blessing pre-ceded original sin, and immersion in creation and appreciation and love for this gift ought to precede the work of redemption. This is the thinking of Teilhard de Chardin, Matthew Fox, Francis Kelly Nemeck, and Marie Theresa Coombs. More recently Dorothee Soelle sees "being amazed" as the first of the three ways or stages of the spiritual life? Instead of the classi-cal ways of purification, illumination, and union, she proposes "being amazed, letting go, and resisting" as the three steps. Amazement and appreciation help us take an objective stance before the earth, and this makes it easier to let go, the second of the three ways for Soelle. This leads us to involvement, to compassion and commitment, regarding the world. She calls this resistance, because it involves working against the threats to the environment and society. That is to say, we resist and work for justice in all areas of life, such as the economic and the eco-logical orders. The unitive way calls to action as well as divine union. What Can I Do for the Desert? The work of saving the earth is a challenge and responsi-bility for people everywhere today. The call resonates among informed spiritual persons. They have listened to the new cos-mology presented by scientists like Brian Swimme and the "geologian" Thomas Berry, and they have heard the plaintive warnings of the environmentalists that the earth is wounded and in danger of collapsing. The universe has become part of today's spiritual journey. The whole universe and its crown, homo sapiens, are seen as one vast living organism in which they depend on each other and rise and fall together. In the past the Revieva for Religious earth was looked upon as an appendage of humanity. Humanity alone counted, and the rest of creation was expendable. Human beings pursued their own desires recklessly, without thought about the effects in the environment. They could trash the earth, abuse it or destroy it, without worry because there were always other virgin territories to exploit in the same way. This was an affront to creation; we see it now as an affront to human life as well, because, in the words of Edward Abbey, "the wilderness is not a luxury but a neces-sity of the human spirit just as vital to our lives as water and good bread.''4 The uni-verse is an integral part of our human life. We are partners, and we participate in growth or decline together. In the abuse or destruction of the universe, we are diminished and dehumanized. The commission in Genesis 1:26 to have "dominion" over the earth did not give humans the right to abuse it. We are only caretakers, not absolute owners; we cannot take the myopic view of looking for an immediate return in pleasure or profit with no thought about the long-term loss to creation and the short-changing of future human beings. One reviewer of Thomas Berry's latest book, The Great Work: Our Way into the Future, quotes Berry and then adds some strong words of his own: "'What happens to the outer world happens to the inner world,' Berry avers. 'If the outer world is diminished in its grandeur, then the emotional, imaginative, intellectual, and spiritual life of the human is diminished or extinguished.' Our inner being will die if we continue to transform natural beauty into the soul-deadening, concrete-laden, box-store landscapes of a consumer society." s The obligation to safeguard the environment has three aspects: personal, societal, and spiritual. Each person needs to treat the desert with love and respect. Some of that concern is cosmetic, like cleaning up after using the land and properly dis-posing of the debris, especially nonbiodegradable material. Respect and moderation mean that we do not harm the plant life by careless trampling, that we obey rules about camp fires and camping, that we leave the natural beauty intact without pil-fering plants or otherwise harming the vegetation, that we Each person needs to treat the desert with love and respect. July-Aug;ust 2002 Larkin ¯ Dese~t Spirituality carefully control toxic substances like pesticides or poisonous chemicals. These are cominonsense suggestions. The societal obligation may take the form of joining groups like the Sierra Club that are dedicated to the environment, or of lending one's name to, say, Robert Redford's campaign to save the National Arctic Wildlife Refuge. Systemic problems can be addressed only by group action that can effect structural changes. We need to support these causes. There is no other way to stop the pollution of our waterways and atmosphere, to keep indugtrial wastes out of our rivers and lakes, to find ade-quate ways of dealing with nuclear waste, to stop the destruction of the ozone layer, to save the rain forests and wetlands, and to halt the woefully unbalanced overconsumption by the few. Elizabeth Johnson writes: "Every year, the twenty percent of Earth's people in the rich nations use seventy-five percent of the world's resources and produce eighty percent of the world's waste." 6 There is a special spiritual component today because of the crisis in saving the earth. Time is running out, and experts say that there are only twenty-five or thirty years left to turn the destructive spiral around. The problems are over-whelming, and the laborers are few. We can organize and we can work, but the odds are against us. At such times we need overt divine help. Specifically the challenge is to pray con-templatively, to face the societal impasse which Constance FitzGerald, in a famous article several years ago, connected with the dark night of St. John of the Cross: The dark night occurs as impasse in all sectors of human life, whether prayer, human relationships, or societal renewal. One response to impasse is trusting acceptance, silence before God, and lov-ing surrender, which bring wisdom and strength and which are qualities of contemplative prayer. We take our insoluble problems to God. We wait with faith and trust, ready to spring into action in changing what we can deal with and accepting what we cannot change. Contemplative prayer is an admission that our problems may be beyond human resources. But our prayer is full of hope, because contem-plation may stretch our imagination and inspire new creative ways of dealing with the problem. Solid prayer will certainly strengthen our resolve to continue the struggle. The popu- Review for Religious larity of contemplative prayer in our time may well be con-nected with the magnitude of the problems of this age. Desert Spirituality in Its Purest Form We return now to the traditional meaning of desert in the spiritual life, namely, desert as physical place and as symbol. The desert of the first abbas and aromas was the real wasteland. Anthony and Pachormus spurned the fleshpots of the Roman cities and went to the bleak deserts of Egypt to be alone with God and to keep careful watch over the movements of their hearts. The purity of heart they sought meant that they tried to choose only the good, to do everything right, in perfect measure, for the right reasons. They prayed and fasted to put to death the old man within themselves, so that the new man could come alive. They underwent this discipline for one reason: They wanted to see God. This goal was not face-to-face vision, as heaven will be (1 Jn 3:1-3); nor was it seeing God as an object, the way I see a person in front of me. Neither was it simply a new understanding, a new image of God, or a new perception. It was a seeing that meant presence, companionship, walking with God. It was contemplative union with God. Contemplation follows purity of heart as night follows day. We have a window into the thinking of the desert fathers and mothers in the first conference of John Cassian.s The imme-diate objective of life in the desert was purity of heart; this he called the skopos (English "scope"). The skopos is oriented to a further good, which he calls the telos, the end or final purpose. An example of these two aspects of human endeavor is the life of the farmer. The farmer prepares the soil, plants the seed, hoes and manures the field. All this is his immediate task, his sko-pos. But he does it all with a view to the harvest, which is the telos, the real purpose of his work. If the skopos of life in the desert is purity of heart, the telos is the fullness of the kingdom of God, the resurrected life. This program of seeking perfect purity of heart in order to find God can be applied to every Christian life. Purity of heart-- as freedom from every actual sin and as right relationships with self, others, the world, and God--is the immediate task of the daily struggle. Purity of heart is more than chastity; it is all the Larkin ¯ Desert Spirituality Purity of heart is all the virtues in perfect integration. virtues in perfect integration. This marvelous condition is often set in negative terminology. It is called detachment, or indif-ference, or freedom from sinful habits. But it is a very positive condition identified with biblical faith. This faith is the response to the word of God wherever it is recognized. It is the faith of the Virgin Mary in St. Luke's Gospel. At the annunciation, for example, she is perturbed at the angel Gabriel's message. How can she, a committed virgin, be the mother of the Messiah? When the angel assures her that God will provide, she gives her full assent to that word. She lets go of her own project in favor of God's word. A high degree of purity of heart means a heart full of faith. It means a heart full of love. The pure of heart are loving per-sons. They will see God, that is, they will know and love God, as described in the First Letter of John: "Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love . No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us" (1 Jn 4:7-8, 12). For the desert fathers and mothers and espe-cially for theologians like Evagrius and Gregory of Nyssa, see-ing God meant contemplation. This gift was the reward for the purification, and it consisted in experiencing union with God. This contemplation was not one particular experience, nor an altered state of consciousness. It came out of transformation. By allowing one's life to be brought under the movement of the Holy Spirit, one was born a new person, a "new creation" (2 Co 5:17). This new creature lived in the world of God and expe-rienced God in the whole gamut of his or her worldly occupa-tions. Contemplation was thus a way of life, not a particular experience. The Carmelite Application The evolution of desert spirituality suggested in this paper has special reference to Carmelite history. Carmel came out of Review for Religious the desert, born on Mount Carmel, home to the Old Testament prophet Elijah and to hundreds of hermits at the time of the Crusades. The Carmelites were one group of such hermits; they sought a rule of life from the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Albert of Avogadro, who held the office between 1206 and 1214. The result was the Rule of St. Albert, a contemplative and eremitical document that was simple, practical, and eminently scriptural. The tides of politics and war, however, forced the Carmelites to leave their sacred mountain and go back to Europe as early as 1238. The eremitic style of life underwent change in the direction of community and ministry, eventually making the order a mendicant one like the Dominicans and Franciscans. One of the early general superiors, Nicholas the Frenchman, tried to stem the move to the city. In 1270 he wrote a strong let-ter, called "The Fiery Arrow," calling the men to return to the desert. But the mendicant form of life had struck a chord in their hearts. They continued to foster their contemplative long-ing, but now they carried the desert in their hearts. The desert was a symbol now rather than the physical reality. A second charter of the order, called the Institution of the First Monks, dated 1370 and written by a Catalonian Carmelite, Philip Ribot, presented a symbolic life of Elijah and the example of the Blessed Mother as both a description and a defense of the new lifestyle. The book incorporated the thinking of John Cassian, especially on the structure of the religious life as the search for purity of heart and contemplation. The desert spirituality of Mount Carmel was adapted now to an active apostolic life. Henceforth Carmelite spirituality was at home in communities of active religious and lay people as well as cloistered contem-platives. The reform of Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross two centuries later built on this document and renewed and perfected the eremitical-contemplative ideal of Carmel. They did so, not only by promoting desert houses of total contem-plative life, but by organizing a way in which every Carmelite house could be, in the words of a great Carmelite of the next century, John of St. Samson, another Mount Carmel. The desert spirituality of Carmel's beginnings had become democratized and available to all who espouse the ideals of the Carmelite tradition. 3 73- --- July-August 2002 Larkin ¯ Desert Spirituality Notes t Christian Meditation and centering prayer are two popular forms of contemplative prayer, designed by John Main OSB and the Trappists at Spencer, Massachusetts, respectively, the former promoted by the World Community of Christian Meditation under Laurence Freeman OSB and the latter by Contemplative Outreach, whose leader is Thomas Keating OCSO. 2 Donal O'Leary, "High Noon at Ghost Ranch," Furrow 52 (January 2001): 27-35. 3 Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), pp. 88-93. 4 Cited from his Desert Solitaire by Thomas J. McCarthy, "The Ultimate Sanctum," America (9 April 2001): 6. s Stephen Bede Sharper, "A New Heaven and a New Earth," Christian Spirituality Bulletin 8 (Fall-Winter 2000): 15. 6 "God's Beloved Creation," America (16 April 2001): 9. 7 "Dark Night as Impasse," in Living with Apocalypse, ed. Tilden Edwards (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1984). s Conferences, of John Cassian, trans. Colm Luibheid (New York: Paulist Press, 1985), pp. 37-43. Devotion I am twelve, have read of the child Virgin martyrs, and decide it is High time I practice such virtue. At My next confession, after the usual Childhood sins, I say I want to Vow myself to God like a saint. The Assistant pastor, thinking fast, replies That at present I don't know The vocation God has chosen For me, but I may promise him My chastity until I take that vow, Or those of marriage. Satisfied, I rejoice in God's favor, and Make my promise. Mary Hanson Review for Religious BARBARA ZAJAC Three Forms of Community Living: A Survey Report For much of the 20th century, sisters who performed charitable service works lived in convents near the institutions they served. As missions and roles changed after the Sister Formation Conference (1950s) and Vatican Council II (1960s), so did the living arrange-ments, often necessitated by travel considerations. Congregations such as these had called themselves "communities" when they held common missions and residences, and they continue to use this term today even though--wearing few or no common ~ymbols, ministering in widely diverse occupations, and residing in locales favorable to their mission assign-ments- many are barely identifiable as members of a group of sisters. Puzzled that this topic received little attention in sociological literature aside from Wittberg's analyses (see Bibliography), I found myself raising several research questions about the meaning of "community." Does it mean a location-based entity? A process? A set of relationships? A task force? A par-ticular goal or ideal toward which people strive? As part of a larger study (Zajac, 1999b), I studied Barbara Zajac first contributed to our pages in 1999. Her current address is Department of Sociology; Indiana State University; Terre Haute, Indiana 47809. July-Aug£ust 2002 Zajac ¯ Three Forms of Community Living one religious order of apostolic sisters. Though from their founding the group provided chiefly educational and medical services, individual sisters now select their own mission assign-ments, which include traditional teaching and parish pastoral work, professional careers such as psychologist and speech pathologist, and social activism and feeding the homeless and hungry. Throughout California over a two-year period (1995 and 1996), fifty members of this congregation were interviewed indi-vidually and in-depth. Although the sample was volunteer and purposive, it is considered fairly ~:epresentative of the order in general (see Zajac, 1999a). Additional information was obtained from the group's monthly magazinE, religious periodicals, and selected participant observation. The group is given the pseudonym Sisters of Reconciliation of JesusI (SRJ). Similarly, individual names and identifying factors have been disguised or altered. What Community Means It is evident that there is no widespread consensus about the word community. Putting feelings into words was difficult for the sisters, and they responded in words they were comfortable using. Some began with what I would call generalized notions of community, and others described what community involves or how it can be formed and lived. Still others spol~e of mani-festations of community and of how community is maintained. Nearly everyone cited some of the qualities I will describe under manifestations of community. Anything approaching near agreement on most of the gen-eralized notions of community was absent. Some sisters attached the term to a specific location, while others denied the impor-tance of a spatial component. Some described community as an ongoing process that is never completed, or as an ability, agree-ment, or commitment. Others mentioned the people involved and the human connections among them. A number of the sis-ters spoke of community as a bond or tie among people, a togetherness, while others used such phrases as "a living-out of the vows," "a unanimity of vision and purpose," and "the charism [of the Sisters of Reconciliation] lived out." Regarding Review for Religious the often mentioned familial nature of community, there was much disagreement. Some denied that it is a family, some described it as "like" a family, and others claimed that it is "more than" a family. Certain sisters told me they think community involves notions of struggle, being invested in the group or having a sense of ownership about it. Some explained the factors by which they create for themselves a sense of "community," ger-mane to the can-be-done category. While at least one sister cited similar ministry as the key to community, others thought the key is personal characteristics such as being open to others, try-ing to understand them, and being thoughtful, prayerful, and considerate. Many said that much communication is needed, and a great deal of give-and-take, exemplified in being open to others, trying to understand them, and allowing for the flow of communication, with its misunderstandings, disagreements, and concurrences. Others talked of the mechanisms by which community can be sustained, such as living or working together, "making it happen," or constantly articulating the meanings. The latter suggestions are rather nonspecific, but the next item is quite different. Certain sisters told me they think community involves notions of struggle. Manifestations of Community Nearly everyone listed one or two qualities in the category called manifestations ofcommunity. A good many used a small number of emotionally laden terms, heartfelt terms: empathy, interconnectedness, sharing. Others used different words, but their intent seemed similar enough that I could not justify putting their statements elsewhere. Examples of this are "living together, not singly" and "working on things together." In this "manifestations" category many talked of the people they encountered, or of the work as being a continual process; some continued an articulation of "what community means to me." Human behaviors and interactions, with their sentiments July-August 2002 Zajac ¯ Three Forms of Community Living and attitudes, make up the heart of community. Empathy is expressed especially through concern and caring, through notic-ing and having interest in others. One person termed this a "feeling for" others, and many called it "support." Such senti-ments are displayed in such particular behaviors and actions as showing respect and appreciation or at least acceptance; if not, the reality of the sentiments is questionable. If empathy is pre-sent and expressed, the members of a group develop and main-tain an interconnectedness, an interdependence, a mutual sense of belonging. They develop a social solidarity. Empathy, empathic behavior, and interdependence work together in what is called sharing, which seems to be central. Nearly all the sisters interviewed mentioned the sharing of something, whether faith or prayer, tasks, worldly goods, help-ful services, or expressions of caring support. Sharing faith and the spiritual life was mentioned most frequently, and, along with it, the emotional support this sharing provided. Things like housework, goods, and ministry are shared differently, depending on the specific living arrangements (to be described shortly). The sharing of spirituality and various works rein-forces caring sentiments and behaviors and the sense of being interdependent. It is through sharing even ordinary things that crucial personal connections are created and sustained. Representative Community Groupings Three types of community living groups will be described: a self-named "intentional" community, what I term a residen-tial community, and a community of one. These are composite portraits. They do not describe every type of living situation, but seem representative of the arrangements of active Sisters of Reconciliation. Intentional Community "House of Peace" is the sign next to the doorbell of a large house in a run-down neighborhood of the central city where poverty is endemic and violence is the norm. The home of five SRJs, this intentional:community was formed with express pur-poses in mind. The sisters deliberately chose its location amid Review for Religious widespread desolation in order to identify with and serve the poorest people of the city. The members were selected for their personal and professional qualities, namely, a desire for an intense spiritual life and an unwavering dedication to the mis-sion of the Sisters of Reconciliation in serving the city's need-iest people. There are five regular residents. Sister Elaine Sherman runs a transitional housing program for homeless families. Sister Mary Anne coordinates the sisters' social-justice efforts. Sister Ruth Patrick, retired from a full career of teaching, daily trav-els twenty miles each way to where she cooks and serves meals to transients. Sister Bertina Marie, who is bilingual, is a com-munity activist and pastoral minister in the Spanish-speaking community. Sister Jane Th~r~se, who has not yet taken her final vows in religious life, teaches religion in a local Catholic high school and hopes to study divinity in the future. The house is also the home base of a sister working in a residential house for adolescents and of sisters visiting temporarily from mission lands or elsewhere. Sister Ruth Patrick, the oldest sister and the one longest in the SRJs, was the driving force for starting this new house. She had been aware of the brewing turbulence in religious life since the 1950s and thought then that the sisters ought to be living more adult lives than was possible while rigidly observing detailed rules and daily schedules in sequestered convents. She wanted to live out her own values explicitly, holding prayer in common, sharing with the poor, living very simply, and being concerned about others and accountable to them. And so she looked for sisters that she felt had a strong sense of the SRJ mis-sion and were dedicating their lives to living it. She looked for sisters who knew themselves well and.knew what would equip them well for their ministries. She looked for sisters who were aware of what would personally empower them and what might drain them of apostolic energy. She looked for sisters who were willing to give support to others and to receive it as well. Such sisters she approached with her proposal. Perhaps most important, these women must be open to new forms of prayer such as sharing of the heart rather than recit-ing formulaic prayers at specified hours. This prayer involves common reading of a passage from the Bible' and then individ- July-August 2002 Zajac ¯ Three Forms of Community Living ual reflection and comment on what the reading means to each one, how it applies to her own life. It demands a willingness to be open and vulnerable to other people. This sharing of faith and spirituality is not for everyone. Some older sisters, in par-ticular, have been reluctant to engage in it. Now, when a new member wishes to join the house, she comes and talks with the existing group about her hopes and ex.pectations for common life. She learns that, in addition to sharing faith and emotional support, the group divides up the house chores, such as bookkeeping and paying the bills, shopping for food and preparing meals, cleaning and yard work. She learns that she is to live on the allotted personal budget and to reserve some of that money to support foreign missionaries. She learns that "one person's guest is every person's guest" here. Although a sister may dislike or resent such an interview before being admitted to a new house, she needs to remind herself that the present residents consider it crucial that new residents know and agree to support these values and their explicit expression. Sister Elaine, who came to religious life through her vol-unteer work and not directly from her Catholic schooling, explains more about this group's dynamics~ Although they min-ister in diverse fields with varied schedules, they reserve one night a week as their community night, when all will be present for prayer, eating, and sharing. Her social-work background leads her to describe the difficulty of working with people "who are blocked up" by past traumas or interpersonal issues. This form of life, this "microcosm of society," is a difficult life to live. It must enable sisters to go out and minister to the world. They must learn to be communicative and must get to know each other's histories. Since there are various workable arrangements for getting through days cooperatively and smoothly, the sisters must con-tinually strive to accommodate themselves to the others in the group. Sister Elaine thinks that an all-female group can be "really beautiful and powerful or really terrible," depending on how they handle interpersonal relations. The key thing, in her experience, is to keep talking to each other and "not whine." She admits that she had to learn some of these things herself in community living and that it is still sometimes difficult to keep her own "space." She is one of those who prefer not to talk to Review for Religious anyone for a few minutes after arising in the morning, so she now showers at this time to maintain her internal quietude. Pastoral ministry to the poor and immigrant Spanish-speak-ing community is Sister Bertina Marie's specialty. While her day is occupied with teaching English as a second language and running a community center with various offices and activities (Head Start, legal clinic, medical outreach services, and chil-dren's programs), she is an integral member of the House of Peace. Seeking more ways to live out the SRJ vision, charism, and values, its members extend love and hospitality to sur-rounding neighbors. The sisters offer their house as a site for Neighborhood Watch and other meetings. They make sure that flowers are always growing in their yard to symbolize nonvio-lence in a locale where drugs, gangs, and hostilities abound. Sister Bertina Marie stresses the integration of the house goals with individual ministries: all identify with and serve the poor, value deep prayer life in common, and support others with goods and hospitality. Sister Mary Anne, the government-affairs coordinator for the congregation, spends her.time researching, writing, lobby-ing, and educating people about political issues that affect the poor. Working for such structural change where results come slowly if at all is for many an enervating and thankless task. She talks of recognizing one's own needs as well as those of others, and of balancing community life with ministry. She speaks from experience. At one time she held a position that "totally consumed" her. She thought she was in a vocation crisis and should perhaps leave the community. She was so burned out that she" had nothing to give to anyone and did not even want to "bring Jesus" to the people she worked with. An extended retreat, however, provided her with reflection time to realize it was her ministerial position that needed to be changed, not her SRJ affiliation. Now she highly values living with oth-ers who think as she does, all of them giying and getting real emotional and spiritual support. "Community has been a gift to me," she recalls, mention-ing the friends she has made and how they "move together in growth." She says she was one of the first to propose and pio-neer small-group living and that her experience with eight oth-ers proved its value for her. Being honest with each other and .~tuly-August 2002 Zajac * Three Forms of Community Living "I'm not accepted just because I'm capable. I can be a failure and I'm still loved." sharing their deepest values were what she had been seeking. When all members had the "same thirst for God and the desire to live out a faith life in mission," they found they did not fight over little things, but rather worked them out, a quality that is sometimes missing in residential communities. The youngest member of the House of Peace commun!ty is Sister Jane Th4r~se, thirty-something, planning to take her final vows within a year. She was attracted to this house for sev-eral reasons besides its location near where she teaches religion to inner-city children. She was pleased that there were a vari-ety of ages together there and liked their outreach to the neigh-borhood. As a newer SRJ, she appreciated this group's willingness to work with younger members and pass on wisdom and insight from their experience. Sister Jane Th4r~se cites a sentence to describe the com-munity's value to her, a line from the SRJ constitution: "With the strength that comes from our life together, we turn to serve the world in need." "This was not only memorized," she says, "it was lived." She remarks that the constitution holds that SRJs share "all that we have and are," including personal uncertainties, frailties, and inabilities, all of which she knows firsthand. Before her current ministry she was locked into a miserable sit-uation where she had no power or auth.ority. She says that, although her sisters in this local community were in no position to give her help or even offer constructive criticism, speaking about her difficulties and receiving support in return were cru-cial to her fulfilling that assignment. Such unconditional accep-tance comes from being a member of the community. She says, "I'm not accepted just because I'm capable. I carl be a failure and I'm still loved." The ability to be vulnerable and to share one another's gifts helps her "to find God active in the world." In addition to these regular residents, House of Peace is also the local community for Sister Mary Kimball, a member of the SRJs of the East Coast. In Califoi'nia to gain experience in a new ministry, she runs a home for truant and delinquent high Review for Religious school girls who show academic or other creative potential. Because this ministerial unit requires her live-in presence, she affiliates with the House of Peace local community. Ordinarily she will be there every Monday evening to share dinner, prayer, and occasional social activities. Being a member of this group keeps her from feeling isolated and abandoned and allows her to give and get support within the context of her commitment to the mission of the SRJs. Residential Community The convent of St. Junipero Serra sits amid a pleasant res-idential neighborhood in the west side of the city. Next to the Catholic church and school, it once housed sisters of the con-gregation responsible for running the school. Now no sisters teach there. Not needed for parish activities, the building is rented to the SRJs for a reasonable fee. The residential com-munity is home to seven SRJs engaged in various ministries; the youngest is in her forties, and two are semiretired. This convent is run by group government, explains Sister William Joseph, who teaches math at Sacred Heart College for Women, established by the SRJs. Group government, originally an experimental form of living, applies now to almost all resi-dential groups and means participatory decision making in mat-ters that involve all members. The group collectively determines the extent of common prayer life, shared meals, other domes-tic activities, and group celebrations. "Respect" and "acceptance" are two words frequently heard in this group because, as one explains, "not all things can be shared well." This group has decided to share morning prayers Mondays through Fridays, and to gather one evening a week to share experiences and discuss the business of the larger con-gregation. They support the large community of sisters at events and serve as a "presence" in the parish. The group evening may be for holiday celebrations or indi-vidual birthdays or religious feast days. At the time of Sister William Joseph's interview in early January, there was a tall dec-orated Christmas tree in the common living room where we talked. She told me that this community would be celebrating its Christmas that evening, exchanging gifts. During the previ- July-August 2002 Zajac ¯ Three Forms of Community Living ous week, all were out visiting their families, so a common celebration was postponed. Sister William Joseph was one of those who did not want to break up the convent into smaller residential groups in the 1970s. She has always appreciated the exposure to many other sisters and did not wish to lose contact with those she might not encounter in her ministry or in small-group living. She says she has always had to "stretch herself" for others, but adds that this is part of the commitment they make to each other. Similar is her opinion of all the congregational events this house supports; she really does not care for so many meetings and events, but attends as part of the duty she upholds. Sister Adia Marie Buckley, too, is involved in academics. An administrator at the same college, she speaks about reli-gious- life community a little differently. "Although there must be people with whom one lives and with whom one must main-tain friendly relations," she says, "community extends to much more than this." She explains the kinship sense she feels with the broad congregation of other SRJs in the United States and else-where in the world, and with affiliate members, former mem-bers, and sisters in other orders. Sister Catherine Tivnan, who runs an office at the congre-gational headquarters, explains why she chose this house: "They're kind of middle-of-the-roaders, and I thought I'd fit in with them. I thought this was what I was looking for in peo-ple, for not heavy-duty intensive living, but just a nice, com-fortable place where I would fit in and would be accepted." By "not intensive" she explains that in some places there are peo-ple who "dissect everything and practically have a magnifying glass on everything you say and do." She says she does not mind such psychological probing on occasion, but cannot take a steady diet of it. She gives an example. A sister with whom she used to live would read every article in the Sunday newspaper and then want to discuss it with anyone in the room at the time. Eventually Sister Catherine would explicitly refuse to talk with her. She preferred to look at the paper rather quickly and then move on to other activities like walking by the beach or going to a movie. Sister Elizabeth Conan is a registered nurse and medical instructor who teaches away from home two or three evenings Review for Religious a week. Dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a plaid shirt, she tells me that she does less of the cooking for the house than some oth-ers because of her split work schedule. Her family also occupies her attention for about one day a month because of some difficult illness. She loves spending time with her sisters in com-munity, however, including their times of play. She likes to barbecue in good weather, and she says that at times she will just put out a sign-up sheet shortly beforehand, rather than planning everything well in advance. "Dressed to the teeth" was the impression Sister Margaret de Lorca made when I met her in her office at the parish hall. She explains that, coming from an artistic family, she had always enjoyed the use of color in her surroundings, although she did not wear it during many years of teaching in the traditional habit. Working part-time now, Sister Margaret works in religious edu-cation, organizing prayer groups, directing occasional retreats, and providing individual spiritual direction. She tells me that the sisters have common prayer in the house at 6:10 a.m. Monday through Friday. They initially prayed together in the evenings, but found it too difficult because of their divergent schedules. She contrasts living here in a small group with living in the congregational center, which is home to about a hundred sisters and was her home for two years. Even though residents here have to work to find time to be together, it takes a lot less energy to relate to this group than it would to everyone in the large community. Life was stressful for her there because, in walk-ing down a hallway, she would commonly encounter ten or twelve different people. By the time the tenth person said "How are you, Sister Margaret?" she would be exhausted. She is "not an extrovert," but also "not a strong introvert," so daily relations with six other people are plenty for her. Another member of this group is Sister Margot Monroe, an educational psychologist who does counseling for individ-ual schools and has a private practice for handicapped children. The sisters have common prayer in the house at 6:10 a.m. Monday through Friday. July-dugv~st 2002 Zajac ¯ Three Forms of Community Living Though she loved the children she encountered in her teaching career, she became frustrated by the time required for extracur-ricular events like sports and cheerleading. She wonders if the congregation made a mistake leaving teaching en masse, and thinks the sisters should have taken more risks in starting new schools and programs.' She also expressed her frustration about the church, where "the hierarchy has not accepted our SRJ growth" and women religious are "only tolerated in the church and not really accepted." This leaves her in the painful posi-tion of being more removed from general church affairs than she would like to be. She feels similarly frustrated in her residential community, where not all have grown theologically and personally to the extent she has. Some of the sisters are not accustomed or very open to sharing, which she finds particularly "life-giving." "People can fulfill all their responsibilities," she explains, "and still not share who they really are." Although she tries to encourage certain ones to be more open, she does it in a gen-tle manner. Still, she finds this group to be a little shallow: "I feel I have community with the people I live with, but it's rather superficial. We're nice to each other. Our horarium for the day is not problematic at all, but I wish we had a depth of sharing that would bring us all to a different place." She believes, however, that living in this house is a trade-off. These people are not her best friends, of which she hag a num-ber outside this convent. While she gains depth and stimula-tion from her outside friendships, here she has the freedom and flexibility to come and go as she pleases without making com-mitments for large blocks of personal time and energy. The final resident of this group is also semiretired. Sister Patricia Louise, in her nineties, likes to cook and works in the parish food pantry. She says that "the diversity of ministry now militates against close community life," which they had when all worked together. This way is "harder but healthier"; it keeps people in contact with diverse fields and offers stimulating con-versation. She says: "It used to be that, if you all taught in the same elementary school, your conversation was always about families in the school, problem kids, what was going on in the parish. But this way we also know what is going on at the col-lege, at the high school, and at the hospitals." Review for Religious Despite their interdependence in the common life, how-ever, they are independent about their use of free time. She says that everyone is very "embedded" in what she is doing on her own and that not living with one's best friends is really an advantage. She adds that she never wanted a residence that was "like a hotel" and prefers the interdependence she finds here. Even though these women do not have "a lot of involvement with each other, what they do has value." A Community of One Sister Zo~ Warnercalls herself "a community of one" because no other sisters live or work with her and she does not have weekly contact with members of her congregation. Fifteen years ago she went out on her own with the blessing of the com-munity (but no funding) to create St. Martin's Children's Center, a temporary residential and resource center for children in fam-ilies undergoing major upheavals in their lives. Like an available set of grandparents, this center can care for up to fifteen chil-dren for a maximum of thirty days each, although the staff tries to restrict it to fewer children and shorter periods of time. Sister Zo~ lived in this large residence with a dog as her sole com-panion while the structure underwent remodeling and opera-tions eventually got underway, and she still lives there. Her purpose in inhabiting the building before its operation was to become a "presence" in the town and to begin to get a "community focus" on the center. She is referring not to the SRJ community now, but to the neighborhoods, businesses, and voluntary groups which support the center's activities. Her strat-egy evidently worked, because, as people came to know her and her plans, they wanted to participate and give support in vari-ous ways. One measure of that support is financial. Sister Zo~ "lives on faith" to provide the center's operating expenses of almost a half million dollars a year, because it has no regular income. Contributions tend to be sporadic yet somehow ade-quate for their needs. She says: "The Lord provides when we need it. from the little things to the big things . We just watch the mailbox and say our prayers. We have never run out of money or closed our doors due to lack of funds." Although she hopes to obtain the services of a part-time grant writer later July-Auffust 2002 Zajac ¯ Three Forms of Community Living "Community is the same as its core. I am a sister from the core of my being." this year, she has done this and all other duties herself, includ-ing caring for the children and teaching life skills to the parents. Although a few Sisters of Reconciliation have come to work with her for brief periods over the years, Sister Zo~ now sees none of them frequently. Yet her connection to the SRJs is strong, and "our sisters., very much know I'm a community member." She explains that her SRJ area superior holds general gatherings three or four times a year and maybe a day of prayer once in a while. By participating in these activities and attend-ing the funerals of older sisters, Sister Zo~ carries the SRJ charism with her and uses it to create a sense of community with whomever she is working: "There's something I have learned., that, no matter where you go, you bring the sisters with you or you bring your experience of community." In addition to SRJ gatherings and ministry associates, Sister Zo~ has a couple of good friends she sees regularly. One of these is a nun from another congregation; the other is a priest friend. This little group frequently celebrates Sunday Mass in the residence of the non-SRJ, and they sometimes follow it with a potluck dinner, occasionally bringing in other friends or neigh-bors. She had to create this new sense of community herself, however, and she attributes this ability to her long-standing experiences with the SRJs: "By coming out here, community wasn't provided for me. I had to create it, and I used the skills, the tools, the experiences that I had had for all those years. to create a life that was community-oriented. But I had to take the reins and take the initiative and have it happen." Would she like more contact with other SRJs? She says that, although she does not require it, she would welcome another sis-ter if one were to want to live and work with her, and perhaps this new person would help care for her when she gets "old." She emphasizes, "Community is not based on the number of times you see people, but on the feelings and interests to see, hear, and share with others." She also takes he~" identity as an SRJ seriously, having followed the advice of her novice mistress never to abbre-viate the word sister, but always to write it out as part of her name Review for Religious and identity. Sister ZoE puts this together with her feelings about community: "Community is the same as its core. I am a sister from the core of my being, and I am a Sister of Reconciliation." "Good" and "Bad" Community Some sisters gave examples of either "good" or "bad" com-munity experiences, which sometimes held more feeling than the brief descriptive words suggest. One sister said that real community spirit was truly shown when her very good friend died suddenly. She received about a hundred sympathy cards, which told her that the loss of this friend was about more than "my private grief." Another sister described spending some time at a residential therapeutic community for religious congrega-tions. The therapy included the sharing of their life stories, a "first" for this particular sister, where the sharing of those "sad and joyful feelings" created a strong bond within the group. Still another told of the difficult period when she lost her job because of organizational restructuring, but still had had the full support of the community: "I was very glad I was a com-munity woman because otherwise I would have had to get a lawyer. In community I just shared what happened, and they journeyed with me through it." Sister MaryJoyce described her experiences in one of the first experimental communities of group government in 1969. In this new group for which everyone had volunteered, there were between ten and fifteen sisters at various times over several years, and they were trying out new approaches to teaching as well as living. This situation was "life-giving": the participants were all "high energy" types and risk takers as well. They all cared for each other and the outside world, and were concerned about where people were with God, faith, and prayer. Sister Kathryn Ann described something similar. When her ministry took her away from others in her own order, she lived in an apartment house that people came to call The Nunnery because in addition to herself there were six sisters from another con-gregation, a priest, and a brother, all in individual apartments. Although they "lived singly" and ministered in different places, they got together frequently for prayer, meals, and Mass, often signaled by a knock on the wall. July-Angvtst 2002 Zajac ¯ Three Forms of Community Living 3.90 Sister Mary Magdalene has had her share of feeling less than appreciated by other SRJs, yet had a wonderful experience when she lived in a rural area with three other sisters, all teachers, who endured together the crisis of the school's closing. Although one of them was the principal of the school and also the supe-rior of the convent, they interacted as equals and "were just peo-ple together," frequently cooking and sharing meals on the weekends in an era when most convents still had cooks. Although they were together in the school, they also spent outside time together, but "it wasn't mandated. It was a choice we were mak-ing." This relaxed atmosphere where everyone's talents were recognized was contributed to by a pastor who was supportive and friendly and occasionally took them all out to dinner. Another sister, Sister Peg, described an aspect of her first job as a hospital chaplain. Living in an apartment across the street from the hospital, she provided hospitality for visiting sisters and especially those recuperating from surgery or illness. The informality and spontaneous "ease with which the sisters moved in and out of my life" was an exciting and fulfilling period. These positive experiences of community do not necessar-ily require other sisters or vowed people. Sister Benita Rogers shared one such experience when she was leaving an ethnically mixed parish that she had brought together over a number of years. Addressing a large parish group, Sister Benita, who does not speak Spanish, expressed her desire that perhaps now the diocese would assign a bilingual person as her replacement. A Hispanic man stood and spoke for the group: "It doesn't mat-ter whether or not you can speak Spanish. You have the corazon, the heart. That's how you've communicated. You've read us with your heart." It is the major congregational gatherings, however, that sev-eral sisters cited as the "best expression" of community spirit. One of these celebrations is the Congregational Days, when all sisters from the West come together with former sisters as well as affiliate members to celebrate the SRJs as a whole. The other is the jubilee celebration, held anr~ually on the feast day of their patron. Families and friends are invited to participate in the joyful celebration of the anniversaries of their vows as Sisters of Reconciliation. Among these hundreds of people there is a won- Review for Religious derful "spirit that you can almost touch." Everyone feels a part of this group energy and spirituality. It leads people to say that "the most profound experience of community is to experience us praying together." Although Sister Rafaela says she "has never had a bad com-munity experience," this is not the case for many sisters. Sisters described instances where they felt alienated, isolated, or at least not fully appreci-ated in the community, both in their local group and in the larger group. Often the difficulty stemmed from some-one's personality or behavior. When people are too busy to notice others or care about what they are undergoing, those others can feel "deadened" and not supported, making them withdraw from the group. On the other hand, those who "demand too much" from others in terms of time or resources make community living difficult. These people are usually those who have "not done their home-work" regarding their own interpersonal issues. Sometimes, carrying unresolved emotional traumas from their early life, they attempt to hide with the aid of alcohol, a too busy sched-ule, or emotional distancing of others. When people are "afraid of their own spirituality" or are "not willing to be honest" with each other, communal sharing and support are undermined from the start. Sometimes there is a plain lack of openness to others. Sister Joan Claire Mendoza described such a case. She lives in a large convent with eight or nine other sisters, four of whom work in the attached school, while the rest work in various other min-istries. They are together for morning Mass and one evening dinner per week. Although these sisters are "polite" to Sister Joan Claire, it is clear to her that they really do not want her there. Three of them maintain very close relations and actually "make up their own community." Fortunately, Sister Joan Claire has developed a personal and professional network of friends and colleagues from whom she receives most of her emotional Those who "demand too much" from others in terms of time or resources make community living difficult. -201 --- . J~dy-dugust 2002 Zajac " Three Forms of Community Living sustenance. Another sister described a similar case. She felt so rejected that she was "not even sure she was still an SRJ." Others expressed their isolation when they felt that their talents, gifts, or ministry were not appreciated. If community members remain or act unaware or. uninformed about them and their work, those living in common as well as those minister-ing on their own can be affected. Sometimes the personalities of the people living together are too divergent or their schedules too diverse to allow for harmonious living. Highly divergent worldviews in people can also make daily life uncom-fortable. In other instances a quiet person is misconstrued to be someone quite alien to her real self. One sister said she had been surprised to learn that her housemates had thought she was very self-confident and did not need any help or support. In another convent she had been perceived as a threat to others because she had more education than most of the others. The biggest obstacle to community, however, one sister said, occurs when people do not maintain confidences. This causes a shat-tering of trust and pushes people back to isolation. A few sisters expressed frustration or anger with the com-munity at large. One told of an instance when her mother was dying. Although everyone knew about this, there was little inter-est, caring, or support shown. Another sister said that several years ago she was angry with the general community for giving financial support to a foreign political group that she thought was wrong. Another sister said that sometimes lack of equality really bothered her. Because of her age she had been denied permission to study for an advanced degree, yet in that very year three sisters older than herself were approved and funded for graduate education. When this woman protested this as unjust, she received an apology from the president of the con-gregation, but still no approval for further study. In this article we have examined how sisters in one reli-gious community define and create "community." There is lit-tle general consensus about the term, although some common values are evident. In general, all agree that something must be shared and that there is a feeling of interdependence or inter-connectedness. How and what things are shared, however, varies according to the type of living group that is chosen. Individual Review for Religious sisters' stories were interwoven here into three composite pic-tures of community living: intentional community, residential community, and a community of one. Also, some examples of what creates "good" and "bad" community were given. The various types of community exist in various circum-stances and are experienced in various ways by individual sisters. There seems to be no one right way. There is a considerable diversity of views, activities, roles, and living arrangements. This diversity contrasts strongly with the pre-Vatican II con-vents, with their physical proximity to the apostolic work the sis-ters did, their thorough discipline, and their homogeneity of life conditions. Note ~ I later discovered that this was the original European name of a congregation now in the United States with a different name. Bibliography Beane, Marjorie Noterman. 1993. From framework to freedom: A history of the Sister Formation Conference. New York: University Press of America. Eby, Judy, RSM. 2000. "A little squabble among nuns"? The Sister Formation crisis and the patterns of authority and obedience among American women religious, 1954-1971. Unpublished doc-toral dissertation, Saint Louis University. Emerson, Robert M., ed. 1983. Contemporary field research: A collec-tion of readings. Prospect Heights, Illinois: Waveland Press. Merton, Robert K., Marjorie Fiske, and Patricia L. Kendall. 1990. The focused interview: A manual of problems and procedures. New York: Free Press. Powdermaker, Hortense. 1960. Stranger and friend: The way of an anthropologist. New York: W.W. Norton. Quifionez, Lora Ann, CDP, and Mary Daniel Turner SNDdeN. 1992. The transformation of American Catholic sisters. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Vatican Council H: The conciliar and postconciliar documents and More postconciliar documents. 1975, 1982. Edited by Austin Flannery OP. Northport, New York: Costello Publishing Co. Wittberg, Patricia, SC. 1990. Dyads and triads: The sociological impli-cations of small-group living arrangements. Review for Religious 43, no. 1 (January-February): 43-51. July-August 2002 Zajac ¯ Three Forms of Community Li~ing ¯ 1993. Residence stability and decline in Roman Catholic reli-gious orders of women: A preliminary investigation. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 32: 76-82. Zajac, Barbara. 1999a. Becoming a nun: A general model of entering religious life. Review for Religious 58 (July-August): 403-423. --. 1999b. Community suicide: Secularization in Catholic nuns with the manipulation of ritual and symbol. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Riverside. Wounded The unseen spider ripped my flesh, and drew blood, nourishment, afresh, and left a black-red crater there: pink, puffy, filled with pus - not fair. A round wound one inch wide oozing fluid down the side. I've been a meal for a foreign beast, stamped with a bump, a spider's feast. This tiny spider sucked sustenance from me, drew life, left a mark, for all to see - how dare he! Am I any different? Don't I do the same? Feed on the Christ, wound him, without shame? Michael J. Lydon Reviev; for Religious JOEL GIALLANZA Expert Practitioners of Union in Community Once upon a time community was uncomplicated, ever a delight in which to witness and work, a constant joy to be and build. Beg your pardon! Are we talking about reality here? Yes, but only by flashback to the language and imagery of a different era. Let me explain. In researching various writings on religious community--most of them published from the 1930s to the early 1960s--I wondered if the lived experience of community during those decades matched the somewhat romantic and idealistic rhetoric about it. I decided that it prob-ably did not; rather, the rhetoric offered encouragement and hope as supports for the lived experience. Religious knew then and continue to experience now the complexity of community life. The word community itself has a complex meaning. It means more than religious living in the same residence. We know that community members may be scattered across cities and even across continents. Another facet includes the personalities and perspectives of the members. Similarity and unanimity are no guarantee that a community is healthy and thriving or even that the members know one another more than superficially. Community encompasses the members' cultures and customs and their ages and attitudes. And so we can ask: How do we recognize one another as members of the Joel Giallanza CSC last wrote for us in May-June 2000. His address is Province Center; 1101 St. Edward's Drive; Austin, Texas 78704. July-August 2002 Giallanza ¯ Expert Practitioners of Union community? Community also encompasses the unique heritage and history of each religious institute and the cast of charac-ters who have lived that heritage and been a part of that history. And there are our own experiences in life and ministry. The complexity of religious community does not diminish its potential for living up to the rhetoric of earlier eras. In truth, it has all the potential with which humanity was invested by God at creation. And yet, when we discuss the many factors currently influencing religious life, the task of formulating an all-encompassing definition or description of community is quite daunting and sometimes discouraging. This perception, this temptation to invest less time and energy in such discus-sions, can have a detrimental effect on the quality of community we hope to build for the future. These present reflections are intended to resist that temptation and to encourage continu-ing efforts to form and live and sustain community. Forming Community In the apostolic exhortation Vita consecrata (hereafter VC), Pope John Paul II writes: "Consecrated persons are asked to be true experts of communion and to practice the spirituality of communion as 'witnesses and architects of the plan for unity which is the crowning point of human history in God's design'" (§46). This is a significant challenge; to be "true experts" at almost anything in our world is a considerable achievement. Being expert practitioners in the spirituality of communion calls for more. John Paul's understanding of communion is incarna-tional: communion does not exist apart from those who strive to live it daily. The etymology of the word "expert" provides an important insight. Often the term is used in a static way, indicating an acquired ability needing little if any further development. The root meaning, however, is quite dynamic: an expert is one who tries and who learns by trying. As a person's ability matures, there are always new approaches to try and new things to learn. The words experiment and experience have the same root. One way, then, of becoming experts in communion is through our experiments and experiences in community. We must keep try-ing and keep learning. Community is never finished. Review f

Issue 52.6 of the Review for Religious, November/December 1993. ; Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone:314-535-3048 ° FAX: 314-535-0601 Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ° St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP ° 5001 Eastern Avenue ¯ P.O. Box 29260 Washington, D.C. 20017. POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ° P.O. Box 6070 ° Duluth, MN 55806. Second-class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. SUBSCRIPTION RATES Single copy $5 includes surface mailing costs. One-year subscription $15 plus mailing costs. Two-year subscription $28 plus ~nailing costs. See inside back cover for more subscription information and mailing costs. ©1993 Review for Religious review for religious Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Ass#tant Editors Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Michael G. Harter SJ 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 NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1993 ¯ VOLUME 52 ¯ NUMBER 6 contents 806 feature Religious Life and Conversion Language Dennis J. Billy CSSR provides a language of conversion so that religious might more readily integrate their individual lives with their corporate existences. 817 828 835 842 spirituality Are We Relating to God in a New Way? Gerald M. Fagin SJ proposes five polarities which are always present in our spiritual lives. Desire, Asking, and Answers A. Paul Dominic SJ emphasizes the importance of praying from our desires by exampleg from the Bible. Companionship Spirituality in Ruth Judette A. Gallares RC explores covenantal faith through the symbol of companionship portrayed between Ruth and Naomi. The Spirituality of Surrender John P. Mossi SJ proposes three models of a spiritual surrender-ing as a means of coming home to God. 849 865 ecumenism The Ecumenical Vocation of Religious Jeffrey Gros FSC highlights the importance of ecumenical for-mation and collaboration for women and men religious. The Religious Call of Ecumenism Jude D. Weisenbeck SDS suggests ways in which the needs of the ecumenical movement can well be met by the resources of religious communities. 802 Reviezv for Religious 870 875 ministry Frustrations--Jesus' Ministry and Ours James Martin SJ seeks a fresh perspective on dealing with frustra-tions arising from ministry to the poor. Jesuit Spirituality and Catholic Higher Education Claude N. Pavur SJ stresses the importance of an Ignatian spiritu-ality, invigorating the efforts of educators in the Jesuit tradition. poverty 886 Option for the Poor: God's Pedagogy Marcello Azevedo SJ analyzes the meaning and life-applications of the phrase "option for the poor" in terms of our faith. 893 Who Evangelizes Whom? The Poor Evangelizers John F. Talbot SJ explores the evangelizing potential of the poor. 898 a life of promise Two Cheers for Celibacy William McDonough clarifies the meaning of prie, stly celibacy by combining Robert Bellah's use of institution and Thomas Aquinas's moral vision. 911 Charismatic Renewal and Consecrated Life 920 Susan Rakoczy IHM reflects from a r~ligious-life experience of twenty-five years on the blessings of the charismatic renewal in regard to consecrated life. Death as a Community Event Annette Frey SC shares the stqry of a friend's illness and death as an integrating factor in community life. departments 804 Prisms 927 Canonical Counsel: Lumen Gentium's Chapter 6: Religious 933 Book Reviews 951 Indexes to Volume 52 November-December 1993 803 prisms ~oho are the people by whom you have been most influenced? Many of us must at one time or another have tried to answer this question for ourselves or at the inquiry of others: Precisely which people have strongly influenced my life? Some may quickly name their fathers and mothers; others go on to name favorite teachers or special friends. Still others may name people in world affairs or in the worlds of sports, the arts, or medicine. Probably not very many of us spontaneously turn to the men and women whom the church has declared holy and named as outstanding members of the communion of saints. Yet the reason why the church calls our attention to these people is to allow us to see in other followers of Christ what we hope to become. Just as the church of the Eastern rites emphasizes icons that give us a glimpse of the world of the holy, so the Latin-rite church proposes the study of the lives of ~aints so that we may be inspired by them and formed and then moved along a path of holiness as Jesus' apostles. Perhaps at one time many of us did not appreciate how the more medieval theology of mediators needed updating like so many timebound ways of expressing our faith and its practices--the process mandated by Vatican II. Now it seems that we stand more ready for and in need of the kind of influence which our fellow Christians, can-onized and otherwise esteemed, can exercise in ore: lives. No longer do we, almost superstitiously, look to Mary or other chosen saints for special favors. Instead we take our direction from the Vatican II understanding and descrip-tion of Mary's place in the communion of saints under the 804 Review for Religious specially privileged titles of mother and first disciple. And so we look to our favorite men and women saints particularly in their relationship to us as brothers and sisters and as our fellow disci-ples. If Christians in general are exhibiting a greater need for this kind of influence in their devotional lives, even more might men and women religious look to the holy ones special to their con-gregations for living the kind of discipleship charismatically appro-priate to their following of Christ. ~;Vhether it be the contemporary retelling of saints' lives or recapturing their spirit in new artistic portrayals or recovering prayers of theirs that are appropriate to our times--there still are ways for holy men and women to touch us in our daily living. We may more readily find light coming to us in dark moments of our experience from the uncovered lamp of these human lives than from any theoretical studies or documents. We may also find ourselves more energized for entering into the evangelizing mission of Jesus through the radiance of their inspiration and example. Probably even more surprising than our slowness in naming saints as major influences in our lives is the not infrequent omis-sion of even the name Jesus. As we enter into the Advent and Christmas seasons, maybe more fully than Jesus being "the reason for the season," we might say that the reason for the season is for us to remind ourselves that Jesus is the unique influence upon our lives all year long. Jesus is the one who has influenced how we live, how we pray, how we interact, how we die. Jesus is the one who calls us to a way of following; Jesus is the Teacher, and we all remain the lifelong learners, the ones in continuing formation. Perhaps we need to ask ourselves another question. Is it true that for us not to name Jesus as the great influence of our lives is more than just a memory slip? Does our answer uncover for us that our everyday, busy lives are being spent on behalf of lesser gods than the God Incarnate? The question is worth more than a Christmastime reflection. That the peace and grace of God, Emmanuel, be richly yours is the wish of all the staff of Review for Religious. David L. Fleming SJ November-December 1993 805 DENNIS J. BILLY Religious Life and Conversion Language The crisis faced by many of today's religious goes beyond the breakdown of their founding myths and the resulting lack of purpose in their corporate existences. While many (I daresay most) are at least peripherally aware of having lost in recent years something of great importance for their lives as professed religious, they usually have no idea whatsoever of how to retrieve it or what to put in its place. Nor are they very articulate about just what it is they have lost and why precisely they want it back. Confronted by their own aging, a steady flow of ygunger members from their ranks, and fewer and fewer vocational prospects, many have become disillusioned and desire some sort of immediate respite from their mount-ing misfortunes. They pursue it in any number of ways. Some display a nostalgic desire for the not too distant past--"the good old days," as.they are called, which were probably never quite so good as they now seem. Others resign themselves passively to their "inevitable corporate extinction," an increasingly attractive choice for many. Still others sink deeper and deeper into the quagmire of confusion and doubt about the relevance of religious life in the postmodern world--which does nothing but com-pound an already complex and. difficult situation. Regardless of the motivations behind them or their point Dennis J. Billy CSSR is author of the recently published Evangelical Kernels: A Theological Spirituality of Religious Life (Mba House, 1993). His address is Accademia Alfonsiana; Via Merulana, 31; C.P. 2458; 00100 Rome; Italy. 806 Review for Religious of origin, none of these responses are adequate to the crisis at hand. In order to move forward, today's religious must choose a path other than that of denial and escape. At this critical point of their history, what they need is a language of conversion that will enable them to give an honest account of themselves, will help them to integrate their private lives with their corporate existences, and will show them how they, as a group, can con-front the cynical doubts that writhe beneath the surface of their professional respectability. Conversion Language A language of conversion must speak to both the mind and the heart. It must make sense to.people in a way that will satisfy their intellectual longings. It must also motivate them to exanaine their situation in life with renewed strength and vigor--as if with dif-ferent eyes. More importantly, it must reshape their interpretation of experience so that, through the action of divine grace, they see their denial for what it is and then find it possible to realign their personal powers of commitment with those of the religious insti-tute to which they belong. Only from such a realignment will dusty and creaky institu-tional structures and the people who stubbornly inhabit and main-tain them have any hope of being refurbished for a brighter future. Failure to achieve this renewal of human heart and human social structure will result only in more of the same problem: individ-ualism amid corrosive social ills; continuing loss of confidence in and commitment to one's religious community; the persistence of the "double life" syndrome that has plagued so many first-world congregations since the Second Vatican Council. By most assessments, the very future of religiou~ life is at stake. The thesis is clear: the circular relationship between individ-ual and corporate change must come to the fore in any further dis-cussions about authentic conversion, particularly with respect to those who have dedicated their lives to following the evangelical counsels. "The whole cannot be understood without its parts; nor the parts without the whole." This fundamental problem of inter-pretation-- the so-called hermeneutical problem--lies at the root of the present crisis in religious life. To deal with it effectively, a language of conversion must address both the individual and the November-December 1993 807 Billy ¯ Religious Life and Conversion Language group, as well as their ongoing mutual relationship. It can do so, however, only if it encompasses (1) a sound Christian anthropol-ogy that stresses the dignity of human persons on every level of their existence, (2) a persuasive philosophical link between the personal and the corporate wholes, and (3) a recognition of its own inherent limitations with a corresponding openness to the re-creative presence of God. Without these important ingredi-ents of change, no language of conversion, regardless of how elo-quent or comprehensive it may appear, will be adequate to the enormous task at hand. A Sound Christian Anthropology The connotations of the phrase "a sound Christian anthro-pology" need some explaining. An "anthropology" may be described as a specific and coordinated assessment of human exis-tence. It is "Christian" insofar as it receives its inspiration from the insights of Christian traditions. To the extent that there are numerous interpretations of the meaning of Christianity, there are also varying Christian anthropologies. In this essay, a "sound" Christian anthropology is understood as one which integrates four fundamental dimensions of human existence: the physical, the rational (or mental), the spiritual, and the social. All of these are found ih the teaching of St. Paul and are made explicit in the juxtaposition of his doctrine of the Body of Christ (1 Cor 12:12- 31) and the tripartite understanding of the person found in such verses as this: "May the God of peace make you perfect in holi-ness. May he preserve you whole and entire, spirit (pneuma), soul (psyche), and body (soma), irreproachable at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Th 5:23). Together these verses express the Pauline understanding of the complexity of human existence and qualify as a solid basis for further theological reflection. Of what do these basic dimensions consist? People's spirit (pneuma) is the deepest part of their being. It yearns for God with unutterabl.e groanings (Rm 8:23) and has the potential to be lifted up into intimate communion with the very Spirit of God. Ever elusive and difficult to describe, it is that aspect of human exis-tence which affirms each human person as capax Dei, that is, capa-ble of God. People's soul (psyche), by contrast, is their animating principle of life. It encompasses, not only the rational, but also the emotive, nutritive, and reproductive sides of human existence. 808 Review for Religious Rational activity, the soul's highest and noblest function, enables people to wonder about the meaning of life and to think criti-cally about its problems. People's bodies (somata) are the material extension of their existence. Unlike the Pauline term for "flesh" (sarx), which has close associations with a life of sin leading to death, soma can be used for good or for ill and is hence a morally neutral concept. Finally, people's social dimension is a constituent part of their anthropological makeup. A human per-son. arises out of and exists in a social context and cannot be understood apart from it. For Christians, the primary social arena in which they live out their lives is that of the Body of Christ as it exists in its various expressions such as the family, the parish, the diocese, and the church universal. The interrelated nature of these various dimensions of human existence cannot be stressed highly enough. Spirit does not exist apart from a person's body, soul, and social relationships-- nor vice versa. Not one of them can be separated and treated in isolation from the others, as if a person were an arti-ficial composite of four disparate parts. A continuous and unbroken anthropo- For Christians, the primary social arena in which they live out their lives is that of the Body of Christ as it exists in its various expressions such as the family, the parish, the diocese, and the church universal. logical relationship exists among all of them. So strong are these bonds that not even death can sever them completely and pre-vent their ongoing functioning. To do so would mean the ulti-mate dissolution of the human person and the corresponding passage from being to nonbeing which the Christian faith so strongly rejects as a possibility of human destiny. That is not to say that a certain priority of relationships does not exist among these various anthropological factors: spirit relates to soul as soul to body. Balanced and healthy relationships among these affect the way in which a person interacts with others. A sound social environment, in turn, produces profound healing effects on a per-son's bodily, spiritual, and mental well-being. This circular rela-tionship is important for understanding the present crisis of religious life, which now can be understood as involving not only November-Deconber 1993 809 Billy ¯ Reli~ous Life and Conversion Language the vast array of dysfunctional social structures, but also a deeper relational imbalance operative on the most basic levels of human existence. Linking the Personal and the Corporate Social structures are both products of the mind and a means through which human intelligence and human spirit are shaped. ' When functioning according to justice, they give all people their due and educate them in virtue. At other times they work to the benefit of a privileged elite at the expense of an oppressed under-class. The interests of justice are not adequately served when existing social structures help to perpetuate a mentality of control that legitimizes the unjust treatment of other human beings. Such structures are sinful and need to be changed. When they are not (as can be the case in religious life), it may very well be simply because those involved feel overwhelmed by the immensity of the task before them. Such feelings can easily lead people to a sense of helplessness or even indifference about their ability to influence their surrounding social structures. An implicit dualism then arises in the private and social spheres of religious life: individuals grad-ually lose ownership of their ruling structures; the latter go on unchallenged more out of a paralyzing lack of interest than any-one's stubborn resistance to change. One way to overcome this implicit dualism is to introduce the related concepts of microcosm and macrocosm into the cur-rent vocabulary of religious life. Rooted in the primitive Greek idea of the human person as a small-scale model of the cosmos, this distinction was eventually adapted by Plato as a way of describing the relationship of individuals to the society (see Republic, 441c). According to this adjusted version, the underlying structure of human society is nearly the same as that of the human soul. The rational element corresponds to the republic's govern-ing class; the irascible (or spirited), to its martial orders; the con-cupiscible, to its productive masses. As "the human soul writ large," society offers individuals not only a particular place in the " social hierarchy, but also the opportunity of seeing themselves projected onto the collective whole. Individuals find their reflec-tion in the whole; the whole, in the individual. Plato's application of the microcosm/macrocosm distinction is not relevant in all its details to religious life in its contemporary 810 Review for Religious ¯ Western setting. His assertion, however, of an underlying struc-tural continuity between individuals and the society to which they belong has much to its credit: (1) it preserves the circular rela-tionship between individual and social functions; (2) it allows for certain structural similarities between human beings and their primary social environment; and (3) it maintains the distinctive-ness of individuals in the face of the larger community. When combined with the Christian anthropology outlined in the pre-vious section (as opposed to the Platonic one with which it is nor-mally associated), this seminal idea can help individuals in today's religious communities to regain their sense of identity with the larger whole. The analogy would go something like this: both the human person and the religious community possess spiritual, mental, physical, and social dimensions. The relationships among the various dimensions within the human person are proportion-ate to those in the religious community (for example, human spirit / human soul = community spirit / community soul, and so forth). Cross references also remain proportionate, but only with regard to corresponding terms (that is, human spirit /communal spirit = human soul / community soul, and so forth). In all cases the rule of proper proportionality applies (a/b = a'/b'). The strength of this approach is that it maintains a fundamental continuity between the underlying anthropological structure of individuals and that of their religious community. And it is able to do so even when taking into account the limitations of the language it uses to describe the quiet, abiding presence of God in the life of the . community. The Silent Presence of Grace One of the underlying dangers in the current discussion about the future of religious life is the tendency to substitute lengthy theories for the simplicity of God's intervening grace. Uneasiness about their present situation in life has led many religious into a quest for the perfect plan that will explain in fine detail (1) why they find themselves in their present situation, (2) how they can get themselves out of it, and (3) where they should be going. Search as they may, they will inevitably end up frustrated. No magic elixir of man-made theories can satisfy expectations of such exalted heights. To achieve its ends, a theory of refounding or revitalization must place God, not itself, atthe center of attention. November-Deconber 1993 811 Billy ¯ Religious Life and Conversion Language To do so, it must first recognize that conversion on any level--the personal, the communal, the societal--comes directly from God's own initiative. And since God is not limited to the narrow confines of human theorizing, the theory in question can propose nothing but one of many possibilities of how God's transforming action may occur. By placing itself on the periphery (not at the center) of divine action, such a theory acknowledges its inherent limita-tions and places itself more readily at the disposal of God's re-creative activity. "The wind blows where it wills" (Jn 3:8). The movement of God's grace is capable of transforming both individuals and the social structures they inhabit. What God does or how is not always discernible to the human eye. What is important in any of life's sit-uations-- and, in this case, in the present crisis facing many reli-gious communities--is that people (both as individuals and as a group) expand their awareness of God working quietly in the cir-cumstances of their daily lives. Where is God in the present cri-sis facing religious life? What is God saying in the graying of once thriving religious communities, in their steady loss of younger members, in their failure to attract vocations, and in their overall decline in numbers? Why does God permit the cur-rent lack of identity and firmness of purpose which characterizes so many of today's religious communities? Where is God lead-ing them--if at all? And to serve what purpose? When sincerely reflected upon, such questions lead people either to affirm or deny God's active involvement in their own life and in the life of " their religious community. The answer, however, may not end up in the shape of a simple yes or no. In a matter of faith, a believer's response must involve more than a facile determination of whether God is with this particular community or has abandoned it. Such a reply may evade the issue altogether. An authentic outpouring of God's grace will foster a deep sense of listening in the life of a religious community. Most peo-ple, religious included, are more ready to give their own opinion than to hear that of another. They are usually so heavily interested in what they themselves have to say that they talk past those around them or, at best, tolerate what is said until the next oppor-tunity arises for them to speak. What passes for conversation is often nothing more than a continuous chain of vaguely connected monologues. Such is not the case with God, the preeminent lis-tener, nor should it be the case of those stirr.ed by the free gift of 812 Review for Religious grace. Those who listen carefully--to their own hearts, to those around them, to the needs of the community, and to those outside the community--are able to discern more clearly the voice of God in their own lives. When they nurture this quiet witness of faith, religious create a space in their community where others know that their presence will be gratefully recognized and their stories listened to with interest. To empty oneself so that others may be heard is an important quality in authentic Christian living. The language of conversion cannot be spoken, let alone heard, apart from the re-creative silence of God's transforming grace. R.eligious and the Language of Conversion The rudiments of an authentic language of conversion are now in place: a sound Christian anthropology, a way of bringing together individuals and corporate wholes, and a recognition of God's creative initiative in the process of conversion. The inte-gration of these elements and their use as an active, functioning language will enable religious to find greater insight into their present difficulties and will lead them to a deeper awareness of the proper course of action to be taken. To further advance this claim, a number of observations are in order: 1. A language of conversion such as the one suggested above will challenge religious to remove the "problem solving" glasses that regularly color their current outlook. Rather than poring over "what must we change in order to secure our institutional viability," they will focus on questions about the authenticity of their reli-gious lives. A religious community, in other words, turns its life more completely over to God, not out of any ulterior motives (for example, to get more vocations, to stem the exodus of disenchanted members), but simply because that is what God asks of them. 2. Religious need to examine, in their common spiritual out-look, the relationship they maintain between "being" and "action." Informed by an anthropology that draws strong bonds between the bodily, mental, spiritual, and social dimensions of human exis-tence, they will be more apt to be sensitive to how their actions-- both private and corporate--are expressions of who they are and sensitive as well to how their actions affect their being as human persons. 3. Religious must articulate in their daily lives a deeper appre-ciation of the basic human elements of community living. November-December 1993 813 Billy ¯ Religious Life and Conversion Language Membership in a religious congregation involves more than mere physical presence. It also entails a shared commitment to common goals and values, a general sense of how these ends are to be achieved, the fostering of community spirit, and a network of sound spiritual and social ties. Since these elements are them-selves all intimately related, care must be taken that members manage to relate well on all of them. Structures must be set in place to facilitate this process. 4. Particular emphasis should be given to the community's spiritual well-being. Just as the spirit is the deepest part of the human person--that part which yearns for God and which affirms oneself as capax Dei--so too is it the truest, most authentic part of the religious community. When the spirit of a religious commu-nity suffers, the other dimensions cannot help being affected. Efforts must be made to heal the wounded spirit of religious com-munity life. Among other things, this will mean working through such difficult issues as human intimacy, vocational crises, mourn-ing the loss of members, and dealing constructively with members who display dysfunctional and addictive behaviors. Only through healing of the spirit of religious community life is there any hope of recovery. 5. One way of healing a community's wounded spirit is for its members to reserve time and community space for genuine listening. By being attentive to the words of others--the stories they tell, the experiences they wish to share--people enter into the thick of life and allow for the possibility of God's presence to break into ordinary daily events. When a religious community fosters this attitude of respect for the need of people to share themselves openly without feeling threatened, it begins to go beneath the superficial ways of relating by which its members all too often relate hardly at all. One of the great sins of religious life is that people can live together for years and barely know each other. 6. It is also sad that a person can live the religious life for yea~rs without ever developing a close relationship with God. Addressing this problem, the language of conversion places God at the center of attention. The whole purpose of life, and of reli-gious life especially, is for a person to enter into a deep and last-ing friendship with God. This purpose must not be lost sight of in discussions about the future of religious life. Religious vow to live the evangelical counsels in order to walk more closely along 814 Revie~ for Religious the way of the Lord Jesus. They do so, if for no other reason, in order to enter more closely into union with him and the One who sent him. 7. People cannot know God, however, if their spirit (or the spirit of the community, for that matter) does not commune with the Spirit of God in the quiet groves of contemplation. Many religious, unfortunately, have forgotten all about what it means to seek the Lord in prayer. Having lost the incentive to pray, they merely go through the motions of living out their evangelical commitments; their lives, as a result, can easily become devoid of all meaning. Religious need to see through the self-deceptions that have gradually led them to compromise their vows. To retrieve the meaning of their religious life, they must return to a balanced regimen of prayer whereby they can gather in God's name and continually invoke the divine presence. 8. Finally, no one undergoes conversion outside a specific community environment. Religious must develop a keen sense of boundary definition that will enable them to distribute their time appropriately between their own religious community and the people they serve in the apostolate. While benefiting from the authentic sharing that goes on within their communities (an essential priority of a well functioning community), they must take care not to become inordinately introspective and so lose all desire to reach beyond their immediate circle. The apostolic orientation of all religious communities (even those with a strictly contem-plative lifestyle) must always remain a primary concern. With this orientation religious supported and energized by their communi-ties will be able--both individually and together--to do great work for both the church and for society at large. Just as the spirit is the deepest part of the human person-- that part which yearns for God and which affirms oneself as capax Dei--so too is it the truest, most authentic part of the religious community. Conclusion The present crisis in religious life is largely a lack of balance between the individual and the community. In many respects the November-December 1993 815 Billy ¯ ReIigious Life and Conversion Language crisis is a scaled-down version of the age-old philosophical prob-lem of the one and the many, an issue which has always lurked behind the scenes of Western philosophical thought and which remains, even today, largely unresolved. In recent years the pen-dulum has swung from one extreme to the other, with the indi-vidual being either submerged in the collective (as was often the case before Vatican II) or much removed from it (as has often occurred since the council). While nearly everyone agrees that a healthy balance needs to be struck, there is little consensus con-cerning just what must be done to achieve it. These pages have used certain categories from the Western religious and philosophical traditions in an effort to nudge reli-gious communities gently toward a prudent--even though pre-carious- balance. The categories include (1) a Pauline anthropology that emphasizes the four basic dimensions of human existence (spiritual, mental, bodily, and social), (2) a philosophi-cal link between individual and corporate wholes (the micro-cosm/ macrocosm distinction of the ancient Greek philosophers), and (3) a deepened awareness of the inherent limitations of lan-guage (and by extension all theories) with a corresponding focus on the creative initiative of divine grace. While none of these cat-egories are entirely disregarded in current discourse about reli-gious life, rarely have they been used in conjunction with one another and certainly not in what has been termed "a language of conversion." By assimilating these categories of conversion, religious can begin to change some of their dysfunctional ways of relating and nurse some of the open wounds that their communities now endure. First of all, they must get beyond claiming that the call to conversion extends only to individuals and not to the social struc-tures they inhabit. An awareness of the circular relationship between the human heart and the human social structure is ~un-damental to any serious discussion of religious life's future. Without it the dissatisfaction of many of today's religious with their institutional structures will continue to grow. 816 Review for Religious GERALD M. FAGIN Are We Relating to God in a New Way? When I entered a Jesuit novitiate thirty-five years ago, I was introduced to a way of relating to God deeply rooted in the tradition of the church and in the Society of Jesus. It was a way of experiencing God and of responding to God that was shaped by a clearly defined theological understanding of God, the church, and the human per-son. What characterized that spirituality was what char-acterized the spirituality of most Catholics, both lay and religious, in the years before Vatican Council II. What has emerged in the last twenty-five years is a new way of relating to God, a spirituality rooted in a plurality of the-ological understandings of God, the church, and the human person. We might describe it as a shift in model or simply as a shift from one pole of the necessary tension in our spiritual lives to the other. What is important is that we describe and understand what has happened, for too often a lack of understanding has led to confusion, guilt, and quarreling among Christians. I offer five tensions or polarities that are always pres-ent in our spiritual lives. What has happened in lived Christian spirituality can be described in terms of these tensions. spirituality From Objective to Subject-Centered The spirituality of thirty-five years ago was an objec- Gerald M. Fagin sJ, professor of theology, can be addressed at Loyola University; 6363 St. Charles Avenue; New Orleans, Louisiana 70118. Noven~ber-Decen~ber 1993 817 Fagin ¯ Are We Relating to God in a New Way? tive spirituality measured in terms of laws kept, mortifications and virtues and devotions practiced, prayers said, and Masses attended. A typical day in a novitiate was structured around an early morning Latin Mass, an hour of meditation, the rosary, the stations of the cross, examination of conscience, spiritual read-ing, and an instruction on religious life. The spiritual life of the Catholic laity was measured and identified by similar norms and practices. This way of life was supported by a clearly defined Catholic culture that gave Catholics a sense of identity rooted in unambiguous doctrinal and moral teaching and distinct rituals and practices. It was the world of the Baltimore catechism, Friday abstinence, fasting in Lent, First Friday and First Saturday devo-tions, benediction, indulgences, and St. Jude devotions. It demanded discipline and obedience and self-sacrifice, but it offered clear expectations and a structured and measurable way of living out a committed Christian life that led to sanctity. Such objectivity is an essential element in any relationship .to God. Rituals, practices, and devotions are at the heart of a gen-uine experience of God and a faithful response to God. We need clear guidelines and traditional structures if we are to be account-able and if we are to guard against the kind of subjectivity that is open to deception and divisiveness. What has emerged, then, is not a total rejection of this way of relating to God, but a new emphasis on the human person as a free and developing subject in the spiritual life. This subject-centered spirituality is a spirituality measured in terms of people's inner growth and actualization, the quality of their prayer and personal affective development. The spiritual life is described in terms'of a growth in trust and love and openness and freedom and sensi-tivity to the Spirit. Religious experience rather than religious practice is central to this approach. The focus is growth in peo-ple's personal relationship with God and on God's call addressed ¯ uniquely to individuals in their specific life circumstances. In con-sidering fidelity to God, the language of conformity and obedience to rules gives way to discernment and dialogue. Prayer becomes less a meditation on the truths of Christianity and more a lan-guage of the heart, an affective prayer that centers on God's ini-tiative more than our initiative. The role of the spiritual director puts less emphasis on teaching and guidance and more emphasis on facilitating the directee's relationship with God. The didactic gifts of the director become less important than a listening and 818 Review for Religious discerning heart that can clarify the movement of God in the directee's heart. Thirty-five years ago my spiritual director asked me about my fidelity to my spiritual exercises, the subject matter of my meditation, and the resolutions from my latest retreat. Today my spiritual director asks me about the movement of God in my heart and the consolation and desolation that are the signposts of my discernment. The presupposition is that God is at work in the individual soul and that this movement of God can be observed and discerned. The shift to a subject-centered spirituality is clearly seen in the rediscovery of the directed retreat. Conference-style or preached retreats focus on a common teaching or subject matter for reflec-tion. Everyone responds to and prays over the same material, often more doctrinal than scriptural, and not selected as a specific response to the needs and grace directions of the individuals. The subject matter of the directed retreat is each individual's experience of God, the movement of the Spirit within that person. Scripture is chosen to focus and highlight the graces of the retreatant. There is not one set program for everyone. It is pre-sumed that each person will experience and respond to God's grace in an individual way. Underlying this shift to the subject is a different under-standing of revelation. Revelation is imaged not primarily as propositions to be affirmed but as God's self-communication. Revelation is not first a series of statements about God and the human condition, but a series of experiences of God that reveal who God is and how God deals with us. Jesus is the fullness of God's revelation so that our faith life is a response to someone rather than an assent to propositions. God's self-revelation in Christ calls us to a new relationship with.God. Experience, both individual and communal, precedes articulation; and our rela- This subject-centered spirituality is a spirituality measured in terms of people's inner growth and actualization, the quality of their prayer and personal affective development. November-December 1993 819 Fagqn ¯ Are We Relating to God in a New Way? tionship with God begins in an experience of God that then finds words in doctrines and expression in rituals. From Perfection to Process The novice of thirty-five years ago set out on the road to per-fection. Every imperfection was to be weeded out, every virtue practiced. The ideals were clear, even if unattainable. The goal was set: "Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." The perfec-tion model envisioned our spiritual lives as a striving for an ideal, a state of perfection that was never attained. Too often our spir-itual lives were evaluated in terms of our failures to reach the ideal or the degree to which we had failed to attain perfection. As in the objective model, the focus was on an observance of laws and duties. Novices were told, "Keep the rule and the rule will keep you." This approach tended to be legalistic and Pelagian and to generate undue fear in our relationship with God. We were always aware that we were not measuring up to the ideal. No matter how fervent our spiritual lives and how detailed our obser-vance, we remained unworthy servants who had yet to reach per-fection. We placed much more emphasis on what we had failed to do or achieve than on the level of our desire and hope and love and our moments of fidelity. This perfection model focused on the goal, not the process to the goal. God's love and affirmation were often thought of as the reward for our completing the process, for our faithful observance. A corollary of the shift from objective to subject-centered is the shift from this perfection model to a process model in our relationship with God. The process model envisions our spiri-tual lives as a journey that can be measured not only in terms of how far we have to go, but especially in terms of how far we have come. Besides sorrow for our failure to attain perfection, there is gratitude for all that God has accomplished in us, the work of God's grace in our lives. Our spiritual lives are viewed as a rela-tionship with God that grows, not as a project that needs to be accomplished. Such a model is sensitive to the adult stages of growth in the human process. Conversion is emphasized as an ongoing process of discovering and purification and commitment. Creative fidelity in the midst of new challenges and opportunities replaces perseverance in a static commitment. The love of God is experienced in the midst of the process as an abiding source of 820 Review for Religious support and inspiration. God loves us where we are and invites us to a fuller life. We find God, then, where we are and not where we would like to be. We pray out of our present experience, not out of as-yet-unrealized goals. At the root of this shift from perfection to process is a renewed understanding of grace. Grace is defined not primarily in ontological terms and categories, certainly not as a quantity to be gained and lost by observance or lack of observance. Rather it is understood as a growth in a relationship of love with some-one, a growth into a richer and fuller life. Our relationship with God is an invitation to friendship and intimacy with God, a gift of new life. God's grace is the giving of Godself that transforms us and empowers us to live God's life. From Private to Communal The novitiate of thirty-five years ago was highly structured and programmed. With rare exceptions, everyone followed the same order of the day, listened to the same conferences and instructions, and even read many of the same books. The reality of large numbers of novices made personal attention less available, even though the novice master was concerned for the well-being of each novice. At the same time, the spirituality proposed was very individualistic. People's relation with God was private and expressed in personal devotions and practices. They found God in the solitude of their'own heart and gave little emphasis to a com-munity of shared faith and communal discernment. There was a strong sense of corporate identity, but one's own spiritual life was private and to be shared only with a spiritual director or supe-rior. The support came from the awareness that everyone was praying at the same time in private, not from any ~hared sense of what was happening in the prayer of individuals. This personal piety that privatized one's relationship with God followed upon an understanding of the church as an insti-tution from which grace flows from the top through a hierarchi-cal structure to the individual. God spoke through superiors and religious leaders, not through the members of the community. Sacraments too were privatized. They were channels of individ-ual grace and a personal relationship with God. Confession was an experience of forgiveness of my sins with little sense of reconcil-iation with the community. Eucharist focused on the offering of November-December 1993 821 Fagin ¯ Are We Relating to God in a New Way? Christ's sacrifice and my reception of Communion, followed by my private thanksgiving with .Jesus. Often Eucharist was a pri-vate Mass with a single server symbolizing a broader community that was not evidently there. All of this, of course, reflected a the-ology of church and sacrament that shaped and reinforced a sense of a private relationship with God. A communal model, on the other hand, emphasizes that we encounter God in community. It respects the personal and unique aspect of one's relationship with God and the areas of religious experience that are shared only with a spiritual guide or a close friend, but it images our relationship with God in the context of a community of faith. The Spirit speaks through all, and we grow in our faith life with, in, and through others. We are one body. We are branches on the same vine. Shared prayer and communal dis-cernment are important means of developing our relationship with God. This derives from an understanding of church as pri-marily a community of believers called together in faith. The church is an institution with visible structures and offices, but it is first the gathering of disciples that find and celebrate God's presence in their midst. Liturgy is experienced as ecclesial, as the coming together of God's people to hear the word in common and share the meal of the Reign of God. Jesus is present, not only in the consecrated bread and wine, but also in the assembly. We find Jesus in the community. Sacraments, then, are experienced as communal moments Of celebration that bind us together and deepen our corporate identity as the people of God. Christians share a common story of salvation and live out that story as mem-bers of the one body of Christ. That sense of a common story deepens our awareness of God's self-revelation to us in commu-nity and our need to listen and respond as God's people bound together by a covenant relationship. From Dualism to Wholeness From its earliest days Christianity has struggled with a dual-ism that put a wedge between the spiritual and the physical, the body and the soul. Gnosticism, Manicheanism, and Jansenism are only historical surfacings of a constant and strong undercurrent of thought that considers the physical to be evil and the source of temptation. Not surprisingly, the novitiate of thirty-five years ago put little emphasis on emotional growth and psychosexual devel- 822 Review for Religious opment. The prominent role of physical penances and the pro-hibition about novices touching one another dramatized not only a needed asceticism, but also a distrust of anything relating to the human body. Holiness was often identified with a flight from the body and from the emotions. The body was seen as a hin-drance to the spirit, and the emotions were dismissed or sup-pressed as irrelevant and debilitating. Reason and volition were the only reliable means of directing our spiritual lives. Discernment was reduced to a rational process or replaced by. logical analysis. Faith was seen primarily as an act of the intellect and holiness as an act of the will. In the end, the spiritual life was often per-ceived as set apart in a higher realm divorced from the growth of the whole person. Contemporary spirituality is more clearly holistic. It respects and encourages the growth of the whole person. The process of human-ization is an integral part of spiritual develop-ment. Spiritual maturity presupposes a certain psychological health as a foundation. The role of affectivity and an appreciation of our phys-icality become important elements of our growth to spiritual wholeness. Discernment is appreciated as noticing and evaluating the affective as well as the rational movements of God within the soul, sifting through experiences of consolation and desolation. Faith is the response of the whole person to God's self-revela-tion. A renewed value is given to human desire as a place where God touches and inspires the soul and calls a person to fuller life. Contemporary spiritua~ty knows well that something of this holis-tic approach can be found in a fresh reading of many of the mys-tics and spiritual classics, but modern awareness and appreciation of the complexities of the human person have insisted even more that holiness is a developmental process of integrating all aspects of the human person. The shift from dualism to wholeness is rooted in an under-standing of the human person as a unity rather than a duality of spirit and body. Psychology and religion can work together to transform and sanctify every dimension of the person. The Enneagram, Jungian personality types, dream analysis, Intensive Journaling--all these and more can enrich our appreciation and Christians share a common story of salvation and live out that story as members of the one body of Christ. November-December 1993 823 Fagin ¯ Are We Relating to God in a New Way? understanding of the human psyche and be positive helps to our spiritual growth. There is, of course, an element of truth in the dualistic approach. Physical and even psychological wholeness are not indispensable to Christian holiness. God can and does work through our brokenness. The ideal of self-actualization and human growth must always be relativized by the gospel call to self-emp-tying surrender. On the other hand, the dualistic approach, when taken to an extreme, can produce an impoverished human per-son insensitive to the riches of imagination and affect in relating to God and other people. In such a case, little or no value is given to the affective movements of the heart in the search for God. The ordering of affectivity is reduced to the suppression of affec-tivity, and an ascetic ideal is proposed that allows little room for human emotion. From Other-Worldly to This-Worldly "Just a little while and then eternity." These words attributed to St. John Berchmans set the tone for my novitiate experience thirty-five years ago. At the heart of the relationship with God was a call to renunciation of the material world. The world was a place of temptation and trial. We were pilgrims on a journey to salvation in the next life. Sanctity demanded detachment from the world. Matter was evil, the source of sin. Penance was a way to punish the flesh and control its appetites. The novitiate was in an isolated place far from the allurements of the world. There were no newspapers or magazines or movies or TV. The harshest judgment passed on any novice was that he was "worldly." At the root of this approach was a negative vision of the world as cor-rupted by sin. Flight from the world was the road to sanctity. Even apostolic religious orders tended to propose monastic ide-als that emphasized separation from the world. A special impor-tance was given to the words of Seneca (Letters, no. 7) quoted in the Imitation of Christ (I, 20): "As often as I have been among men, I have returned less a man." No one can deny the truth in this approach to the world. Growth in a relationship with God demands a radical detachment and renunciation. We live in a world of obscured values and dis-torted perceptions, a world infected with sin that stands in oppo-sition to the values of the reign of God. The world is groaning for 824 Review for Religious redemption, and Christianity must stand as a countercultural force in a broken and wounded world. Contemporary spirituality, however, takes a more positive view of the world, seeing it as the product of God's love and the locus of God's redemptive presence. The Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes (The Church in the Modern World) proposed a world-affirming vision that recognized the value and autonomy of human society and culture and that took responsibility for the world. A renewed theology of creation takes seriously Genesis's declaration of the goodness of creation and the dignity of humans as images of God. Such a creation-centered spirituality rejoices in the world as a gift.from the hands of a loving God. Our relationship with God is expressed in a concern for the earth and a sense of stew-ardship for the resources entrusted to us. The reign of God is already a reality "bud-ding forth," and our human efforts are an essential element in building the final reign of God. God, then, is found in human experience and human achievement, and this world becomes a sacred place for encountering God. A genuine apostolic spirituality recognizes that we work out our salvation by involvement in the human struggle for justice. The desert invades the marketplace and the monk speaks a prophetic word in the city. The reason for the shift to a this-worldly spiritua'lity is, then, a more positive view of the world and a renewed understanding of salvation. An important corollary of this new understanding and appre-ciation of the world is a reevaluation of the relation between reli-gious life and the lay vocation. In the other-worldly view of the Christian life, monastic spirituality was considered normative, and so the life of a single or a married person in the world was necessarily a less radical commitment to a relationship with God. Lay spirituality was at best a watered-down adaptation of the higher calling of religious life. Vatican II, by contrast, speaks of a universal call to holiness. All Christians are called to the per-fection of charity and commitment to Christ. Religious life and the A genuine apostolic spirituality recognizes that we work out our salvation by involvement in the human struggle for justice. November-December 1993 825 Fagin ¯ Are V~e Relating to God in a New tVay? lay vocation are two different ways of responding to the radical gospel call to discipleship. At best one can speak of religious life as a more explicit and unambiguous lifestyle that witnesses to the common vocation of all Christians. Conclusion The tensions just described are an enduring part of our rela-tionship with God. Our spirituality will always be a balance between objective and subjective, perfection and process, private and communal, dualism and wholeness, other-worldly and this-worldly. As Richard McBrien has pointed out frequently, Catholicism is not a matter of either/or but of both/and. There is no question of rejecting one way and replacing it completely with another, but rather of claiming a new richness that respects the older way and opens new ways of living our Christian lives. My novitiate experience of thirty-five ye~ars ago focused almost exclu-sively on the objective, perfection, private, dualistic, and other-worldly dimensions of our relationship with God. Contemporary spirituality has swung the pendulum dramatically to the other pole. The challenge is to move beyond a reactionary position and to integrate the truth of the previous way of relating to God with a new and rich experience of God and the human person. The swing of the pendulum, as we have seen, comes from a new under-standing of revelation, grace, and the church and of the human person, the world, and salvation. Developments in theology and new dimensions of religious experience continue to enrich one another and open new possibilities in our relationship with God. Each age in the life of the church struggles to define Christians' relationship with God. Christian spirituality is a lived experience shaped by life, culture, and theology, but above all by the graced invitation of God. I conclude by suggesting four char-acteristics of a Christian spirituality that is responsive to the invi-tation and challenge of the contemporary world. We need an incarnational spirituality that finds mystery and the sacred in the midst of a radical affirmation of the giftedness of the world, that finds God not only above us but also with us. We need a holistic spirituality that integrates more fully into our spiritual growth the nonrational dimensions of our person, fostering a healthy sense of sin and forgiveness and respecting the human psyche's limitations and possibilities for growth in God's life. We need a 826 Review for Religious prophet# spirituality that integrates the mystical and the political and sees a passion for justice and solidarity with the poor as inte-gral to contemplative union with God. We need an ecdesial spir-ituality that lives out our relationship with God in the community of disciples, harmonizes discernment and religious authority, and responds to the call to ministry that baptismal grace enables us to hear. In the end, Christian spirituality will always remain a response to the gospel call to conversion and discipleship. In every age it promises a growth in a personal relationship with God and demands a commitment in the context of a community of faith, but in the midst 6f these constant elements Christians will con-tinue to be attentive to the movements of the Spirit in their lives and to explore new ways of relating to God. Holofrosts The offerings to God this winter's morning Are holofrosts, not burnt but frozen;fruit Of the vine hangs shriveled as nuggets of ice, The works of human hands .are noughted out By whiteness of snow. Offering God of his own From the elements given us, we lift up As gifts at his altar: his earth, air, Water, hard-touched by December, challenging Us to be devout in our changing seasons Of spring-weather faith, frost-withered doubt. Nancy G. Westerfield November-December 1993 827 A. PAUL DOMINIC Desire, Asking, and Answers porayer, as St. Thomas Aquinas said, is the articulation of ur desire before God.~ That is the way we teach our chil-dren their first practical lesson in religion: we teach them to ask God for what they want. As people grow in spiritual life, they can never outgrow the spirit of their beginnings, if for no other reason than that the highest reaches cannot exist without the low-est attainments. There is reason, then, not to abandon altogether the early, petitionary stage of spiritual life, but to continue to experience its varying moods and movements. Here biblical personages at once spiritual and earthy can be illustrative and illuminative. The recorded experiences of Hannah, David, and Job are relevant. They are all apparently of marked spirituality, notably above the ordinary. Yet in their dealings with God they do not remain always ethereal. Possessed of human desires, too, as down-to-earth people, they approach God openly with the desires of their heart. That is to say, they are simple enough not to be shatmning but to move with the tide of their life. Spiritually oriented people will neglect this basic lesson only to their cost. Not much is known of Hannah, surely; but the little that is known of her reveals her womanly spiritual fiber. Her husband, Elkanah, less known than herself, is religious too, but in the usual way, performing the regular practices like yearly pilgrimage. Perhaps part of his routine spirituality is his seeming resignation A. Paul Dominic SJ, author of God of Justice (Bombay: St. Paul Publications), is well known to our readers. His address is Satyodayam; S. Lallaguda; Secunderabad 500 017; India. 828 Review for Religious to God's disposition regarding Hannah's barrenness. But Hannah herself would not be resigned to her situation. She burns with desire for a son as much as, or even more than, she is resentful and in distress because of the taunts of the other wife, who is not bar-ren. All this compounded desire of her heart she pours out to her God, completely oblivious of her surroundings, and she keeps on beseeching him for a son till--that is the important point here-- she is assured that she will get what she has painfully longed for. She has not supplicated in vain. No wonder she knows peace in her heart. David is great in every way, in particular in his spiritual gifts. He attains spiritual heights on certain occasions when God sur-prises him with choice favors. But he also knows low spirits and even falls. Then he prays, staying where he is. One such occa-sion is when he realizes that he has to pay for his adultery by the death of the child of adultery. Though he owns his sin, still he wants the son his sin produced. How he prays for the life of the child, struck by God with a grave illness! He pleads with God for his child, fasting and lying on the ground for days together. He prays with all his energies, hoping against hope till he realizes that the child has died. He has supplicated in vain and still, sur-prisingly enough, seems to find unusual peace in his heart. Job is an exceptional figure who manages a happy blend of his wealth in the world with his godly life. If he has enjoyed all the prosperity in the world, still he seeks and humbly keeps his integrity before his God. Such a man, however, meets with one disaster after another. Even then he allows no curse to cross his mind or lips; on the contrary, he walks humbly with God, bless-ing him still. However, in the prolonged anguish of his final dis-aster, made worse by his three friends preachifying to the effect that every sufferer must be necessarily a sinner, he is stung to the quick and so driven to defend his honor. He argues with them point by point, personally convinced that there is no sin that would explain his suffering. In between he puts the matter before God, too, quite unafraid, now lamenting his plight, now com-plaining to him, now appealing to him, now reasoning with him, now challenging him, then yearning to reach him, all the while wanting to vindicate his stand that he is innocent, whatever the traditional doctrine of retribution may be. He has supplicated alone and in company, aloud and in silence, passing through the struggle of it all, only to be surprised at the end by the mysteri- Nove~nber-Decen;ber 1993 829 Dontinic ¯ Desire, Asking, and Answers ous and yet overwhelmingly peaceful vision of God clearing up all the aggnizing questions and difficulties. The three biblical episodes ~nay be compared to one another as regards three elements common to them. First, the three pro-tagonists experience an urgent desire. Second, they take it up in their prayer, making it indeed their whole prayer, however long drawn out it may be. Third, they attain something positive. First, then, they are alike in experiencing desires, however various the desires may be. Hannah desires a son. Her desire is natural, normal, proper, appropriate, and worthy inasmuch as she wants only the full enjoyment of her marriage as willed by God right from the beginning. David desires that the son of his passion, born of another man's wife, should live and not die. His desire, too, is natural and normal and yet perhaps not especially worthy, if only because the circumstantial will of God is for the child of adultery to die. Job desires an answer to the puzzle of his unde-served suffering. His desire, too, is nor~nal and natural and yet only dubiously proper against the background of the common traditional belief that every suffering implies some sin in the suf-ferer. While Hannah's desire is in every way agreeable, David's and Job's are not particularly so. David resists the apparent mind of God regarding the fruit of his sin, and Job's honest and frank desire is naively bold because it seems to put God in the wrong. Second, however one evaluates the three desires, they are nevertheless real and candid; the persons know and feel their desire as only they can. They find it so urgent that they do not fight shy of voicing it before other "people and even before God. They do not simply pray about it, but make it their sole and con-stant prayer. Without any distracting self-consciousness, they sim-ply present themselves before God as they experience their desire consuming them, not minding or caring whether they might come across to casual observers as strange or surprising or suspect. Possessed by their sole burning desire, they beseech God persis-tently without any thought of circumspection or shame or seem-ing propriety till something good happens to them--which leads to my third point. In Hannah's case, what happens is just what she has desired and prayed for. She gets a son and calls him Samuel since, as she says, "I asked Yahweh iCor him" (i S 1:20). In David's case, what happens is just the opposite:of his lingering desire and prayer. His ill-gotten child whom he wants to see saved dies of illness. But 830 Re'view for Religious David--note well--comes alive after the whole ordeal of pray-ing, pining, and fasting. He bathes, anoints himself, dresses up, goes to the sanctuary, then sits down to a meal, and finally even consoles his forlorn Bathsheba. In Job's case, what happens is not just what he agonizingly wanted to find, for he finds far more than he has dared ask. He has asked only for a vindicating proof of his undeserved suffering, but he is given to see God himself, the answer of all possible problems and puzzles. It may appear at first sight that the prayer arising from and suffused with unquenchable desire turns out to be a success for Hannah, a fail-ure for David, and a mere struggle for Job. But further reflection would show that the reality or radicality of their experience is not that simple. The feverish desires of David and Job may not have ended in natural, ordinary, and expected satisfaction as in the case of Hannah. But they too have their definite, unmistakable denouement, with their desires set at rest. Indeed, they attain what may be called the res-olution of their desires, a positive ending to their experience of desire in and through and by means of prayer. Here is a lesson for life. Despite the obvious differences in their desires, Hannah, David, and Job all end up with positive experiences through prayer. Their prayer experience has some-thing in common: making their desire transparent to God or, bet-ter, living their desire before God in all its urgency. The experience of any urgent desire is itself a sort of struggle till its ful-fillment. This is only accentuated when the fulfillment of desire depends, not on oneself, but on the good pleasure of another--in the present context, God. So Hannah prays in an unusual manner, speaking under her breath, giving room for suspicion that she is drunk. So too does David, to the surprise of his officials, covering himself with sack-ing, lying on the bare ground and keeping a strict fast. So too does Job, confounding and shocking his onlookers by his unortho-dox stand that, though he has been afflicted with the worst of Despite the obvious differences in their desires, Hannah, David, and Job all end up with positive experiences through prayer. November-December 1993 831 Dominic ¯ Desire, Asking, and Answers sufferings, he cannot be accused of having really sinned. Even if he occasionally concedes, for the sake of argument, that he has sinned, he challenges God outright: "Suppose I have sinned, what have I done to you?" (Jb 7:20). But the burden of his prayer runs now and again in such words as these: "I shall say to God, 'Do not condemn me, but tell me the reason for your assault. Is it right for you to injure me, cheapening the work of your own hands and abetting the schemes of the wicked?'" (Jb 10:2-3). He ends his apologia daringly with no apology whatever: "I have had my say, from A to Z; now let Shaddai answer me" (Jb 31:35). How acute must be the struggle of the man who, in his dire straits, makes bold to speak to God without mincing words about what he wants. If Hannah and David, too, definitely pass through quite a struggle in their prayer seeking what they want, theirs would seem to be nothing compared with the struggle of Job for God's own vindication of his innocence. Generally speaking, the struggle experienced in prayer as peo-ple keep on imploring God for what they want is proportionate to the intensity of their desire. The surpassing struggle Job goes through in his prayer reveals how hard he desires. There is, if one may put it this way, truth in his desire. That is to say, his desire is so true and so truly possessing and consuming him that he needs must seek its fulfillment by every means possible, even if it should entail a gigantic struggle. Here may be raised a very important question concerning prayer. If people pray and complain that they do not get an answer to their prayer, it may be asked whether their prayer arises out of truth, the truth of their desire in the sense suggested above. People may be accustomed to and satisfied with bland preferences, with mere velleities, and thus ,nay not have true desire even if they know, or seem to know, what they desire. Certainly velleities are palt~ desires. It is worth noting in this context that Job with his ruling desire and passionate prayer is a fictitious figure, unlike Hannah and David. From this may one not infer that people like Job are seldom found in real life, that rarely are real people moved by strong, ardent, fervent, and in a word true desire? But without desire there can be no prayer, for desire is part and parcel of prayer. St. Thomas said so (as I have indicated above), and St. Augustine had said something similar much ear-lier. Writing to Proba on prayer, he pointed out that, if the Lord wants us to pray even though he certainly knows independently 832 Review for Religious our wants and needs, it is because "he wants our desire to be exer-cised in prayer, thus enabling us to grasp what he is preparing to give.''2 He added: "We pray always in faith, hope, and love, with uninterrupted desire. Btit at certain hours and seasons we also pray with words. We use these signs of realities to rouse our-selves, to become aware of the growth of our desire, and to strongly move ourselves to increase it . What do the Apostle's words, 'Pray constantly,' mean, if not that we must constantly desire. ?-3 Of course, one may remark quite correctly that in the context Augustine had in his mind a constant desire for the blessedness of eternal life. One may observe just as correctly, however, that what we do in prayer--namely, exercise our desire--may reach out not only to eternal life, but to present life as well, with aH that we want here and now. Anyhow, the very prayer that Jesus taught explicitly is not confined to holy desires connected with God and his kingdom, but, in the phrase "daily bread," makes mention of ordinary human desires and material needs. The Lord's Prayer certainly includes the gamut of human desires, from the lofty to the lowly. Other teachings of Jesus on prayer also focus on desire expe-rienced and expressed before God. The parables of the importu-nate friend and the widow (Lk 11:5-8; 18:1-8), for instance, emphasize the keenness of desire without which prayer would flag and falter. Apart from desire there can be no meaning in prayer of peti.tion; and it is this sort of simple, straightforward prayer that Jesus mostly speaks of. His injunction regarding effec-tive, infallible prayer is to "ask. search., knock" (Mr 7:7); and this really means that one should go on asking and searching and knocking with the growing impulse of intense desire. This real-ity of glowing desire may throw light even on the basic require-ment-- namely, belief or faith--in all such prayer. For instance, in the saying of Jesus that "everything you ask and pray for, believe that );ou have it already, and it will be yours" (Mk 11:24), the action of belief is as much an activity of desire as it is anything else.4 When belief comes into play in prayer, it invariably brings desire into the foreground, the desire which was already there in the prayer right from the start. All this is not a matter of theory but of practice, as may be seen in dealings of Jesus wifla people to whom he grants favors. In the case of the Syrophoenician woman, Jesus senses right from November-Decentber 1993 833 Dominic ¯ Desire, Asking, and Answers the beginning how badly she desires the healing of her daughter. His apparent reluctance to accede to her request only brings out all the more her desire, at once insistent and persistent, regard-ing her daughter's welfare. He takes note of it and refers to it with pleasant surprise when he finally' gives his word of favor to her request (see Mk 7:24-30).s Just the opposite is the story of the sick man at the Pool of Bethzatha (Jn 5:1-6). When Jesus sees him and knows how long he has been ill, he asks him, "Do you want to be well again?" It is a surprising question at first, but on reflection very revealing. Jesus cannot heal the sick man unless he first desires it. As the man had been ill for so long, perhaps he no longer has any desire for healing. It is precisely to awaken this desire that Jesus puts the question to him. Today, too, neither Jesus nor his Father can hear any prayer unless it arises in real desire and is poured out in ardent desire and sustained in unabated desire. It matters how much and how far we desire whatever we desire. As I conclude, I find myself won-derii~ g if social activists have an idea how much they can effect by prayer that is sharpened by the "violence" of desire. When I say violence here, I am thinking of that intriguing logion: "The king-dom of God has been subjected to violence and the violent are tak-ing it by storm" (Mt 11:12). Notes ~ See Simon Tugwell, Prayer in Practice (Springfield, Illinois, 1974), p. 75. 2 See The Divine Office, vol. 3 (London, Glasgow, Sydney, Dublin, 1974), p. 662. 3 Letters of Saint Augustine, ed. and trans. John Leinenweber (Liguori, Missouri: Triumph Books, 1992), p. 172. 4 The Markan version lends itself to such an interpretation, unlike the Matthean parallel 21:22 with its connotation of faith as a matter of not doubting about what is prayed for. s Here again Mark is different from Matthew. Mark tells the plain story of the woman with her heart's desire whereas Matthew stylizes it in terms of faith (Mt 15:21-28). 834 Review for Religious JUDETTE A. GALLARES Companionship Spirituality in Ruth Te Book of Ruth is one of the immortal love stories in the ble. It takes as its characters and events ordinary people and mundane life situations to which we can easily find parallels in our world today. The book's primary purpose, however, is not to entertain and delight its audience with plot complications, sus-pense, and a satisfying denouement, but to hold up to its readers and listeners authentic models of covenantal faith? What is this covenantal faith, and how does companionship enter into its perspective? What does the spirituality of compan-ionship teach us in our experiences of change, life transitions, and emptiness? To glean some answers to these questions, it is beneficial to allow to sink into our consciousness Ruth's words to Naomi, her mother-in-law, which have become an immortal prayer of companionship. Let us look at her words within their context as summarized here. During the time of the judges, Elimelech of Bethlehem, together with his wife Naomi and his two sons Mahlon and Chilion, migrated to Moab to escape a famine in Judah. Elimelech died in Moab. His sons married two Moabite women, Orpah and Ruth. The two sons also died, however, leaving two childless wid-ows with their widowed mother-in-law. Naomi decided to return to Bethlehem, and her daughters-in-law, set off with her. While they were on the road, she urged her daughters-in-law each to return to her mother's house, for she was unsure of what future Judette A. Gallares RC is involved in spiritual direction and retreat work in the Philippines and conducts courses on biblical spirituality and spiritual direction for lay and religious formators. Her address is Cenacle Sisters; 217-G.D. Jakosalem Street; Cebu City 6000; Philippines. Novetnber-Deconber 1993 835 Gallares ¯ Companionship Spirituality in Ruth they would have with her. Orpah sorrowfully returned to her fam-ily, but Ruth clung to her mother-in-law in spite of Naomi's prod-ding that she follow Orpah's decision. Instead, she responded in these words: Do not press me to leave you and to stop going with you, for wherever you go, I shall go, wherever you live, I shall live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Where you die, I shall die and there I shall be buried. Let Yahweh bring unnameable ills on me and worse ills, too, if anything but death should part me from you! (Rt 1:16-17). Realizing that Ruth was determined to go with her, Naomi stopped urging her. Both went on their journey until they reached Bethlehem. Migration was rather typical of ancient Palestine. Families often migrated because of the frequent occurrence of famine in the area. The country of Moab, with a narrow strip of well-watered and fertile land running north and south in its center, was an attractive refuge, and so Elimelech, Naomi, and their two sons migrated there. This scenario is familiar even today. To escape economic dif-ficulties caused by drought or increased militarization in third-world rural areas, people flock to the cities and towns seeking either the pot of gold or refuge from military oppression. Professionals continually migrate from third-world to first-world countries in search of better opportunities even though, regret-tably, this slows down socioeconomic development in their own countries. Migration for the sake of survival and a better life is an undei'- standable occurrence in any generation and culture. Biblical lit-erature records a number of such departures. We recall Joseph and his famil)) moving to Goshen (Gn 47:27) and a widow fol-lowing Elisha's advice and moving to the land of the Philistines (2 K 8). So Elimelech's decision to leave Bethlehem of Judah together with his family is understandable. To alert us immediately to the development and historical probability of the story, the author also gives the characters names which in Hebrew have symbolic meanings. Elimelech means "my God is king"; Naomi means "pleasant"; the two sons' names, Mahlon and Chilion, .mean "sickness" and "wasting," respectively.2 After they have settled in Moab, death strikes the male members 836 Review for Religious of Naomi's family. Elimelech dies first. Naomi is left with her two sons, who later marry native women. But after ten years the sons also die without leaving any sons. Naomi, a widow of advanced age with no sons but only non-Jewish and childless daughters-in-law, is therefore destined for a life of destitution and social oppression. In her emptiness and poverty, Naomi decides to return to the land of her birth because the famine there is over. Perhaps she thinks her own townspeople will be kinder to her in her poverty than if she were to remain in Moab as a widowed foreigner. Her two widowed daughters-in-law initially go with her, but she urges them to return to their own families. She just cannot impose her desire and longing for her own land and people on her already suffering daughters-in-law, nor can she deprive them of the small consolation that their own homeland would provide them. Besides, she knows that it would be much more dif-ficult for them, being foreigners, to remarry in her homeland than in theirs because Hebrew laws discourage marriage with foreigners.3 Here Naomi is projected as a practical person. She uses the time, not for grieving, but for doing something in a situation that needs a practical solution. Naomi's use of the unusual phrase "mother's house" is to be noted, for a house is usually designated as one's father's.4 Some com-mentators believe it is used to symbolize or to emphasize the absence of men in the women's lives.5 From another perspective it can also be seen as words of consolation to the suffering women, for the word "mother" evokes images of the love, care, and nur-turance one would long for in a time of brokenness. Orpah heeds Naomi's advice and returns to her people: Ruth refuses. Mthough the motif of ~mptiness is strongly accentuated here, by Naomi's saying that her womb will have no more sons, we see that she is not totally bereft, for Ruth would cling to her and not allow her to return to her homeland alone. Responding to her mother-in-law's pleading send-off with words of loyalty and devotion, Ruth vows to accompany Naomi through a per-ilous journey into an uncertain future. Migration for the sake of survival and a better life is an understandable occurrence in any generation and culture. Novevnber-Dece~nber 1993 837 Gallares ¯ Companionship Spirituality in Ruth Ruth pledges covenant fidelity and claims as her own Naomi's place, people, and God.6 In her beautiful and moving response, Ruth clings not to a past but to a present--not to a male through whom she may achieve power and access, but to a female, one who needs her, one for whom she will provide protection, care, and access.7 Ruth thus gives to her mother-in-law the only thing she possesses, her very self. Even if society destines both of them to a life of extreme poverty as widows, they still have each other. We can still see this kind of attitude among simple poor families. They are extremely loyal to their own members and sacrifice for and protect one another in good times and in bad. Together the two widows now turn their faces resolutely toward Palestine and the city of Bethlehem. The distance between Moab and Bethlehem is only about 120 miles, but this stretch represents a long, fatiguing, and dangerous trek in this period, especially for two women who have neither money beyond their barest needs nor protector.8 It is this journey through barren places that will perhaps bring them closer to each other and cause them to cling more closely together for protection, comfort, and support. Covenantal Faith amid Emptiness in Life Transitions The contrast between emptiness and fullness runs through the entire book. This is seen, not only in the setting itself, but also in the lives of the women characters. The famine or the emptiness of the land that sets the story in motion drives Naomi's family to seek greener fields. Leaving one's country and culture as Naomi did is an experience of emptying, an experience of loss: food, rela-tionships, property, land. It is a recurring motif in the life of Israel and throughout salvation history, beginning with God inviting Abraham to leave his clan and his ancestral home for a promised land. In Abraham we see that God's promise and blessing are indissolubly bound up with a departure, an emptying of anything that prevents one from setting out on an adventure with God. For Naomi, however, Moab turned out to be a place of empti-ness, not a land of promise. There she lost not only her husband but her two sons as well. Her emptiness seemed irreparable, her life hollow deep within. These words of the psalmist could have echoed in her heai't: "How could we sing a song of the Lord in a foreign land?" (Ps 137:4 NAB).)It would be difficult indeed for 838 Review for Religious anyone in Naomi's predicament to sing a song to God amid feel-ings of alienation from God, life, others, and even self. Grief has a way of devouring our spiritual life, leaving us in the desert to feel parched, empty, depleted, lonely, and alienated. Naomi could attribute the cause of her incurable emptiness only to God: "Yahweh's hand has been raised against me." Thus, only God also could fill it. Beyond her empty feeling and sense of God's absence is perhaps a fragile hope that God will also cause her misery to cease. Perhaps this was in her mind and heart when, "having heard that Yahweh had come to help his people by giving them food, Naomi prepared to return home." Her poverty and her emptiness are so basic that they can be intimated by an unadorned reference to food. Beyond a need to fill her physical hunger, she perhaps has a keen desire to reconcile herself with the past, to catch a glimpse of home and of who she is meant to be. John Dunne once wrote9: At every turn in the road a new illuminating is needed to find the way and a new kindling is needed to follow the way. Dunne seems to speak here of moments of transition in one's life when one needs to search within to find illumination or guid-ance to continue going forward on the road to life. This search involves returning to the past, to one's home and roots and being reconciled with them. Naomi, in her poverty and emptiness, thinks of home not only as a place where she could experience God's blessing again' (having heard that Yahweh had come to help his people), but also as a place where she can find peace and acceptance of her painful situation ("Do not call me Naomi. Call me Mara, for God has made life bitter for me"). Her words reflect a deep longing that is present in every human heart. A part in us is always yearning and quietly crying out for the true homeland where life is no longer painful and unfair,l° Undoubtedly Naomi's two Moabite daughters-in-law are also experiencing emptiness and grief at losing their husbands. In their loss their initial response is to cling to what is familiar (to continue living with Naomi and to remain in her clan) even if it does not seem to give them any kind of future. Orpah is practical minded in dealing with her emptiness. In spite of the pain of saying good-bye to Naomi and Ruth and to matters that have become famil-iar to her, she heeds Naomi's advice and returns to her mother's November-December 199~ 839 Gallares ¯ Companionship Spirituality in Ruth house. Perhaps she feels hopeful that life can still offer her a future in her own homeland, and perhaps she, like Naomi, has a renewed glimpse of home and the possibility of who she can still become. Companionship in Time of Transition On the other hand, Ruth clings to her mother-in-law and takes the risk of embracing, her, her land, and her God even if the future is uncertain and seemingly bleak. Although she too is going through ~ransition, she offers Naomi her presence and com-panionship. She feels for her mother-in-law because she too knows the pain of loss and the difficulty of adjusting to a new reality. But, unlike Naomi, she is not allowing this life transition to dis-courage her or to embitter her. For her a return to her mother's house has seemed to be a movement away from what and who she is meant to be. Instead, she follows the movement of Israel's first patriarch by leaving her homeland and venturing into the unknown. Like Abraham she departs from her homeland and empties herself of anything that prevents her from setting out on an adventure with Abraham's and Naomi's God. But, unlike Abraham, she does not perceive the God of Israel as giving her a promise and a blessing. She has none of these assurances. She leaves relying only on Naomi's God and the strength of her love for her mother-in-law. She deals with her emptiness by further emptying herself s~ she can embrace totally the God of Abraham, of Naomi, and of Israel. She lets go of the past in order to embrace the future with great faithfulness. And in these b~autiful words which have become an immortal prayer of fidelity, ~he accompa-nies Naomi through her life transition: Wherever you go, I shill go, wherever you live, I shall live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Wherever you die, I shall die and there I shall be buried. Let Yahweh bring unnameable ills on me and worse ills, too, if anything but death should part me from you! (1:16-17 NJB). As we have seen, biblical fidelity recalls the faith of Israel that began with the departure of Abraham and led to the Mosaic covenant with God. It remembers the unique friendship estab-lished between God and Israel that is echoed in the entire Book of.Ruth and is exemplified by Ruth and other people in the story. 840 Review for Religiot~s At the heart of this covenant fidelity is the people's faith that Yahweh is the God of life who calls them to greater life. In the language and setting of today, faith calls us to face the light and to choose life. It enables us to look upon each letting go with optimism and prepares us to face other more painful relin-quishments that commit us more fully to God's service. It enables us to catch a glimpse of who we are meant to be. As with Ruth and Naomi, faith urges us to move forward and embrace the God of life. Notes L Alice L. Laffey, "Ruth," in the New Jerome Biblical Commentary (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1990), p. 553. 2 Ibid. 3 Intermarriage was prohibited, not on ethnic grounds, but to avoid religious syncretism and to foster the worship of Yahweh (see Ex 34:15ff). See Madeleine S. Miller and J. Lane Miller, Harper's Bible Dictiona,7 (New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1973), p. 422. 4 Ibid. s Ibid. 6 See Laffey, p. 555. 7 Ibid. 8 Edith Deen, All of the Women of the Bible (San Francisco: Harper and Row Publishers, 1983), p. 84. 9 Quoted byJoyce Rupp OSM in Praying Our Goodbyes (Notre Dame, Ind.: Ave Maria Press, 1988), p. 77. ~0 Ibid, p. 24. Novonber-Decentber 1993 841 JOHN P. MOSSI The Spirituality of Surrender Losing, whether it is losing a friendly bet, an important argument, or a business contract, is a difficult pill to swal-low. We detest losing. The same is true for tiny diehard sports fan who endures a hometown rout. We walk away replaying the game, blaming the unfair referees, or creating strategies that "would have" favorably altered the score. When the defeat entails greater stakes, there is higher resis-tance to a surrender. To address a serious problem like addiction is personally painful. Implicit in such reality is a pervasive sense of failure. One has lost control over life's direction. The only way to regain control is to surrender what has not worked and seek a new way. This process is replete with difficulty. This article will examine the spirituality of surrender as a means of comin.g home to God? Surrendering to God will be looked at in three ways. The first involves an understanding of how surrender is operative in twelve-step recovery programs like Alcoholics Anonymous. The second involves a look at the life of Ignatius of Loyola and the surrender components of the final prayer of the Spiritual Exercises, the "Suscipe," or "Take and Receive." The third considers Jesus' act of surrender on the cross in Luke 23:46. Each of these three different "ways" of surren-dering involves putting our ultimate identity and confidence in God. John P. Mossi SJ, a member of the Religious Studies Department at Gonzaga University, facilitates courses in pastoral counseling, spiritual mentoring, addiction and pastoral approaches to recovery, and Catholicism. His address is Gonzaga University; Jesuit Residence; Spokane, Washington 99258. 842 Review for Religious Let Go, Let God At Alcoholics Anonymous meetings or twelve-step recovery retreats, the expression "Let go, let God" is often used. These four important words constitute the core spirituality of A.A. and similar recovery programs that have adapted the twelve steps to their particular addiction. "Let go, let God" is an invitation to surrender one's umnanageable life to God. "Let go, let God" is a gentle conversion reminder, a kind of mantra, which assists us both to admit the addiction and to hand it over along with its various forms of com-pulsions to God. The long form of the prayer would be something like "Let go of alcohol (or whatever the specific substance or non-substance addiction might be) and let the hand and grace of God guide my life." The prayer is not magic. Saying "Let go, let God" does not instantaneously bring about recovery. Its first purpose is to assist the recov-ering addict to keep to the daily partnership task of surrendering the addiction to God. The second purpose of "Let go, let God" is. to be a prayer of liberation, to call on the greater power of God to help one escape from destructive lifestyle patterns. In this way the creative resources of the individual and the action of God are focused on together. The prayer also serves to silence those addic-tion- related inner-committee tapes and voices of doubt, loneli-ness, fear, and caustic shame that can interfere with a person's slow recovery. These, too, need to be handed over to God. I have the greatest admiration for all who enter the surrender process of a twelve-step program. For many, it is the difference between death and life, the difference between barely existing as a human and participating in community, between dysfunction-alism and experiencing the serenity that only God gives with amazing grace. The first three steps of Anonymous programs set up this "Let go, let God" dynamic. The language of the twelve steps is straight-forward and simple. This is part of their wisdom and wide appeal. The steps make sense to a lot of people. Since A.A. began in 1935 at Akron, Ohio, Anonymous recovery programs have multiplied to treat various forms of addiction.2 These include Narcotics "Let go, let God" is an invitation to surrender one's unmanageable life to God. November-December 1993 843 Mossi ¯ The Spirituality of Surrender Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous, Gamblers Anonymous, Emotions Anonymous, Workaholics Anonymous, Sexaholics Anonymous, M-Anon, and Adult Children of Mcoholics. Let us examine these first three steps. 1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol [or the other specific addiction], that our lives had become unmanageable) The first step is crucial. You admit you have a serious prob-lem. There is no denial of the fact. The blunt reality is your life is out of control, in fact, unmanageable. Furthermore, you are powerless to do anything about it. At Anonymous meetings, this first step is handled in an up-front manner. When members speak, they state their first name and their addictiveness: "I'm John. I'm an alcoholic." "I'm Susan. I'm a recovering overeater." In formal religion we might refer to this acknowledgment as group confession. In recovery programs it is simply admitting what can no longer be denied. Step one is an honest, vulnerable beginning place. Owning and naming the unmanageable addiction is essential to the surrendering process. When one is aware o£ a specific uncontrollable disease, one can effectively pray "Let go." But to whom does one surrender? Steps two and three look at the second part of the mantra: "Let God." God is the significant associate in restoring harmony. To appreciate the spirituality of the twelve steps, it is important to reflect that the existence and action of God are mentioned seven times in the twelve steps. The par-ticular addiction is only mentioned once, and that is in the first step. The activity of surrendering one's addiction and life to God becomes the spirituality cornerstone of the remaining steps. 2. We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.4 Step two admits the need of an outside corrective authority, a Higher Power, to bring about a stability in one's life. This is the first glimpse of light that invites God in as the restorer of sanity. There are two other important spirituality elements opera-tire in the second step: (i) the belief that a Higher Wisdom exists and (2) a disposition of humility on the part of the believer. These two qualities counterculturally work against the arrogance of the ego that craves to cling to the addiction. Step two indicates that the recovery process entails an attentive listening to a new Teacher, which means that the addict has to take on the attitude 844 Review for Religious of learner. There is a major shift in trust: from addiction to God. 3. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.s Step three is where the capitulation actually occurs. First, a concrete decision to surrender has to be made. Second, this deci-sion is total. It includes the will making conscious choices, and it affects one's entire being and journey. Third, the whole person is placed in the care of God according to the individual's faith back-ground. The spirituality of "Let go, let God" is a conversion process. Conversion of its nature has two basic movements: the surren-dering of the compulsion, shame, and destructive addictive pat-terns which reduce freedom; the turning to the care of God and the Holy Spirit to be one's permanent resource of wisdom and identity. Matthew 11:28-30 speaks of a "letting go, letting God" pro-cess: "Come to me, all you who labor and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.''6 These three verses contain the confirmation signs that accompany a true surrender. A learning will occur, the process will be gentle and humble. Rest will be experienced. A new relationship arises, a companionship with the Master, which will be nonaddictive, easy, and light. The Surrender of Ignatius of Loyola Another way of surrendering one's life to God comes from the spirituality of Ignatius's surrender as expressed in his prayer the "Suscipe," or "Take and Receive." On his pilgrim journey Ignatius was called to surrender on several notable occasions. The first was during the defense of the city of Pamplona, Spain. In 1521 Ignatius, wounded by cannon shrapnel, reviewed the illusions of his life as sober death approached. But he did not die. His long convalescence became a conversion process. He gradually yielded up his stubborn self-preoccupation, bravado, and ambition and began to discover a new self in God.7 The spirituality record of Ignatius's surrender to God is found in his classic work, the Spiritual Exercises. Today, 450 years after its first published edition, it is still considered a significant theo-logical work noted for its integration of Scripture, guidelines for Nove~nber-Dece'mber 1993 845 Mossi ¯ The Spirituality of Surrender discernment, sense of mission, and themes of justice. The Exercises' developmental stages of growth in discipleship and intimacy enable a person to come home to God. The last prayer of the Exercises is called the "Suscipe" or "Take and Receive." I invite you to spend some time contemplating the components of this prayer. What is Ignatius, the once vain soldier-at- arms, now a mystic, asking us to do? Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will-- all that I have and call my own. You have given it all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace. That is enough for me.8 The "Suscipe" is a deceptively profound prayer. It invites us to acknowledge the primacy of God in our totality; it answers the humbling question "What aspect of our being is not a gift of God?" In the light of this answer, Ignatius invites us to surrender all to God. The last part of the prayer is a seeking of the purer gifts: "Give me only your love and grace. That is enough for me." Ignatius does not compromise in the process of "letting go of self and letting God in." I recall a forceful experience in praying the "Suscipe." It hap-pened fifteen years ago during a retreat. I attempted to pray and could not. I realized I had not surrendered anything, certainly not my liberty, memory, understanding, and will to anyone, much less to God. I told my director that I could not pray this prayer at all. As a consequence, I seriously questioned remaining a Jesuit. The director gave sage advice. He invited me to return to the chapel and pray the "Suscipe" with my own words in my own way. I prayed, "Lord, I give you my sins which I know so well, those many areas of my life where I am not obedient, poor, and chaste. I give you my pride, my negativity, my hatred and vin-dictiveness, my compulsive rebellion and addictiveness to self. I am overly familiar with these dark recesses. And I truly need to sur-render these to you. Send forth your Holy Spirit to guide, anoint, ¯ and heal with a love that I am most in need of, your grace." 846 Review for Religious Like an ambush, the opportunity to surrender can appear at unlikely moments. Do not let the occasion pass by. The benefit of letting God in always outweighs whatever is surrendered. Jesus on the Cross We turn to the spirituality of Jesus and the particular way he has taught us to surrender. He, too, had to face a special moment of surrender. His prayer in Luke 23:46 is a powerful expression of letting go: "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.''9 Here on the cross Jesus is still the master teacher. He models for us how to pray and hand over our daily experiences and our life to God. Notice the key elements: (1) The prayer is addressed to the Father; (2)Jesus urges us to surrender, to commend, to let go; (3) Jesus specifies what is to be handed over. He gives what little is left, his spirit and last breath. In the daily minor or major surrenders of our own pilgrimage, we can pray in the spirituality of either the twelve steps, Ignatius, or Jesus. Specify in the "Let go, let God" mantra and the "Suscipe" whatever needs to be named and yielded: "Let go of addiction and manipulation. Let God in." "Take, Lord, my dis-honesty, my hurts, my doubts and sinfulness." God can handle and work with these blighted areas quite well. Adapt the prayer of Jesus to your immediate concerns: "Father, into your hands I commit my grief, my sense of failure, my disappointment, my pettiness and vulnerability." Commend these regions of brokenness to the higher compassion and under-standing of God. It is clear that not only our joys but also our sorrows must be offered to God. Our ability to be powerless allows God to meet us and tenderly heal us on our journey, embracing us as we truly are. Moreover, the art 6f surrendering involves a lifelong process. Some days we succeed better than others. If we post-pone learning the spirituality of surrender, we will face it unpre-pared at death, when .the surrender is sudden. Perhaps we can learn to surrender to the care, to the heart, of God in advance. Notes ~ For more information on this topic, see Gerald G. May, Addiction and Grace (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1991), pp. 162-181. Nove'mber-December 1993 847 Mossi * The Spirituality of Surrender 2 Ernest Kurtz, Not-God: A Histo~7 of Alcoholics Anonymous (Center City, Minn.: Hazeldon, 1991), pp. 37-57. 3 Anonymous, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, 1952), p. 21. 4 Ibid, p. 25. ~ Ibid, p. 34. 6 The New Jerusalem Bible (New York: Doubleday, 1985). 7 St. Ignatius' Own Story, trans. William J. Young sJ (Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 1956), pp. 7-27. 8 David L. Fleming SJ, The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius: A Literal Translation and a Contemporary Reading (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1980), p. 141. 9 The New Jerusalem Bible. Retreat: A Flight The gulls are going wild over the waters; dipping, zooming, swirling over the wild waters. Far away, at horizon's edge, two ships imperceptibly inch against a purpling sky. I look up and see clouds playing charades before my eyes; straight out, the waves, wind-tossed, chase the dunes relentlessly. It is December at Mantoloking, and my Advent prayer has taken off with the clouds and the winds and the waves. I surrender, like a Maid of long ago to a time of begetting: in Mary, a Word made Flesh. in me, a sign become Faith. each a way of holding Beauty as a born-for-us Savior in a free-for-all world where the gulls (and my heart) go dipping, zooming, swirling with the wild of wonder. Anna Marie Mack SSJ 848 Review for Religious JEFFREY GROS The Ecumenical Vocation of Religious When Pope John emphasized the unity of the church and its openness to the world in inaugurating Vatican Council II, few realized the cost that such conversion would exact. Some felt euphoria, expecting the whole Roman Catholic Church to be zealous for reunion among Christians and hoping for a quick resolution of the theological, sacra-mental, and historical problems dividing the churches. Others, even some receptive to conciliar reform, had the superficial expectation that ecumenical openness would settle for a warm but noncommittal outreach, diminishing hostilities but not calling for the radical conversion and institutional reform outlined in the conciliar decree on ecumenism. The last twenty-five years have been a reward-ing and challenging pilgrimage for the Roman Catholic Church and for its Christian partners on the road toward full visible unity. Those who would consider the ecu-menical movement dead have not been following the lit-erature nor have they felt spiritual bonds of communion becoming stronger as many ofhers have. The Holy Spirit has been very much at work, but not all have yet been vis-ited with the gift of conversion. It is small wonder that, as the Roman Catholic Church assesses its ecumenical involvement and charts its course for the future, its Directory for the Application of Principles Jeffrey Gros FSC works in the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs. His address is 3211 4th Street N.E.; Washington, D.C. 20017-1194. ecurnenJsrn November-December 1993 849 Coos * The Ecumenical Vocation of Reli#ous and Norms on Ecumenism (June 1993) gives special emphasis to ecumenical formation.~ Indeed, the ecumenical movement has been so successful that a whole genre of literature has emerged, resulting from the ecumenical dialogue, that calls for both spe-cialized study and incorporation into the spiritual life of all Catholics, including religious. Twenty-five years ago it was pos-sible to be ecumenical merely by being open to and supportive of the general conciliar position and by praying for the unity of the church. Today ecumenical commitments have become a richer and more complex spectrum. Most religious-formation programs gave emphasis to ecumenism a decade or two ago. They need evaluation today to see if they continue faithful to the develop-ments of this part of Catholic identity. In the new Directory there is for the first time a specific section devoted to institutes of con-secrated life and societies of apostolic life, not only laying out principles, but also proposing delegates and commissions for ecu-menism at the highest levels in religious institutes.2 This Directory is a help towards renewal. It covers such top-ics as the basis in Catholic theology for ecumenical commitment; the structures in the Catholic Church--including religious com-munities- to support the ecumenical commitment; ecumenical formation of the laity and the clergy, and within specialized min-istries and institutions; spirituality as it pertains to common bap-tism, marriage, and sacramental sharing; and cooperation and common witness. After a short introduction this essay will be lim-ited to some rather general comments on two issues: ecumenical formation and collaboration. Religious have been instrumental in Roman Catholic ecu-menism- such pioneers as Congar, Tavard, Rahner, and Dulles. Some religious communities have prayer and work for the unity of the church as their charism, like the Graymoor friars and sis-ters and the Paulist fathers? Others have set up special supports for the ecumenical movement, like the Jesuit Society of Ecumenists and the Benedictine centers at Collegeville, Chevetogne, Turvey, and Niederaltaich. Outreach programs to incorporate lay people in, for example, Jesuit, Mercy, or Lasallian spirituality and apostolates have been thoroughly ecumenical in their membership and formation. Schools, hospitals, and other institutions animated by religious in leadership positions have pioneered the ecumenical program of the Catholic Church. Among diocesan ecumenical officers are many religious. Where 850 Review for Religious shared mission is a priority, the baptismal basis and commitment to full ecclesial communion are central to the common forma-tion of the fellow Christians who are brought into collaboration with Roman Catholic religious according to their particular charisms. These developments, like the other elements of renewal, have been adapted according to cultural context and the quality of vision provided by ecclesiastical and religious leadership. The Context Certainly many bishops and religious superiors will use the occasion of the publication of the Directory as an opportunity to train specialists in ecumenical leadership, much as retraining in canon law developed after the publication of the 1983 Code.4 As in biblical, social, and liturgical renewal, expertise is necessary in ecumenism. It is essential, however, that all religious, lay, and clerical members of the church be formed ecumenically as part of their spiritual and apostolic life. The Second Vatican Council clearly asked Catholics to reach out in love to all other Christians with a charity that desires and works actively to overcome in truth whatever divides them from one another. For the council, Catholics are to act in hope and in prayer to promote Christian unity. They will be prompted and instructed by their faith in the mystery of the church, and their ecumenical activity will be inspired and guided by a true understanding of the church as "sacrament or iristrumental sign of intimate union with God, and of unity of the whole human race.''s In this sho~'t essay attention will be called to the ecumenical dimension of Roman Catholic spirituality and identity in its pres-ent challenges. Among the institutional supports to religious involved in the ecumenical movement is the National Ecumenical Consultation of Men and Women Religious. This .group's publication of Religious for Christian Unity as an ecumenical resource and direc-tory and its sponsorship of a national ecumenical conference under the theme "Toward a Communion in Faith Life and Witness" are indications of a certain maturity.6 Although there has been an international ecumenical consultation for twenty years, the United States consultation is only nine years old. It is sponsored in part by the Conference of Major Superiors of Men and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. With the publication and the November-December 1993 851 Gros ¯ The Ecumenical Vocation of Reh~ous May 1993 conference, the specific ecumenical contribution of religious begins to have a higher profile. For the first time, the Directory proposes a structure within religious congregations to assist in the ecumenical activity of com-munities at all levels: It is very opportune that the various institutes of conse-crated life and societies of apostolic life establish, on the level of their central authorities, a delegate or a commis-sion charged with promoting and assisting their ecumenical engagement. The function of these delegates or commis-sions will be to encourage the ecumenical formation of all the members, aid the specific ecumenical formation of those who have particular offices, and act as advisors for ecu-menical affairs to the various general and local authorities of the institutes and societies, especially for initiating or carrying forward the activities described [in the Directory].7 This initiative will elicit considerable work on the part of major superiors, general councils, and chapters. The implications of this proposal will need to be developed in writing for the var-ious institutes. For this project the Directory will be useful. Elements of the Ecumenical Spirituality At the root of loyalty to Christ's will for the church and for church unity is the process of conversion, personal and institu-tional, s There are cultural dispositions that make the formation for such a conversion more or less easy. Of course, a prayerful open-ness to the Holy Spirit's action in the church, in other churches, and in fellow Christians is foundational. Because ecumenism with all its human and moral require-ments is rooted so profoundly in the mysterious working out of the providence of the Father, through the Son and the Spirit, it reaches into the depths of Christian spirituality. It calls for [a] "change of heart and holiness of life, along with public and private prayer for the unity of Christians. ¯ ." Those who identify deeply with Christ must identify with his prayer, and especially with his prayer for unity; . . ¯ those whose lives are marked by repentance will be espe-cially sensitive to the sinfulness of divisions and will pray for forgiveness and con, version. Those who seek holiness will be able to recognize its fruits also outside the visible boundaries of their own church.9 However, studies of seminary formation that were made by 852 Review for Religious diocesan ecumenical officers demonstrate that the most effective ecumenical formative experience is growing up in an interchurch family. Other elements that contributed most to the ecumenical dimension of priestly formation in the United States are (I) internship with an ecumenically effective priest, (2) ecumenically effective spiritual directors, (3) internships with an ecumenically informed non-Catholic minister, and (4) experiences in ecu-menically mixed clinical pastoral education programs. All of the seminaries report that the ecumenical dimension is fully inte-grated into the curriculum. The Directory will be helpful for eval-uating these claims. As sketched out by the council, the elements of Roman Catholic participation in the ecumenical movement include (1) the ecumenical dimension of spirituality, (2) theological dialogues leading to deeper understanding and toward full church unity, (3) collaboration in common witness and service, and (4) internal renewal of the members and structures of the church in response to ecumenical commitments. Attention needs to be given to each of these dimensions in initial and continuing formation and in the ongoing life of a religious community or parish. Ecumenical Spirituality for the Church An ecumenical spirituality is at the center of every aspect of the renewal of religious and lay life in the church. Without con-version to Christ's will for the church--in this case its visible unity and Roman Catholic contributions thereto--any theologi-cal, institutional, or educational progress towards full commu-nion will be superficial. If, on the other hand, Catholics are fully committed to all to whom they are bound by real, if imperfect, communion in baptism and to Christ's will for the visible unity of the church, then no setbacks on the road toward that unity will discourage them or make them complacent about divisions: The ecumenical movement is a grace of God, given by the Father in answer to the prayer of Jesus and the supplica-tion of the church inspired by the Holy Spirit. While it is carried out within the general mission of the church to unite humanity in Christ, its own specific field is the restoration of unity among Christians. Those who are baptized in the name of Christ are, by that very fact, called to commit themselves to the search for unity?° Noventber-Decevnber 1993 853 Coos ¯ The Ecumenical Vocation of Religious While individual religious and some communities have given considerable leadership to church reform in general and ecu-menism in particular, identity problems also affect the relationship of religious and the church. The Nygren/Ukeritis studies show that United States religious have "a stronger ecclesiology than Christology." ii This is not surprising, given the Roman Catholic The vast amount of ecumenical literature that has emerged in the last thi'rty years can help people renew their understandings of sacramental faith together. understanding of spirituality. I would understand this conclusion to mean that Christ is experienced more sacramentally, communally, and in mission than in indi-vidualistic or contemplative encounters. Such a focus on community can mean two things, as a resource for Catholic ecu-menical commitment. In one instance it can mean a more closed and sectarian approach, where primary religious identity and meaning come from the proximate religious community, its institution~ and ministry, rather than from Christ's wider will for the church and the world. Needless to say, this provides a weaker basis for ecu-menical conversion and formation. On the other hand,this ecclesiocen-tric spirituality could indicate that the experience of Christ is primarily in the call to community in the church, in the wider Christian society, and in the whole human family. At this stage in the reporting of the data, "ecclesiology" is yet to be defined. Be that as it may, the fully Catholic religious sees his or her sacramental life as yet defi-cient, short of the full communion of all Christians around the eucharistic table. The data from the same study shows religious to be "clear in their lowered respect for the magisterial authority of the church and the U.S. hierarchy in. general.''12 These words, negative as they sound, may however be interpreted as a critical fidelity to the Holy Spirit's call to the church for its renewal. A higher ideal for the church, its renewal, its leadership, and its eventual unity may not be so much "lowered respect" as elevated expectation and longer-range vision. The movement toward Christ's will for a united church is a critical fidelity for all of the churches involved in the ecumenical movement. 854 Review for Religious The vast amount of ecumenical literature that has emerged in 'the last thirty years can help people renew their understandings of sacramental faith together. The agreements on "justification by grace through faith" with the Lutherans, for example, provide an important contribution to faith development, self-under-standing, and spiritual direction?3 These documents will not reach their full fruitfulness unless they transform the prayer life, litur-gical celebration, and community understanding of the churches that produced them: Catholics should also give value to certain elements and goods, sources of spiritual life, which are found in other churches and ecclesial communities, and which belong to the one church of Christ: Holy Scripture, the sacraments and other sacred actibns, faith, hope, charity and other gifts of the Spirit. These goods have borne fruit for example in the mystical tradition of the Christian East and the spiritual treasures of the monastic life, in the worship and piety of Anglicans, in the Evangelical prayer and the diverse forms of Protestant spirituality. This appreciation should not remain merely theoreti-cal; in suitable particular conditions, it should be completed by the practical knowledge of other traditions of spiritual-ity. Therefore, sharing prayer and participating in some form of public worship or in devotional acts of other Christians can have a formative value when in accord with existing directives.14 Religious have a unique role in translating these intellectual con-tributions into popular piety. Indeed, several ecumenical books on the Blessed Virgin have already provided an invaluable resource, as can be noted by the many languages into which they have been translated,is The lives of ecumenical figures from Luther to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., from John WeslEy to C.S. Lewis, have enr.iched the spiritual reading of a generation and made the divisions both more clear and more subject to the healing power of the Holy Spirit. The modern availability of the spiritual classics from the full range of ecumenical sources, Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, and Anglican has enabled all to be enriched. The living presence of fellow Christians with whom we share Christ--in a variety of traditions, but with a common will to be obedient to Christ's call to visible unity--is a rich complement to the liturgical, bio-graphical, and literary gifts we receive from one another. Like the charisms of the various religious communities and their November-December 1993 855 Gros ¯ The Ecumenical Vocation of Religlous founders, each church brings to a united church gifts we dare not lose as we reconcile our divisions. More particularly, giveR the legitimate variety of charisms and of the work of monasteries, institutes of consecrated life, and societies of apostolic life, it is very important that "all communities should participate in the life of the church. According to its individual character, each should make its own and foster in every possible way the enterprises and objectives of the church," including the "ecumenical field.''~6 In addition to personal and communal ecumenical spirituality, an "ecumenical hermeneutics of piety" will need to be developed as we move forward towards full communion?7 Indeed, as the "lineamenta" document for the 1994 synod notes, the baptismal consecration, beyond the narrow borders of the Roman Catholic Church, is the criterion for our communi-tarian outreach: As a reflection of church communion, the community is not a unit closed in.upon itself. Rather, it is open to the multiplicity of relationships with others which are provided by prayer, apostolic service, and collaboration with other members of the church, all of whom share in the same bap-tismal consecration and are called to holiness and mission in the variety and complementarity of each vocation. In its communitarian aspect, the role of the consecrated life is to offer to all members of the people of God the supreme value of the charity of Christ's disciples, lived in perseverance in fraternal communion.~8 Likewise, the agenda of the synod is very explicit about the spe.cificity of the spiritual calling: Those in the consecrated life have a special role in this ecu-menical task, in dialogue with the spiritual experiences akin to those of other churches and Christian confessions, in a spiritual ecumenism of conversion, prayer, dialogue and mutual edification, always in kedping with their proper iden-tity in the faith and their charism?9 Formation for an Ecumenical Spirituality While prayer and ecumenical openness are central to the ecu-menical vocation of Catholics, including the religious communi-ties, this spirituality also has specific intellectual content. It is a truism that one cannot be an effective ecumenist from any tradi- 856 Review for Religious tion without being firmly grounded in one's own faith and iden-tity. 2° However, 'the intellectual content of the ecumenical move-ment, including Roman Catholic principles and history within that movement, is an essential component for the formation of any ministry in the church, lay, clerical, or religious. In addition to the foundational principles enunciated in the conciliar and postconciliar docu-ments, 21 there has been a rich harvest of dialogue agreements.~ All of these texts are resources for spiritual and intellectual " renewal, requiring the same level of delib-erate systematic effort as did the early days of the biblical and liturgical renewal. Until leaders in our institutions, dioceses, and religious communities become well formed in these matters, their spirit will not be able to come alive in our Catholic life. Indeed, these dialogues and the researches and methodologies that stand behind them transform not only our appreciation of our own Catholic faith, but also of the changes necessary if our insti-tutions and practices are to be converted to reach the ideal we outline with our ecumenical partners. As was noted above, the curricula of seminaries have been transformed by the ecumenical movement. Those who receive their training in ecumenical con-sortia are probably the most sensitive to the ecumenical dimen-sion, but no one taking a Catholic scripture course can be ignorant of the full integration of Catholic and Protestant biblical schol-arship since the council. Similarly, any competent liturgy or sacramental-theology course will be informed by the vast literature that has come from the World Council's "Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry" processz3 over the last decade and from the bilateral agreements of a wide variety of churches. Soteriology, spiritual development, and eccle-siology are all informed by the Lutheran/Catholic work on grace cited above. Ecclesiology will include not only the principles of Catholic ecumenism, but also the work done in the World Council and in various dialogues on such topics as the local and the uni-versal church, religious liberty and proselytism, and papal pri- One cannot be an effective ecumenist from any tradition without being firmly grounded in one's own faith and identity. November-December 1993 857 Coos * The Ecumenical Vocation of Relig4ous macy and infallibility. The Directory gives helpful detail for plan-ning both clerical and nonclerical religious formation.24 For the first time a section in this Directory sets the stage for the work of ecumenical formation among religious: While the concern for restoring Christian unity involves the whole church, clergy and laity alike, relig

Issue 11.4 of the Review for Religious, 1952. ; A.M.D. G~ Review for Religious JULY 15, 1952 Parallel Vocations . Nicholas H. Rieman Bibles . William M. Sfritch Unigeni÷us Dei Filius . Pope Plus x~ To a Master of Novices . Fra L. Ganganelli .Higher Education . Sister M. Bonaventure National Congress Questions and Answers Modesty Crusade Book Reviews VOLUME NUMBER REViI::W FOR RI::LIGIOUS VOLUME XI JULY, 1952 NUMBER CONTENTS PARALLEL VOCATIONS--Nicholas H. Rieman, S.J .1.69 BIBLES--William M. Stritch, S.J . 177 OUR CONTRIBUTORS . 182 REPRINTS OF SPONSA CHRISTI . ¯ . 182 UNIGENITUS DEI FILIUS--Pope Plus XI . 183 BOOKS FOR.PRIESTS . 198 FOR ORGANISTS AND CHOIRMASTERS .1.98 LETTER TO A MASTER OF NOVICES--Fra Lorenzo Ganganelll 199 TEN-YEAR INDEX STILL AVAILABLE . 202 HIGHER EDUCATION AND "REAL RELIGION"-- Sister M. Bonaventure, O.S.F . 203 NATIONAL CONGRESS . 210 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS-- 19. Prescriptions for the Chapter of Faults . 211 20. Precedence in Receiving Communion . . ¯ .212 SHALL I START TO DRINK? . 213 BOOK REVIEWS~ The Morning Offering; What is the Index?; The Seminarian at His Prie-Dieu; The Carmelite Directory of the Spiritual Life .214 BOOK NOTICES . 217 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS . 221 PROMOTE THE MODESTY CRUSADE . 223 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, July, 1952. Vol. XI, No. 4. 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: Jerome Breunig, S.J.; Augustine G. Ellard, S.J.: Adam C. Ellis, S.J.; Gerald Kelly, S.J. Copyright, 1952, by Adam C. Ellis, S.J. Permission is hereby granted for quota-tions of reasonable length, provided due credit be given this review and the author. Subscription price: 3 dollars a year; 50 cents a copy. Printed in U. S. A. Before writincj to us, please consult notice on Inside back cover. Parallel Voca!:ions Nicholas H. Rieman, S.3. ~yJE RELIGIOUS know the worth of our vocation. We rank it -W among~ur greatest blessin~gs. A precious gift in itself, it car-~ ries .with it numerouk other gifts, such as our. rpraye~-'and Mass, spiritual guidhnce', our companions," and our apostolic work'. We are glad we took the step knto religion, andewe miss no chance to draw others to religion too. .But perhaps we are not aware that our r~ligious vocation can be partly.sh'ared even with lay folks. A. molag the most effective ways we~h~ve of sha"ring our vocati6n ig encourag-. ing and conducting third 0rd~rs. confra:ernities, so'dalities and simi'- l'ar organizat!ons.~ The present article confines itself to. the parallel vocation as found in the Sodality'of Our Lads,. .' ¯ There is a special reason why tile possibilities of ~uch a Sqdality should be unfolded to religious.~ It is this: .while the director of-a Sodality must always beLa priest, yet"in a scho01or hospital the', actual l~andling of aSodality .is often left"to Brother Michael or to -Sister 3oan. Also, besides those who are moderators ofSodalities, many other religious superiors, principals, ¯floor. supervisors in.hos-pitals, teachers, nurses, he'ads of different ~ictivities--can help much. They.can lend interest and co0pfration to 'insure that the Sodality in their institutions be a true Sodality, and lay people bent on some-thing more than me.dioctity be drawn to its rankS. Many Feligious are, then, in a tposition to forward good Sodalities. By doing so;. they can share many of the benefits of a religious vocation with those who follow the la~; Sodal.ity vocation. - For m'embersbip in the Sodality is also a vocation. Our present Holy Fatber'has clearly in his Apostolic Constitution Bis Saecular~ placed the Sodality in the troop--sof Catboh"c ~-A "ctton. And Catholic Acti0n~-the words are thdse of Plus X'I is "a vocation strictly and properly so .called." ¯ It is not, of course? a religious vocation. Y,et if is ~ vocation, a way of life, a call to perfection.' The. S6d;ility is open only to those who are ready,.by Go'd's grace, to-adopt the'de2 .mandihg spiritual.and apostolic progr~am it involves. ' Btit'why is the Sodality such an ap't means for sh~iring With lay people something of our religious v6cation? 'F6r.the simple reason that the vocation, of a religious and that of a Sodalist are much alike. ¯ 1.69 NICHOLAS H. RIEMAN Review [or'Religiqus It is nottoo'mu~h t~ call them paraliel vocations, Only a~det~iled comparison will display how far-reaching this parallelism is. Of. course, only true Sodalitiei--those that follow the papal directives and the Sodality rules-~can prodiace this parallelism'and the result-' ant rich spiritual harvest. So, in pointing oot the resemblances.be-l~ ween t'he two vocations, I shall ~lso suggest how ~a Sodality must be co'nducted in order to secure these benefits. . What then. are some of the parallels between religious and So-dality life? First, becoming a Sodalist, like becoming a Franciscan or a.Sister of'Merry, is a lifetime,undertaking. Joining the So, dality is not like joining the staff of the school paper or the dramatic club. These latter are hobbies; the Sodality is a vocation, A Sodalist agrees to follow the Sodality way of life not just at school, but when on vacation, when working in a facto.ry or office, when married--in. short, for life. Pius XII. knows that very well: be never, says, "I wa~ a Sodalist, but always, '"I am a. Sodahst, although he took his act .of consecration and' entered the Sodality 56 years ago. More will b~ said later of the Sodality act of consecration. Here it isi'enough to.stress one thing. This consecration, and so the ac-ceptance of Sod, ality obligations that goes with it, is for life. True, a temporary act of consecration for 'a year can" be and sometimes is made in Junior Sodalities (those in grammar schools), since at that age level most of the candidates are sddom mature enough for a life-time dedication. But the ordinary act ofconsecration taken by teen-~ agers and adults is, as clearly, indicated in both its forms in the Sodality Rules, perpetual. The Sodality vocatioia, like a religious vocation, is perpetual. Besides being a. lifetime dedication, becoming a S6dalist is also, l'ike becoming a religious, a full-time occupation. One must be a Sodalist 24 hours a day. Just as being a Christian Brother .affects not only a. man's Mass and his meal-times, but his work and recrea-tion too, s6 being., a Sodalist doesn't mean only .attending meet.ings, saying one's rosary, 'and taking p~art in a cl0thes-for-I~or~a drive, 'Being a Sodalist must--and in a Sodality that follows the rules, does. --affect a boy's lock~r-room langu;ige, the kind of formal a girl wears to a prom, and every other action that fills the dajr of either of them. Tru.e, a Sodalist does not, as is generally true of religious, have his wgrk assigned by ~uperi0rs. 'Yet a Sodalist, just like any of us, has to show a good example and. beactively ap0s~olic every minute of his waking day. Nor is this an impossible ideal, a pipe. 170 dui~,1952 ~ARALLEL VOCATIONS dream. In Sodalities that follow Plus XII's stipulations and actually .require,observance of the. Sgdality rules, this is a normal result, re-alized, if not perfectly,. at least in large measure. The act of consecration to Our Lady which admits one tb the Sodality parallels very close.ly the vows of reli~ious orders. Even the .wgrding of the act of consecration in the St. Francis,de Sales fbrmula, ~clbsely resembles the vow formula of some religious. "It is not a vow, of. course, and so does not bind ur~der sin, but it is a solemn dedication. ~ And What doek the Sodalist promise? Pius XII gives us the'answer. "To apply oneself seriously to sanctity, each in his proper state: to dedicate .oneself, not in any manner whatsoever but 'with ardor, in ~the measure and manner compatible with each one,s social condition to the s'alvation and perfection of others: in a word[ to emplby oneself strenoously in the defense of the Church of Christ: such is the assignment of the Sodalist, freely, resolutely ac-cepted in theact of his con'secration." In short, he says, "conse-cration to the Mother of God in the Sodality is an entire gift of one-self throughout life and for all eternity." It is the solemn, acceptance of a way of life forall one's future vears. The act' of consecration is the cornerstone of the Sodality vocation, even though not absolutely required for valid reception. It should be for the incoming Sodalist a thing only a little less tremendous than. the taking of vows i's to .religious This act of consecration is often renewed by earnest So-dalistS, .just as rdligious often renew their vows, even though they are perpetual. The Sodality~onsecration is not specific~illy directed to vows' of r~overtv, cha'stity, and obedience, as are the.vows of religious. Still it implies that Sodalists practice these three virtues to a higher degree than ordinary Christi~ins. A special obedience to the hierarchy of the Church is requi.red by the Sodality's character as Catholic Action, and. was referred to by PiusXII as a prominent feature of Sodalities. A relative indifferdnce to material goods, is obviously necessary for the practice of a constant apostolate. Lastly, chastity--according to one's state, which doesn't necessarily mean celibacy--is naturally the ideal of one speci.all'y dedicated to.Mary. ¯ The Sodality, too, has its ~novitiate," call~d the probati6n. It is required of all candidates before admission. A religiolis,novitiate mus~ be a year lbng, and man~, orders and congregations require two years. How long is the Sodality probation? "Not less than two months" is required by.Sodality rules, but most effective Sodalitles ,171 NICHOLA~ H, RIEMAN " ~ x Revieu2 for'Reli~Tious rriake it.six months and quite a few of tlqem, especially thoke for hi~h" school students a.full ,year. The purpose of the Sodality p~b-bation is the same as that of a religious novitiate: tb acquaint, to test. t6 train. " " "It acquaints_ tl-i~'aspiraht with what the Sodality is.~ind how. it functions.'so that he can bi~tter "decide whether .hE wants to make-the" sacrifices inv~lved.It tests the candidate, and tries to find out whether~ he~ha~iwhat it takes.,to livEforevek the Sodality v~ay of life. It. trains him in" devotion to. Mary, in spiritual exercises ahd apostolic activi-ti~;: so that if- he ,is accepted, he ,will already-h'ave largely~, acquired the attitudes .and habits nee-ded to li,¢e and'act as/a Sodalist ghould. dust like.a, religlous novitiate. the Sodality 'probation is' heavily. weighted'on'the spiritual side. It stresses ingtructi'on, direction. 'and above, allT-prayer. ' " " '. ¯ -Like a religious.'order, or congregation. the S0dalit~ has its, rules. They.'are not-as demanding' as the rules of religious, btit tt~ey do clearly aim at a,high degree'of spirituality. They are all-in the pam-ph! et. Sodalit~l"Rule~. 'In his A1fostolic. Constitution of 1948 Pius XII.refers to them 25. times. It is clear that in. his mind an easy test of the calibre of"a Sodality.is whether it really keeps the rules. In a Sod~dity as."in religious orders the ~pirjt of the rules is always more important tha~ the letter, and'so Sodality rules w,hich refer only ,to procedure at, meetings and such topics should n'ot bd applied wood-enly . Yet the:rules embbdy the. spiril~ .of an organization, and if" th~yfallinto disregard and disuse, the rd'sult will be as disastrbus toa SQdality as: it would be to, a religigus'order.~ ¯ :-. In .its spiritual practices, and .to a. smaller exteni i~ its apostolic a.ctivity a °Sddality, clgsely parallels religious.c.ongreg~tions.- First, let.'us 'ma'ke a thorough survey of"it.s spiritual.exercises, for they are the dynamo on'wh.ich Sodality activities depend. Most .of these dai.ly duties are containe_d'in R.u:le 34 of the Sodality. This rule deserves to be quo,ted in full: ":Sodalist~ must be very careful, to p~actice'~hose exercises of piel~y which are most necess.a.ry for fervbl of life. Every morning.on ~i~jng,,let"them make 'the. acts of faith, hope, and'ch~r-ity; thank God our Lord for His.benefits:: offer Him their labors~ with the" intention of-gaining all",.the mdu.lgences~ they.can~.through-out that day;, and invoke 't~'e Blessed. Virgin'. by reciting thd Hail Mary three times. Le~t. tbem.':devote at least a quarter of an hour td mental prayer: be presenL if they can: a'~the adoiable Sacri}ice of,the Mass; and recite the most HolyoRosary, or some Office of Our'I2ady. 172 "dul~], 1952- PARALLEL VOCATIONS In the evening before retiring, let them carefully examine their con-science and make a fervent act of contrition, for the sins of-their whole life and especially for those committed on that day." The t~rst item mentioned on the day's spiritual schedule of a So-dalist is the prayers on rising:, faith, hope, love, thanksgiving, offering'of works, three Hail Marys. The aim of these brief vocal prayers is of.course to start the d~iy r.igbt, with and for God.They remind us at once of the "morning prayers~ . morning visit," or "first visit," of religious.They are a dedication of.the day to God. Next is mentioned daily mental prayer "at least a quarter of an hour:'" All religious institutes have, I believe, a half-hour of mental prayer, and some have more. The Sodality rule demanding daily mental prayer is as clear and unconditional as the rule of reli-gious c6n'gregations on. this point. The'only difference is in the length of time. The conclusion ought to be obvious. If a' religious-would not admit to vows a novice who did not regularly perform his meditation, why should we expect h S6dality to admit candi-dates who are not reasonably faithful in fulfilling this clear Sodality demand? Again, if novices need instruction in the bow-when-where- why of mental prayer to enable them to perform it profitably, won't Sodalists need the same? A Sodality in which the members are' faithful to their rule on mental prayer will be a Sodality that can move spiritual mountains, even if i~ has'only fifty members or even only ten. Further, says the rule, Sodalists must attend daily Ma~s "if they can." This practice, too. is modelled on that of religious. How-- ever,, for religious the "if they can" is gefierally an unneeded addi-tion: since their ~ommon life and work assignments are arranged so that it is a!ways possible for them to do so. Though daily Mass may sometimes be impossible for this or that Sodalist, such cases are rare. The trouble is that too often the '.'if they can" of the rule is taken to mean,"if th.ey choose': or'"if they do not find it incon-venient." But the John Carroll Univeisity Sodality, and marly another too, has sfiown that practically all Sodalists can atterld Mass seven days.a week if they want to. Daily Holy Cohamunion, of course, cannot be required of.Sodal-ists any more than it can of religious. But Sodalists in iheir Rule39, as all religious somewhere in their rules, are strongly urged to fre- ¯ quent and even daily Communion. Most Sodalities that observe the rules and require daily Mass find that all their members receive Corn- NICHOLAS H. RIEMAN . °. Reoie~o for ReligiO~s" .muni6n freq~uently, and the great majority of l~he.m~daily. Next the).Sodality rule requires daily, recitation of the rosary, or an Office of. Our La~y --- ~.g.; theOffice 6f the Ihamac~late .Concep-., tion. On day, s w.hen~the Sodality meets, such an Office, or part of it, is sometimes said or sung in common. ]3ut in their daily prac-tice, most Sodalists piefer the rosarY, and this .dail~ du.ty is o~ten perforrfied in"an ideal Way, with one's family. In religious orders and'congregation~, the daily rosary also forms, either by rule or by ¯ custom, part of th~ spiri(ual exercises, at least where the Office of Our Lady.is not required. Like most religious orders, the Sodality rules requir~.a daily ex-~¯ . amination of conscience at night. The reason is the same., We all know how a daily check on.our faults or virtues helps us to fiaake ,our following 0f Christ .a, practical thing, a love of deeds,and not. merely of imagination. The particular examen too, which focuses our attenti6n'or~ a "single virtue or fault, and in° which we religious find so much value, ought to be offerdd by us to Sodalists as well. A Sodalist, like a relig!ous,needs direction in this business;' of striving for p.erfection. Both need a ~piritual directo? to answer p.r~b~lems,.instruct, enc~ourgge. This i~ particul.arly trfie for the reli-gious nowce or the Sodality probationer, but it is true also for those who have already made their'lifetime consecration. S6dalists ought, to.~o to confession often; and to'get real spiritual direction from regular confessor. Rule 36 of the ~ddality is very clea~,on tl'Jis mat~ ter. .How, ever, although one's spiritual director is always a priest,~ still just as a novice-mistress can help her charges.greatly in their ori-entationto.~ eligious life, so fdr example in a girls' school, if'the So-dality moderator is a nun, she c~in on a more limited scale greatly "help her incoming Sodalists, ¯or those who are.already 'rnemb~rs, in their spiritual life.¯ Sodalis~s must make an annual retreat. Rule 9, which imposes" this i3b.ligat~on, does not set a specific l~ngtl~ of ti.me, b~t only says,¯ "There shall be a retreat every year for some days.-. " This rule does, however, str, ongly advise a clo~ed [etreat,° not fia~rely an ope,n retreat'in wl~ich the retreatants go home in the afterfioons. Also,-it cl,e.arly expects .tha~ the Sodali~(s' not only listen to t.alks, but perform meditations during the retreat~. For best rest.Its, too, the retreat h~uld, be fdr Sodalists only, just as theretreat a nun to be for nuns of her institute¯ only, not for a mixed gathering of nuns, priests, ' and .lay people. If such oa Sodality *r~treat is really im- 174- ¯ July, 19~2 -,~ PARALLEL VOCATIONS' possible, then even during the regular school or coll~ge retreat, Sodalists could make some speci~il m~ditations on their Sodality way of life,' and assign a special time for examen and for some spiritual readingdirected to" their own spiritual level. For~among Sodalists as ¯ -among re!igious the retre~it should be a powerhouse that makes its fotce'felt all through (he yea.r. It can do this best if it is adapted. to their'Sc~dality way of life., Closely" parallel in their spiritualduties a~d practices, the Sodal- .ity and.religious communities are para.llel, too,-though much less so,. .'in.their work, their apostolate. This is r;ot true of strict °contem-i~ lative orders engaging irf no outside activity, for while the prayer and penance and union with God of such contempla, tives'have an apostolic as well as a personal motive and .are in fact a tremenddus . apostolic weapon, yet they cannot, be called.external activity. 'But with religious communities engaging in external works, the Sodal, ity in its apostolate has certain likenesses. If'well understood, these, simi~ " larities will help us to cohceive,the Sodality more correctly; and mo~e.~ ¯ easily share with Sodalists our Own apostoli.c outlook, 'energy, and techniques. Apostolic work is, first of ,all, just as essential to the Sodality as to acfive:~eligious c~mmunities, and it is as deeply .rootedin pe"r-sonal sanctity. A teaching Brother who¯ recites~fill his pra~;e.rs me-ticulously but who is careless about preparing fo~ his classes is not' living.his rel~igious life f.ully.~ .Nor do~s a nursing ~ister have a-true view of he.r life.if she thifiks of holiness only as something personal,¯ and. does not see that.her.work demands sanctity, and depends 9n it. So .to_6 a Sodalist must see Sodality meetings and projects and his own day-to-d~iy contacts With his friends as part of his Sodality vo-. cation. He must clearly grasp, too, that ~11 Sodality action, since its aim is. to develop in men the grace-life, depends less on clever tech-niques. ~ban .on souls charged, with the grace of God. In the S0- dalit~ as in an active, religiohs ~c0mmunity, the spiritual and .the apostolic do not existside by side unrelated to each Other. The So~" dality does,riot have two goals; buta single goal; a spirit.ual- .apostolic goal. The.two facets, of that g0al are mutually dependent. One cannot exist without the other. Also, in the Sodality .as in religion, the apostolate is organized. 'Since the work of most S6dalists study and class, nursing,, office work, factory, work,, homemaking is riot, like the work ofia reli- ~ gious, °.directly. assigned by religious superiors, the activity-of the , 175 NICHOLAS .H. RIEMAN Reoiew ?or Religious S0dalists is both organized and individual. It .may be strictl~i or-ganized, that is, not only pl~nned in a meeting but carried out by a group. Such would be a weekly trip by S0dalists to theLittle Sis-ters of the Poor to help them care for their' charges. Sodality action may be planned together but cariied out individually, as in the con-tacting of busines~ firms to have them halt sexy advertisingor dis, play Christmas cribs. Or it may be completely indiv, idual, though inspired by Sodality ideals, as when a Sodalist persuades his or her non-Catholic roommate to go to Mass sometimes. Since we reli- -gious. even thdugh our work be hssigned, to some extent use these various apost'olic approaches ourselves, we can and should help So-d~ lli~ts with whom we deal to do the same. '"Among the primary ends of Sodalities." says Plus XI.I, "is to be reckoned every kind'bf apostolate. " " No form of apostolic ac-tion. therefore, is closed to the Sodality, and so the activities of a Sodality should be g~ired to.local needs. Such adaptation in the apostolate is a feature of not.a few religious orders and congrega-tions. We often kee the same order conducting schools on all levels, .foreign missions, hospitals, and sometimes, also parishesi Even if a congregation limits its work to education, its schools will not be car-bon copies.of, each other, but will be adapted somewhat to local con-ditions.'. The needs of each milieu are individual, and ju.st as our own apostolate ~as.religious is adapted to varying conditions, ~o we can show our Sodalists bow to do the same in their adtion for Christ. ¯ One thing more. It is almost to be expected of Sodalists that the choice of their future occupation b~ made due regard being had for their personal bent and quMifications on the basis of its al~ostolic Opportunities. One natural result of this is that'a vigorous.Sodality quickly becomes a rich source of vocations to priestly and religious life. But there are other implicatio~ns too. A Fuller-brush salesman can be an apostle, of course. But picture how much vaster are the apostolic p0ssibilities of a teaching position ' in a secular university, or of hel.ping to unionize the office-fforkers of America. . Certainly in a Sodality worthy of the name many of [he' membe.rs will choose their life's work from ~apostolic motivesl if we religious~ lay open to, ,them the potentialities. And we ought to. be adept at doing this, seeing that many of us chose our own life work .on that score. Enough has been said t6 show the fir-reaching similarity in various ways. ,between the religious life and the way of life of a true Sodalisf. The Sodality is not, of course, a religious order or con- 176 ¯ ¯ BIBLES' gregation, not even,'a~Third .Order, "among other reasons because.all Sodalities, except for the small minority in Jesuit, houses, are u£det i~piscopal direction. The Sodality has always tal~en care. to make this point clear.' Yet the Sodality does ~losely parallelreligious br-ders in their novitiate,and vov~s.and rules, in the spi~iti~al exercises they practice, and even in part in .their apostolate. These parallels are something we religious can. well ponder and utilize, for they have an important meaning for us. ~ They mean that we cannot expect Sodalities to be the kind of Catholic Action forces the Pope wishes them to be Unless we demand observance of Sodality .rules almost asreligious are expected to keep their rules. The~i mean that if we make our Sodalitie's,hll.that they should be, we can to ~.large degree and in a workable way shareeven with zealous laymen and laywomen, boys and girls, the multiple graces and advantages of our ownreligious vocation. Many of the same tools that we use to advance toward sanctity and to draw others to Christ can be used too by.our zealous lay people, ifwe con~luct Sodalities ascording to the mind of Pius XII,and en~ourage such lay people to membership in those Sodalities. By fostering viggrous So-dalities we can share with lay persons something, of the "pearl of great price" that is our religious vocation. For tb be a religious and to be a Sodalist are parallel vocations. Bibles William M. Stritch, S.J. THE following rare .and, curious editions of _the Bible, mainly non,Catholic, a~e famous either for so_me eccentricity of their ¯ translation or for some remarkable feattire o~ their publication. The Aitken Bible. The first whole English Bible printed in the United States,. by Robert Aitken;0Philadelphia, in 1782, and at l~i~' own expense. HeIost about $3000.00 on his ~renture, owing to the ,number of copies imported from England shortly afterwards. The title page, six by three and a half inches, bore the coat of arms of the State'of Pennsylvania, and says ~he project w~as appr'oved (bu~tnot sul~sidiz.ed)' and recommended by .the U. S. Congress assembled 177 WILLIAM M. STR[TCH .: ~ ~ RetJieto September 12, 1782. This edition" of 'the King James known.hlsQ as the "Bible of th~ Revolution," is more rare than even the Gutenberg Bible,notmore.than twenty-fiv~ copies .being known to exist. The~Library of. Congress copy Was acquired in 1891 for $650.00. The Breeches Bible. )klthough Wyclif in 1380, and Wm.Cax-ton in 1483,rendered the word translated "aprons" in Gen. 3:7, by the word "breeches." it ~emained for the .16th century Geneva Bibles to' be called ."Breeches-" Bible.' They were printed in England for only forty-one years, yet proved so ~p0pular .that even today those wl~o make no preterise to be Bible collectorslike t6. boast thaLthey, possess a "Breeches" Bible. The "Breeches"~ Bible of 1560 was the ¯ first Bible in English to be divided'into verses. The 1594e~lition is famous for havi.ng, the date "1495" on the New" T.es~am~nt title page~ ,The ~Bu~,Bible. An English,translation of th~ Bible printed,in 1551 ?by.John Daye; and so called from the rendering of the verse in Ps. 91:5, '.'Thou shall¯ not"nede' to be afrayde' f9~ eny bugges by nyghte~" A Copy of this Bible is, or was, until the outbreak0f'w~ir in 193.9, i~n .the library of the town'of Sc~uthampton, Ehglarid. : The Carey Bible. To Mathew Carey (1760-1839) of Phila-delphia gqes the ho.nor of publishing for'the first time {n the United States: . THE HOLY BIBLE Translated from lthe Latin ¯Vulgate ¯ Diligently compared ~vith the Hebrew, Greek. and other editions in divers languages., a.nd first published by The English College at Doway, anno 1609 Newly. revised and "c~rrected, acco'rding to ,¯ The Clementine Edition of the .Scriptur~es with annotations 'for elucidating The principal difficultie~ of Holy Writ , (Title page of Cafey',s B~ble, ~Ph~ilad~lpl~ia, .publishedDec. ¯ . The Caxto~ Memorial Bible. In 18~77.~ fou~ hundredy~ars after ,the introdu.ction of printing int6 England, one ht)ndredcbpies.of this Bibl~ were printed and bound in.twelve, hours to celebrate th~ occa-sion.' . ~ ~ The Ears-to-Ear. Bible. So named because of.a m~isprint in an editic~n of 1810~ inwhich Matt. ~3:13 reads, ~'wh6 hath ears to bar let him hear.r' ¯ Also has "good w6rks" for. "dehd'works" iri St. Paul's."Epist.le to.the Hebrews, 9: 1'~. 178 Jul~ ~ 195~ " BIBLE~ " "The Geneoa'Bible. '~ t~anslation printed in 1560. It was the work of E, nglish Protestant refugees living in Geneva, whence its name. - The Great Bibl-e." Being the Bible."in largest volume."' It pos" sessed a title page of elaborate design, in which Henry VIII ~w.as de-picted as.handing 'Zthe word of God" $0 Archbishop Cranmer and other clergy on his right Band, and to Cromwell and various lay-peers on hi~ left. Thi~" Bible is'also known as the "Chained Bible," due to the fact that s~x of ther~ were "upon divers pillars in .(St.:) P~ul'~ chi~rch, fi~ed unto the same with chaihs for all men to read in them that would." A copy. of. this Bible,,on'vellum, is now St. John's College, Cambridge, Er~gl~nd, containing the.statement at the end that it was.';fynished in. Apryll, anno 1539." " The Indian B~'ble. Tbi~ is the first Bible.printed .in what is now the U. S. A., by 3ohn. Eliot, the Apostle tO the North American In- ¯ dians. ¯.The first Indian translation of the Bible was iia th~ dialect of the-Naticks, a Massachusetts trib.e .of the' Algonkins,. and was made under the auspices Of tile Corporatior; fcff the. Propagation of ~,the Gospels among the Indi~ng~of Ne~ En.gland. .The Nev) Testa-ment appe.ai.ed.first in 1661, and two years aftei, the entire Bible. Some Of the Indian words used by Eliot are so" extremely long that Cotton Mather thought they :must hhve been stretching .themselves ever since the confusion of the tongues at Babel. A second revised edition, wasoprinted in .16~5, only" twelve copies of which are know~n to exist. A copy.of the edition Of 1663.:sold some years, agc~ for $2,900.00. The Jefferson Bible. "This is a compilation made l~y~ Thomas Jefferson during'his first term as pre~idknt of the U.S.A, ~nd c~nsists of passages from the Four G0sp~ls cut out and'pasted in a book ac-cc~ rding tO a scheme of his own. Jefferson began the work in 1804', In 1895 the federal gox;ernment purchased this curious book from-. the Jefferson~heirs, and the original is n~w in the Natiohal Museum in'Washin~t0n. The Fifty-Seventh Cbngress (.190.1-03) issued a limited edition of'the Jefferson Bible to its members. The" Leda Bible. An edition published in 1572 and so called becaiase the decoration to the'initial at the Epistle to the Hebrews is a startling and i~congrubtis woodcut of Jupiter visiting Leda in the guise of a swan. The Gutenberg Bible, In 1930, by speciai ac~ of ~ongr, ess, the Library of Congress. purchased the Vollbehr collectign of 3,000 in-o -. ~ 179 WILLI'AM M. STRITCH Revieto ~or. Religious cunabula which included 6he of the three known perfect copies on xiellum Of the Gutenber'g Bible. The price p~id for the colledtion was $1,500,000. .The Bible itself was not. pri~ed, separately, but Dr. ~ollbehr paid $250,000 for it, which was increased by interest charges and an export' tax to a total in excess of.'$350,000, the hBiigbhlee'sst ppurbicliec aetvioern .p iasi hdo f~o rk an opwrinn,t endo rb coaonk .i tT bh'ee deexfaicnti tdealyte a ossfe trhteed that it.was.printed by Johann Gutenberg at Mainz. A copy of this Bible in the National Library of Paris. contains two manuscript dates, August 15, 1456, and August 24, 1456. It is therefore ap-' parenf that the Bible was printed before August, 14.56. Bibliogra-phers agree that Mairiz was the city.whekein it was p~oduced. The name of Johann Gutenberg, universally acknowledged as the success-ful inventor of the process of printing from movable metal type, ap-pears nowhere in the Bible, but we do-kno~¢ from available and con-temporary evidence that he Was deeply interested in it, and for' that reason this Bible is c6mmonly referred to as the Gutenberg Bible. Printed in a large .gothic type, the edition contains 641 printed leaves. The two other perfect,vellum ~opies are owned by the Brit-" ishoMuseum in London and the National Library in Paris. No one knows how many capies of this Bible were originally printed, but at lea~t forty-five ~opies of this Bible. of which twelve are vellum copies, are extant today. The beautifully printed and well' preserved copy in the Library of Congress is appraised at $1,,000,000 and is known as "the choice~ book in Christendom,." The Leese~ Bible, Although parts of the Hebrew scriptures had been preyiously translated into English for Jewisl~ use, the first com-plete English Old Testament for that purpose was translated by Isaac Leeser and published in 1853. Leeser fOllowed the style of the' King James Versioh, but made so many changes in the text thai his work is essentially a.n independent translation. This monumental work held its place in English and American synagogues until it be-gan to .be replaced by. the Jewish version of 1917. ,The Murderers Bible. An edition of 1801 in which the mis-print murderers for murmurers makes Jude 16 read "These are tour- .deters, full of complaints,, walking according to their own desires." ¯ ThePtacemakers Bible. An editionof the Geneva Bible, 1562, so called from a ,printer's error in Matt. 5 :9 "Bles~ed are the place-makers (peacemakers) fo~ they shall be called the children of God." The Printers Bible. An edition of about 1702 which makes Da-i80 BIBLE~ vid pathetically complain that "prin~ers (princes) havepersecuted me" (Ps. 119:161)'. The Rebecca's Cdmels Bible. Printed ii~ 1823 in which Gem -24:61 tells us that "Rebecca .arose. and her camels." instead of "her damsels." The Standing-Fishes Bible.Bible printed in 1806 in which Ezek. 47:10 reads "but it shall come to pass.that fishes (instead of fishers), shall s~and upon it,'; , ~Tbe Smith'Bible: .Julia Evelina Smith (179~2-1886) of, Glas-tonbury, Conn., transla'ted the Bible into English from .Latin, Greek, and'Hebrew, ~ind h~s be~n the only woman to translate the Bible in any language. She started the project when she Wfi's 77 years of age and cgmpleted it when 84. Her translat,on of the Bible was published in Hartford, Conn., in 1876, arid at her'own~expense. The To-Remain Bible. Bible printed at Cambridge, England, in 1805. Gal. 4:29 read.s,. "Persecuted hini that was born after the ~pirit to remain., even' so it is now." The words "to remain" weie added in error by the compositor, the editor having answered a proof-reader's queryas to the comma after "spirit" with the penciled reply "to remain" in the margin. The Thumb "Bible~ An edition published in Aberdeen, Scot-land. in 1693. It measured one inch square and half an inch thick, and was calle~ "Verbum Sempiternum." A Mr. J. W. Bradley, Halifax, Nova Scotia, has what he bMieves is the world's smallest Bible. Measuring only-5/8 of an inch square with 500 thin pages. It was printed by the Oxford Un.iversity Press in 1859. ~ The Treade Bible. An edition of the Bible published in 1568, and so ~alled from its" rendering of J~r.' 8:22, "Is there no treacle (instead of "balm").in Gilead?" The Unrighteous Bible. An edition printed at Cambridge, Eng-land, in 1653, containing the printer's error, "know ye not that the unrighteous shall inherit (for "shall not inherit")~ the Kingdom of ¯ God" (I Cor. 6:9). The same'edition, gave Rom. 6:13 as "n~ither yield ye your members as instruments of righteous unto sin," in place of "unrighteous." ." The Vinegar Bible. An edition printed at Oxford, E.ngland, in 17i7; in which the chapter heading of Luke 20 isgiven as~ "The Parable of the Vinegar/' instead of the "Vineyard;',' It was printed by J. Baskett; becauseof manyother errors it soon ca~e to be styled' WILLIAM M. STRITCH a basketful:of errors.". Copies of this edition are. very rare. Christ Chu.rch at Shrewsbury, New.dersey, is said to have one of the few° known copies i~n existence. "The Whom/Who "Bible. Both versions, Catholic and non- Catholic, admit that grammatical blundbr which for centuries bas rasped the nerves of sensitive purists, namely, . the questio~a of Our Lord, (Matt. 16:t3), "Whom do men say that .the Son of-man iS?" The revised (1881) American standard version and the Cath-olic Confraternity t)f Christian Doctrine version of 1941 rectify that error by making it "Who." In connection with the AmeriCan standard.version of 1881. it may be news to many of our readers to learn that the Chica9o Tribune published the whole version of the New Testamentdn a single special issue on May 22, 1881. The Woman's Bible. The idea appears to have been born in the mind of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. ¯ In a stout pamphlet, published in New York, 1897, the lady having appointed a tentative commit- .tee of twenty-three women, .instructed each member to purchase a Bible and go through it from Genesis .to Revelation, marking all' .the. passages, in which women were mentioned, these passages were then to. be cut out and pasted in a black book, and correct readings and " comments thereon written underneath. OUR CONTRIBUTORS SIST]~ M. BONAVENTURE, of the Sisters of St. Francis of Sylvania," Ohio, has been teaching graduate courses in Engl,ish at the Catholic University, Washing-ton, D.C.', for more, than a decade. NICH(~LAS H. RIEMAN, who has directed So-dalities as a Scholastic, is now' studying theQlogy at West Baden College, West Baden, Indiana. WILLIAM M. STRITCH writes from Campion High School, Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. " ~ REPRINTS OF ~PONSA CHRISTI In May and July, 195 I, we p~inted the Apostblic Constitution, Sponsa Christi, and'the explanatory in'struction of the Sacred Congregation. of Religious. We now ha~e~some reprints of thi~ material that we can sell in sets' 6f ten and multiples of t.en., . The .price is one dollar for ten copies, and a dollar for each additional set, of ten. Please enclose payment with yohr order and address it to: REVIEW'FOR RELI- 61OUS, St.'. Mary's College,. St." Marys," Kansas: '." 1~2. Un ,"g e"n ,kDu si eFili us Pope Plus XI Apostolic Letter Addressed to the Suprem, e Heads of Religious Orders on the Care of Religious DisciplineI [.EDITOR'S NOTE: The ptirpose of this important document, in the wdrds of its author, Pope Pius XI, is: "to urge members of religious institutes, both those who are already priests and those who are candidates for the priesthood, to the study of the sacred learning, the absence of which would~ prevent them from performing with full competence the functions of their vocations." 'It is printed here at the request of a number of our subscribers. Though directed chiefly to religious clerics, the content, particularly the'sections indicating how sound theological learning can deepen the interior life, may also provide other religious with material for fruitful meditation. Sub-titles have been inserted.] BELOVED Sons: Health and Apostolic Benedictioia. The only-begotten Son of God, entering the world to re-deem mankind, was not content with imparting those sp[r.itual precepts the observance of which brings ~ill men to their:appointed .end. He ~eclared. also that those who wished to follow His foot-stbps more closely should embrace and practice~ the evangelical counsels. Whoever pledges himself by vow to observe these counsels strips himself not only of those encumbrances which retard our progress on the road to ordinary sanctity--riches, family cares, or immod-erate liberty in the.use of material things--but mox~es so directly and unreservedly towards a life of perfection as to seem almost to have attained'the haven of eternal salutation. ' ~. Wherefore from the earliest Christian era there have never been wanting souls who have harkened to the whisper of¯ God and, nobly and' generously denying themselves all things, have entered the way of perfection and indomitably persevered therein. Histor~ witnesses continuously to the sacred army of men and women who have con-secrated and pledged themselves to God in various religious Orders and congregations which, through the centuries, the Church has solemnly approved and ratified. ¯ N~r do these _religious communities bear the same unvarying spiritual character. The life of perfection, though in essence unchangeabie, inanifests itself in a variety of fruitful forms. In. 1AAS 16:133-48 (1924) ~ 183 POPE PIUS XI Review for 'Relioiofis separate and distinctive manners, with diversified exertions of charity and zeal'do the varidus orders Of religious S6uls, according to the ~pecial ways of theii'institutes, pursue th~ ~16ry of Gdd and the sal- . vati~n of their neighbor. . , From this wide diversity of. religious orders, as ~rom trees "of." manifold species in God's spiritual garden, springs a.gloriouslvariety of spiritual fruit unto the salutation of men. Such striking complex- " ity of fo~m with basic unity of design, such identity 'of aim v~ith precise distinction of spheres, presents a .spectacle of impressive and monumental ,beauty. It is a dispensation of Divine Providence that new needs of,the .times should call forth and nourish r~eligious congregations specially adapted to the meeting of these fresh exigencies. And so the Apostolid See. under whose standard religious orders pHr~arily serge, mindful of th~ blessings which at all times they have cbnferred upon. the Church and Upo, n civil society, h~as ever cherish[d these holy instkutes with peculiar solicitude and affectl0n. , The sti~reme pontiff has always rdserved tohimself the approvin~ and confirming their constitutions and statutes: he h~is in times of crisis tirel~ss'ly defended them from their' adversaiies: and'. when. occasion.so demanded, he has not been slow in rec~illing them-to their pristine.observanCe and to their original reverence for the glori-ous ideals 0f their respective rules. This great concern of the Church that religious men Should be pre-erfiinent in adherence to the holy laws of thei? order and that they should constantly increase in perfection, is manifested by the solemn decrees and exhortations of the Council of Trent. "Let all regulars, both men and'-women, mold and regulate their lives in keei~ing with.the iule fhey. profess; particularly let them faithfully -observe whatever pertains to the perfection of their professibn, the vows 0f poverty, chastity, and.obedience, and any others which may be peculiar to.their particular institute or ha~,e bearing ,on th~ ,ob-servance of common life, both in food and in clothing.''z ~ The Code of Canon Law, in its.preface to the section on regula-tions for religious men and women, b_r[efly describes and defines th~ religious life as'being ao"stable mode of. living in common by which ,the faithful, undertake, besides the ordinary precepts of the faith. ~he evangelicalcou~asels through the'instrumentality ~of the yows of obedience, chas~ity~, and poverty . . . and thus proceed in the way,of ZSess. XXV. c. I". De Reoul. i84 July, 1952 UNIGENITUS e~angdical perfection." Thi~ religious state, declares the Code dis-tirictlE, is: to be ."esteemed highly by all."3 Tb extent indeed of Our ~onfidence in the virtue ~f religiou's men, and in their helpful co-operation, We ha~e-already demon-strated in Our .encyclical letter Ubi Arcano, affectionately addressed tO the bishops of the Catholic world'. We ~said therein, that for,more. than one reason we relied ~r,eatly. on the regular clergy acthally:t.o apply the remedies We bad proposed to meet the many evils under which human society was laboring. ¯ Further, in Our former letter on the supervision of .clericfil studies, addressed to the Cardinal Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for Studies in Seminaries and Universities, in the identical embrace of Our purpose and~in Our deep solicitude to proyide for the training of clerics called to the sacred ministry, We included_equ~liy as~well' member~ of religiou~ orders, since what we ¯therein observ.e.d and decr~ed affectedthem in great measure too. at least such as are destined, for. the priesthood. Nevertheless, We are urged, dearly beloved sons. ,by Our loving and vigilant concern for your goo.d, to address, you byspeCial letter and to present certain admonitions to you which if your spiJ:itual sons will but observein their conduct and intercourse.thei'r pro-- -cedure and the whole tenor of,their lives will undoubtedly be such as is impera(ively demanded of them by. the truly unique and ~sub- -lime voc~ition.¯really divine, which is theirs. Revet:ence for Fot~nder First of all. We exhort religious men to ~'egard the founder of ~their order.as the supreme example to befollowed. The "religious who so regards the father" and lawgiver of his institute, will .more certainly and more abundantly partic'ipate in the divine grace deriv, ing from a religious vocatiofi. It is-abundantly clear that those men of" pre-eminent sanctity, When they established their religious congregations, obeyed a divine impulse. As long, therefore, as the son reproduces in his life °the special mode of sahctity conceived by th~ father as the distinctive mark 8f the congregation, the son will not be recreant to the obliga-tion'assumed whefi he entered religioh. Wherefore let religious men. as devoted sons, dire~t their thought and care to defend, the honor of their founder and father both by obedience, to hi~ .pre.s~'riptions and admonitions, and by imb,fing 31C 487[ 488 POPE~ PlUS Reoiew [or Religious themselves with his spirit. Nor will they. fall from their estate as long as they walk in the footsteps of their founders: "And their-children for their .sakes remain forever. Would that religious would so loyally adber,e to the rules of their institute and so retain the manner, of life established, that ithey would show themselves ever.y day more worthy of the religious state. Such fidelity cannot fail to win for the manifold ministries which they exercise' at all times the powerful support of heavenly graces. In all our activities let us seek only the kingdom of God and His justice: and this should be the sole objective in those works which, beloved son~, are wont to occupy the efforts Of most of your spit, itual subjects: sacred missions, and, the. education of youth. As for " the,apost.olate,-.let them take care thai in their'foreign missions, as My predecessor wisely admonishes,s they do not employ ~he Gospel to further the interests of their country or to increase its ppwer. Let them r~ither !ook'only to the eternal salvation of the infidels, while at the same time. elevating their material standards of living to the extent that this may fo[ward their progress to eternal happiness. Those religious whose duty it is rightly to instruct and educate youth-must be especially careful lest, too much preoccupied with training theik students to excellence in fine arts, they so neglect the religious development of their minds and hearts that their students enter the world wellZinstructed indeed in letters, but totally ignorant of sacred, science. LWhoever lac,,ks this is deprived of themost precious and most beautiful of all adornments and. lives in the greatest empti-~ hess of soul: "All men are vain, in whom there is not the knowledge of God.''6 The Seraphic Doctor speaks appositely in this .regard: "This is the fruit of learning, that faith should be built up in all men, tha.t God should be honored, morals elevated, and those conso-lations derived which/pring from the union of the beloved with. her divine.SpouSe through supernatural dharity.''z I. BENEFITS OF SACRED LEARNING Since it is of the highest importance that this knowledge of sacred science should be held in the greatest esteem and deeply imbibed by the mihisters of the Church, the chief concern, of this Our exhorta-tion is tO urge members of. religious institutes, both those'who are 4Ecclesiasticus 44 : 1 "~ 5Epist." Apost. Maximum Iliad, November 30, 1919 6Wisdom 13:1 7De Reductione Atrium ad Theol., n. 26 186 Ju/g, 1952 UNIGENITU~' already" priests and those Who are candidates for the priesthood, to the study of the sacredlearning, the absence of which would pre-vent them. from performing with full competence the functions of their vocation. For those who have conseciated themselves to God the one, or certainly the chief, obligation is that of prayer and the contemplation or meditation on divine things. How can they rightly fulfill tlqis solemn duty without, a profound and intimate compre- _hension of ~h~ doctrine of faith?. The necessity of such study'We 'urge on those pa~iicul~rly who devo'te their lives to divine contem-plation in the cloister. Such souls ~rr indeed if they believe that after having previously, neglected or later discontinued their theological "studies, the$ can, though deprived of that copious kn.owledge 9f God and the mysteries of faith which is derived from the sacred sciences, readily move in a high spiritual plane and be'lifted up and borne. aloft to interior union with God. 'Help in Apostolate As to those who are engaged in teaching or preaching or in the cleansing of souls in the sacrameht of penance, or are sent on sacred missions or pursue tti~ir ministry in daily familiar intercourse with people, shall not .the vigor and efficacy, of these manifold activities be in exact' proportion to the high degree of erudition" with .which they are perfected, and adorned? The Holy Spirit, too, the Paraclete, by.the lips of His prophet, has proclaimed the priest's n~ed of a comprehensive and in~imatel knowledge of sacred science: "The lips of the priest shall keep knowledge.''s How can solid theological learning be lacking in the legate of the Lord of wisdom,9 that legate who is minister and doctor of the New ;F~stament, ~alt of the earth,~° and light.of the-world,n the legate .by whose tongue the Christian people recei;ce the words of eternal life? " Let those trembl~ for themselves, therefore, who approach the sacred ministry with minds ill-equipped with holy learning:. Not unscathed shall they stand in their lack of preparation, before Lord, who has spoken the awful threat: "Because thou hast rejected. kn6wledge, I will reject thee, that thou shalt not do the office of pi'iesthogd to Me.;'~2 Moreover,.if ever in the past it behooved the 8Malachias 2 : 7 9I Kings 2 : 3 l°Matthexv 5 : 1 3 ~20see 4 : 6 187. POPE PIUS XI - " ' \ Rebietu For Religious ¯ priest to be adorned with le.arning, much more so is thai .quahty required of hin~ in thes~igresent times when in,.all spheres of human activity learning arid science are valued at such high ,price and are so closely bound" therewith that men, even thuse who are less wise-- as.is almostalwi~ys the case boast that whatever they do, the3/do in [he hattie of science:. So. let us strive with intense earnestness that the Catbolic /aith be sustained b.y the support and protection of human learning of every kind. In the light which thislearning casts th~ beauty of revealed truth will .be Unfolded before ~he eyes of, all and tile falsity of the ¯ captious chaYges ~vhidh pseudo-science is wont .to heap up against the ¯ ~dogmas i~f faith will be exposed as. occasion may requite. ' For. as'Te~tulliamhas so beautifully written: our faith "anxious-ly desires one, thirig.only, that she benot condemned unheard.''u In the same connection, let .us not forget the "words of Jerome: "Piety Without culture profits itself alone, find, however much by personal merit it builds up Christ's church, it yet equally harms her by silence in the faceof her adversaries . ~. It is the priest's duty, to answer whenever ~he law is calleqdue isnti o.n. -, And so the priest, "both secular and regular, must. propagate Catholic doctrine as widely as possible, and illuminate and defend it. This,doctrine of the Church not only contains all that is needed to" refute and disprove any objections which may b.e ¯urged against it, but., ~rovided it be,clear_Iv, explained, cannot fail to draw~ souls to " itself, if only they" be free from p, rejudice. This truth'was not missed by the great doctors ~Sf,the so-called Middle Ages. Led by Thdmas Aquinfis and Bonaventure they exerted themselves to, drink as defiply as possible of the waters'of divine wisdom and go comm,unica,te their knowledge to others. ' - Help for Interior Life There is, beloved sons, the furthe~ advantage that the v~y effort of mind and talent and powers which you~ members will expend in the pursuit Of.}hese studies will effect that they will imbibe the reli-gio, us. spirit more deeply and-will fittingly sustainthe honor and digni.ty of the exalted state of life Which they have embraced. For h~e who ~nters upon the study of theology addresses himself to a weig,.hty task indeed; and one invoIving, intense labor and'heavyin,- convenience. It is a task admitting no slothfulness or laziness, which ~3Apol., I . l~Epist, ad Paul.in,. LIII- (al. CIII) , 188 July, 1952 . UNIGENITUS is the mother and mistress of many evils.15 But the earnest student, applying,himself wholeheartedly to this truly hard intellectual labo} acquires the habi~ not onlyofcirc~umspection in ju~gmeht and' delib-eration in act, but repres~ses also and 'dominafes more easily hi~ pas-sions wh'ich, .if allowed loose rein,' grow steadily Wors~ and hu}ry the s.oul tothe abyss of all vices. In this iegard Jerome writes: "Love the scienc~ of Holy Scrip'ture and y~u will. not love the vices of the flesh.':16 And again~: "The knowledge of the S~,riptur~s begets virgins. 17 But the religious man shouldbe urged to these studies by a fur-t- her motive the.re~li.zation of the gra~city .of the obligation, arising from his very vo~atioi~, of achieving a' perfect degree of virtue. It is clearly imt3ossible for anyone to progress efficaciously toward perfec-tion and to reach it safely without practicidg the interior life. But can this interior life be developed and strengthened by an.y more effectiv~ means than the study of-things divine? ~Persistent and daily meditation on those marvelous gifts of nature and of grace and on ~individual men will cohsecrate one's thbugh~ts and feelings, and lift them. up to heavenly things; .nay more, it fills men With the spirit of faith and unites them in closest intimacy, with God. For, who reproduces in himself more perfectly the image of Christ, 2esus than he who ass~rnilates to his v.ery.flesh and blood the dog,matic and moral truths of divine revelation.?. 'Most wisely,, then, did the founders" of religious °orders. fol-lowing the lead of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, ~ommend with more than ordinary earnestness to their sons the .study of the sacred sciences, o It has. bdsides, been proved by experience, beloved, sons, that those of your religious who most devotedly have'-applied their intellects to the study of the teachings of the faith, have as a rule been all the more successful in achieving a higher and more com-prehensive degree of sanctity; whil(on the contrary,.those who have neglected this sacred duty have often lfipsed into tepidi'ty and have sunk not infrequently into a condition of spiritual deterioration in- 'volving even the violati6n of their vowS. Wherefore, let all religious remember the words of Richard of St.Victor: "Would that each of us Would immerse himself in these studies all the day long until" the sun set, until the love of vain things graduallygrow weak. until the heat of concupiscence be extinguished and the Wisdom of~carnal pru- ¯ lSEcclesiasticus 3 3 : 2 9 ~6Epist. ad Rust. CXXV. (al. IV) ~TComm. ~fi Zach, ].II, c. l O 189 ¯ POPE PIUS XI : Revleu2 for Reliflious ~d~nce grow cold.''~s .We exhort religious men also to make their own .the prayer of St. Augustine: "May Thy Scriptures be mY ,chaste delight" may I not err in them, nor deceive because of them.''19 II. DIRECTIVES FOR TRAINING.OF CLERICS Since, then, the constant and attentive pursuit of sacred doctrine brings such rich emoli~ments tb religious men, it,is clear, beloved sons, how weighty, is your obligation to provide for your subjects every opportunity for theological study and' for continued contact, with theological science, at every subsequent stage of their religious life. We must realize, moreover, how much future, candidates for religion are benefited by a proper formation and training of their mind and will from their earliest years. In the first place, in these courupt times Christian education is sadly neglected, in the home ~nd the young, exposed to widely prevalent snares of evil, are deprived of , that solid religious instruction which alone has power to mold char-acter in conformity with the divine commandments or even with a .humanly decent.mod~ of life. It follows, therefore, that yqu can take no more advaptageous measure in this regard than the establish-ment of preparatory seminaries and c011~ges for yourig men who give some indication of possessing a religious vocation. We observe with deep satisfaction that in a goodly n, umber of places such insti'tutions are in fact being founded. In this matter, however, you are,to take to heart the admonition.addressed by Ou'r predeces~sor, 'Pius X, of 'holy memory, to the superiors of the Dominican Order. The Pontiff warne'd against admitting too readily, or ifi too great numbers youths whose aspirations after that hol'y manner c;f life are not certainly i~- spired from on high.-,° After having given long and prudent consid7 eration therefore to the selection of young men as candidates for the religious life, ~ou "will take great care that, along with instruction in piety suited to their years, those lower subjects be taught them which are usually taught in the q~mnasia,~'I so that'they do not enter the ¯ novitiate before they have finishe'd the humanities, unless indeed a sufficiently, sound reason advises otherwise in a particular instance. It is an obligation not only of charity but even of justice that you should display the utmost assiduity and diligence in this matter¯ of the education of your young candidates. If by reason of the small 18De ditT. sacrif. Abr. et Mariae, I 19Conf., lib. XI, c. 2, n. 5 20EpiSt. Cure Primum, ad Mag. Gem O.P., August 41 1913 ~1IC 589 190 dulg~ 1952 UNIGENI ,TUS: number of members in an institute, br for other reasons, a province¯ has insufficient facilities fo} imparting this education prescribed by canon law, let the young men be sent¯ to anothe~ province or to another seat of learning where they can be properly taught according to the directions of canon 587. Preparator~l Schools In i'he lower ~chools, however, let the injunction of canon 136~4 " be religiously followed: ':The most honored place in the curriculum is to .be awarded to religious instruction, diligently imparted in a manner suitable to the ability and age of each one." For this instruc-tion, furthermore, only those books are to be used which are approved by the ordinary. It is to be remarked incidentally ~hat even students of scholastic philosophy should not omit this study of Christian doc-trine. They will most profitably use that golden book, the Roman Catechism, a work in which one is at a loss which to admire more, the wealth of sound doctrine or the elegance bf the Latin style. If your clerics, from tbeir earliest youth, accustom themselves to draw their knowledge of sacred truth from that fount, they will not. 9nly come to theology better prepared, but also, .from familiarity with ¯ that "excellent book they will learn how to teach the peopl,e wisely and to combat with skill the lie~ which are wont to be chattered against revealed truth. , , Those iniunctions which, in Our Apostolic Letter Ot~ciorum Ornnium, We addressed to the diligent attention Of the Catholic bishops concerning study.of the Latin tongue, We urge and co.mmand youalso, beloved sons, to observe in your literary schools; for to you also pertains that law of the Code which, concerning students pre-paring for holy orders, says: "Let them be carefully taught languages~ particularly. Latin and their native tongue.''22 The high imp.ortance bt~ an accurate knowledge of Latin in your young religious is sug-gested by a multitude of reasons. Not only does the Church.employ that lang.uage as a servant and bond of unity; but we also iead the .Bible in Latin, we chant and offer the Holy Sacrifice in Latin, and we perform.in .that tongu~ nearly all ttie sficred rites. The Roman Pontiff, besides, addresses and teaches the Catholic world in' Latin, and the Roman Curia employs no other tongue in ,tra6sacti~g its business and in formulating decrees which apply to all the faitht~ul. He who is n~t well 'versed. iri Latin is much embarrassed in his ap- 2alC 1364, 2° 191 POPE PlUS XI Review for Relig~ous, proach to,~thos( rich v61ume~ of the Cht~rch's Fathers: and Doctors, many of whom used no' Other medium of expression in explaining '.and defending Christian.dbctrine. -Let it then.be your earnest aim that your clerics, destined for ".the .future ministry of the Church, shall attain a real:mastery of'and a very practica!.familiarity with that language. Novitiates " ¯ Their p~ri~paratory studies concluded, the students and all.c~andi-dates, whose determination to consecrate themsel~ces "to Godhas been proved and whose good character, more than mediocre mental gifts, spirit of piety; and integrity of morals have been established to the satisfaction of their dffectors, may be admitted to the novitiate. I~ th.e"'no~ritia~e, as in a sort of training ground, they shall, learn .by actual practice the principles and virtues of the religious life. How impc~rtant it is that.the souls:of the candidates should be " mos~ carefully trained during-this period of n6vitiate may be learned. not only from the testimony of masters of the religious life. but "most of all from experience. This latter teaches that no' one reaches and maintains'himself in a state of religiou~ perfecti0n~unless he has first laid in his soul the foundations ofall the virtues. Wherefore let the novices, eschewing all profane studies and othe~ attractions. concentrate entirely, under th'e guidance of their directors, 6n the exercises of theinterio.r life and the acquisition, of virtues, tfiose par-ticula. rly .which are most intimately connected and associated with the vqws Of religion poverty, obedience, and chastity. "Extremely helpful to this end will be the reading arid considera-tion of the Writings of St. Bernard, of ,the Seraphic Doctor Bona-ventuie, and of Alphonsus Rodrigud-z, as well as.~of those spiritual masters who are the special ornaments of each particular institute. Time has dot only failed to dim or lessen the, force and e~cacy of these teachers~ but has even heightened their Val~e in this our day. Nor should the novice ever forget that such as h~. is in the novitiate. so shall he be during the rest of his hfe: and after a tepid, or misspent noviceship the possibility of,supplying for what has been missed in the novitiate by renovation of spirit is usually~a forldrn and base-less hope. Philosophy and Theology . ~ Thereupon you shotild see to it, beloved sons, that your subjects. after.completing their noviceship, be ass!gne.d to houses distinguished 192 ,Iu!q. 1952 UNI~ENITU$ for ~obs~'r~ahce of your' holy ~ules. Tl~ese houses should offer also° facilines for the most profitable and exact course of philosophy and theology, made" in accordance, with definite and ordered procedure. Definite and or'tiered procedure, ~Ve said: that' is, not only should there be no promotion to a. higher grade without sufficient evidence of p~oficiency in the lower, but there must not even be any~¢u.rtail-ment or~omission of any part of.a course, nor any abbreviation of the t~ime t6 be devoted to a branch of study, as prescribed by the ,Code. Unwise, thereforev--to speak conservat.ively are those superiors who," pressed perhaps by time and necessity and desirous of availing themselves of their subjects' ministries as soon as possible, wish their subjects to receive their trai.ni~g for the priesthood by a sort .of accelerated method. Has not experience proved that those who h.av.e made their studies hurriedly and wittioiat thoroughness c~n scarcely .ever, if at' all, remedy this defect in their training, and that whatever little ,advantage may at timCs have been gained from this advanced reception of orders eventually fades away and vanishes, since these religious must of ne~cessity be less .apt for t~ ministry? Take care. moreover, lesf your youiag religious, .while studying philosqpfiy and theology, should grow yold in their struggle for virtue. On the con-" trary they should continue to a~rail themselves of the services of the most learned masters of the spiritual .life, so that finally, as behooves religious men, they shall display in themselves solid, learning joined to holiness of life.- And here We cha.rge you with special earnestness to exercise care in selecting eminen.tly suitable instructorsin the higher studies, mas-ters who~elife will be wo~rthy models for the imitation of all. Their proficiency, too, must be pre-eminent .in that subject which it is their office to teachl And~so, no one'should act either as.professor.,or instructor unless he has completed with merit the course of philos-ophy, theology, and allied branches, and has proved his possession of sufficient equipment and skill as a teacher. We .c.all your attentionfurthermore, to this injunctioh of the Code of Canon Law: "Provision must be made th'at there be separate masters for at least the following subjects: Sacred "Scripture, dogmatic theology, moral theology, and ecclesiastical history,"~ These m~is- "ters should spare no effof~ to'ffansform, th,eir sthdents into holy and tireless apostles of Ch. rist, equipped with those ornaments of learnirig 1,93 POPE P~usXI Reuieu~ for R~ligious and prtidence by" which they Will b~ abl4 not only"to instruct the simple and ignorant, but also to refute those, puffed up by what. is fallaciously called science. They will. be able likewise to preserve' all. from the contagion of error which, because it usually is presented so speciously and cunningly, is calculated to beget and inflict greater damage on souls. . But if happily, by God's grace, your subjects p.roceed wi'th gen-erous spirit in the straight paths of Christian learning and become greatly proficient therein, the labor which you best6w,-beloved sons, on this so salutary task will reward and rejoice .you with a most abundant fruit beyond .your. fondest expectations. ¯ Further, We exhort you to regard as holy and inviolable those words which, in accord with the spirit of canon law, We wrote in Our'apostolic letter on seminaries and the studies of clerics. Therein We urged that, in teaching the precepts of 15hilosophy and theology, masters should follow faitl~fully the scholastic methdd according tO the principles and doctrines of Aquinas. For who ~an deny that the scholastic discipline and the angelic wisdom of St. Thomas--that discipline and method praised so repeatedly and enthusiastically by Our predecessors--have a native efficacy both f6r tl'Je illustration of divin~-truth and for the marvelous refutation 6f the errors of every age? In the words of Our predecessor of immortal memory, Leo XIII, the Angelic Doctor "so abundantly rich in divine and huma.n science, so comparable to the very sun . has by his sole efforts brought it hbout that all the errors of past ages have been refuted by one man, and invincible alms have beeh supplied for the defeat of th.ose errors which will arise in endless succession through the ages.''2a Most a'ppositely contintJes the same Pontiff: '"Let those who Wish to be truly philosophers~and such must be the. especial desire of religious men--let those l~ay the first principles and foundations of their doc-trine in Thomas Aquinas.''25 How much it behooves your spiritual sons to hew close to the . general line of scholastic doctrine is abundantly evident. Perceiving the intimate relationship existing between philosophy and revelation, the Scholastics-d, eveloped and synthesized that wonderful mutual concordance, in such wise that philosophy and revelation afford each other light and the maximum of support." Nor can these two s.ci- 24En~ycl. Aeterni Patris 25Epist. Nbstra Erga, N6vember 25, 1898 194 ,Iulg, 1952 UNIGENITUS ences contradiqt each oth'er, as some madly assert, for both derive from God, the suprem'e and eternal truth; and while philosophy manifests the findings o'f reason, re~elation displays the firm data of faith. Indeed the two sciences are so mutually in harmony that each c.ompletes the other. Hence it follows that from an ignorafit and untrained philosopher a learned theologian can never be educed: and, contrariwise, he w~o is igno.r~ant of divine truth can never be a per-fect phil.osopher. In this regard St. Thomas says truly: "From the principles of faith .new knowledge is derived for the faithful, as from.the prin-ciples of natural reason new knowledge is derived for all; hence theology is a science." In other words, just as from reason, which is a participation in divine Wisdom, philosophy derives'the basic prin-ciples of nattiral cognition, and declares and ex.plains them, so from, the light of supernaturaI revelation,, which by its splendor" illumines and completes t, he intellect, theology borrows, develops, and explains the truths of faith. These two sciences are two rays f~om the same sun, two rivers from the same source, two edifices resting,on the same foundation. Of high dignity indeed is human science, provided it submits obediently to the truths of faith. If these truths are disregarded, human science must i,nevltably ~nd inexorably fall into numberless errors and deceits. But if, beloved sons, your subjects command the sum of human knowledge which they have beap'ed up for tbem~elg.qs to'act as handmaid and servant to that science which is divine; and if~ besides~ they glo,w with an arderit love and desire for revealed truth, they will be true men of God and will be .universally regarded as such; and'by word and example, they will.do much fo'r the peop!e ~of God. For, "'all Scripture is inspired by God"--or as the Angelic Doctor explains this passage( sacred doctrinal is perceived by the light .of divine revelation--"and useful for teaching, for reprovifig, for. correcting, for instructing in justice; that the man of God ma) be perfect, equipped for every good work.''26 Spirit of Faith .But in the ,case of young religious, the first {equirement is that 'their spirit of faith should be" nourished to vigor. Otherwise.they, shall to no avail engage themselves in this boundless field of divine and. human .knowledge: for, if the spirit of faitb is weak, the stu- 262 Timothy 3 : 16-17 ¯ PoPE PIU~ XI Review fbr Relipious dent,"like one. blind, cannot penetrat~e into the. profun, dities'.pf .super-na~ ural truths. Nor is itof less importance'that the religious shpuld albproach °his studies with a,pure intention. -"There are some Who wish to 2~arn,'~ warns St. Bernard, ".solely .in order to l(arn; and ~his is base curiosity . There are o~her~ who wish to learn in order to sell their knowledge, perhaps for money, perhaps for honors: and. this is ba~e t~affic. But there are also those who wi~h tO learn in order that'they themselves m~y.be buildedl and this, is prudence,''27 In their above-mentioned studies, therefore, your young religious should propose to. themselves this one aim: that they "please God and, . win for themselves "and for their r~eigbbor the. greatest, pbssible spir-itual emoluments. And in science disjoin, ed from virtue there is more of offense and danger than of true utility for those who b~come proud by reason of their learning lose the gift of faith and blindly plunge headlong t° their souls' destruction--your sons must with all .assiduity cultivate the virtue of humility,, necessary f0~ all indeed~ ' but especially to bestriven after by students: and ~they must plant it firmly.in their hearts mindful as they are that God alone is sub- ~tantial wisdom and whatever man possesses, no matter, how.pro-found, is .as nothing compared with the vast sum of learning of which he is ignorant. Beautifully to the point speaks St Augustine: '" 'Knowledge,' says the'Apostle, 'puffeth up.' What then? SbSuld you flee knowl-edge and ch6os~ to know nothing rather than to be puffed up? Why should I address you i~ it is better.to b'e ignorant than learned? Love knowledge', but prefer charity. Knowledge, if it, be alone. "puffeth up. But because charity~buildeth up, it permits no( knowl-edge to be puffed up. Knowledge puffeth, up therefore where cbarity-do~ s not build up; where charity bu!IdL yp, knowledge is made Your sons, therefore, if indeed'they pursue their' studies with: that spirit 0f~charity and devotion frbm which all other virtu'es have their Origin and b~ing, would be like a medicinal fragrance warding. off ,the fear" of corruption: and by. their gifts of doctrine will ~ c~r.tainly becbme all the more pleasing in God's sight'and all the more useful toHis Church. " ¯ III. DI~RECTIV~S FOR 'LAY RELIGIOUS~ it now remains for us to turn our thoughts to those" religious ~7In Cant. serrao XXXVI~, ~Sermb CCCLIV ad Cont., c. ~I _duly, 1957. . UNIGENITUS who,ltl~ough not called to.the dignityof the priesthood, have pro-nounced, the same vows, of r~l.igion as the priests, and are .not less obliged to God ahd bound by the duty of acquiring perfection. That they .also, though unversed in letters or the higher mental disciplines, may achieve the loftiest grades of sanctity i~ evident from',the fact. that many of them indeed have won by reason of the eminent holi-ness' of.their lives the loud.and, constant praise of the Catholic world, or have even been" inscr!bed.by the authority of the Roma~ Pontiffs in .the number of the saint~, to be regarded and invoked as patrons. and intercessors before God. These con~ersi, or lay,, religious, "who, because 6f their special status are free from those da'ngers which not infrequently :'fac~ the priest 15y reason of the very dignity of his office, enjQy substantially the same spiritual privileges and aids which religious institutes with mater~al:providence commonly share indiscrimina~tely .with itheir ~hildren. It .is just. thin, that the lay religious should value highly- ¯,the gift of their vocation, and return thanks to God for the gift. often renewing the determinatiQn which they made on the d~y'of ~:heir ~orofession. that they would live.according to the spirit of their reli- . gious bule to their last bre~ith of life. And here., beloved-sons, We cannot refrain from remindilag you how weighty is youy obligation to see to it thatthe !ay.religiotis, both" during the time of their probation and during the remainder of their -life, are adeqtiatels~.:supplied With those spiritual hell~whlch~th£y. so much need to make progress and to persevere. They are perhaps all the haore in need of these aids by.reaSon c;ftheir humble eondition.hnd hurfibl~ ministries. " ~Vherefor , .superiors, in selecting the.dwelling places and duties " of the la~y religious, should take careful account of the character of each and the possible weaknesses of each;.and if'sometimesthese spir-itual sons should show a decrease of ardor in the'performance of their 'obliga~tions.as religious, no paternal solicitude and effort should be sl~afed in recalling them g~ntly but firmly to holin.ess, of life: And particularly should superiors make it their constant concern either themselves to instruct the lay religious in the eternal and fun-damental truths ofthe faith, or to commit this.duty of instrtic~ion to ~competent priests. The knowledge and frequent meditation off these truths will be a powerful spur to th~ virtue of all, whether those whose,work is confined to the cloister or thos who live in tl~e world. The,above admonitions We wish to extend also to all ,congrega- 197 t .POPE PlUS XI tlons Of lay religious. For. t-he'members of these congregations there is indeed ~required .a fuller 2knowl~dg~ Of Chri_stian doctrine and an~ erudition beyond mediocrity, since theY are. frequently .engaged, according to their institute, in the instruction of boys and young men. Such are the thbughts, beloved sons~ which We desired from a heart filled with phternal~ love to address to you concerning the direc-tion of your curricula of study, as well as concerning some other matters of scarcely, lesg importance. These thoughts and injunctions, We.feel sure, you will follow with alacrity and devotion, both be-cause of your affection to'cards Us and because of your zeal for the advancement of your respective institutes. May Our words be fixed deep in the hearts of your novices and scholastics, and bring, by the intercession of your founders and fathers, an abundance of blessings and benefits. In conclusion, as an augury of grace and an evidence of Our. paternal love towffrd .yoursel;ces, beloxied sons,, and all tl-ie religious commit}ed to your charge~ We bestow upon eacl~ and all of you, with the deepgst affection, Our ApoStolic Benediction. '" Giveri at Rome, ih St~ ¯Peter's, the nineteenth day of March, on the Feast of. St. Joseph, spouse' of the Virgin .Mary Mother of God, in the year 1924, the third of of Our pohtificate. Pius PP.XI . BOOKS FOR PRIESTS Two re~ent books of help for priests are THE PEOPLE'S [SRIEST, by' John C, Heenan, and PRIESTLY BEATITUDES, by Max Kassiepe, O.M.[., translated by A. Simon, .O.M.I. Both authors, the former who is now Bishop of Leeds in England, and the latter, an experienced ,German missionary, chaplain, and superior, know what they are talking about. The Peotgle's Priest, written for diocesan priests by one of them, is full of-practical, common sense, pastoral guidance, that is inspired throughout by an enlightened appreciation of the beautiful relationship that exists between the good i~riest.and his peo~ple. (New. Y0rk: Shoed ~ Ward, 1952, Pp. xi q- 24'3. $2.75.) Priestly Beatitudes contains twenty-two sermons.for a priest's retreat. In general, the talks follow the usual development according-to The Soiritual Exercises of St. lynatius with the merit of a constant advertence and application to a priest's life. The ring of authenticity is unmist'akable. (St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1952. ,Pp. v + 393.S5.00.) '. FOR oRGANISTS AND CHOIRMA~s'rERs Father \Vinfrid Herbs.t, S.D.S. has helpfully 'got,herod together in a convenient booklet answers to many questions that often confront church musicians. This pamphlet, lnformdtion /'or Organists and Cboirmdsters, can be obtained from the Salvatnrian Fathers,' St. Nazianz, Wisconsin. Let:i:er !:o a Mas!:er-ol: Novices. L. Ganganelli [ED1TOI~'S NOTE[ This letter is said to have'been written by Fra Lorenzo Ganga-nelli, who late.r .became Pope Clement XIV, to a ,Jesuit in England 4¢ho had been .a former student. We cannot guarantee the authorship, but-the content of the letter is of value to every one.] Reverend Father, The office that you discharge requires as much gentleness as firm-ness. You must bear in mind that although a religious should be .circumspect in his demeanor, yet you cannot expect the same gravity from a young man as from. his elders. Ttie special gift of a nbvice master ~ons]sts in bei'ng able to recogni.ze the source from which.his novices' shortcomings proceed, in order to humble them if they are due to pride, to stimulate them if they arise from indolence,, to mor-tify .them if they p.roceed from sensuality, to check them if they spring*from impatiense. You must see .that your.young men are always .occupied. Besides .fixing their minds and restraining their imaginations, emploYment brings out their talents. In the case of-some, these develop slowly, but with a little patience and insight it is not hard to tell whether the cloud will be pierced at length by the sunbeams.o~ is.doomed to remain dark forever. If you suffer yourself to be carried away by a zealthat is wanting in sweetness, .you-may someday or other dismiss those who" would have been th~ glory of your order. '.They who have most ability are often those who have the most impulsive dispositions, and if one is not,sufficiently master of himself, it may, happen that certain, little sallies of humor, which are nothing more than mere bits of levity, will ruin a young man forever, by causing him t'o be excluded from a state of life where he would have rendered important services to ~b~ Church. ~ Take special care not to observe the same method of direction for all. Onemay need a sharp rebuke, for another a mere glance is enough.Let your silence itself speak, and you will seldom be obliged to give a reprimand. The young almost always imagine that ;t is throtigh ill-humor or the desire to scold that they are constantly receiving admonitions, and often they are not mistaken. Watch carefully, bat without allowing it to be perceived, To betray an appearance of mistrust fosters a spirit of deceit and un- 199 L. GANGANELLI _r o R~view for R¢liqiot~s ~ruthfuln~s. A tone of friendship soothes a ~6vice's feelings, whilst an air ofseverity wounds and irritates him. Scarcely ever~allow a fault to pass unpunished when it goes directly against the religious s~irit, a~n~l give particular heed to whafever offends against, inorality, Purity belorigs to.all Christians. but it is required of priests and reli-gious abo~e all'. You must make a distinction between a fault cord-mitted on the sp.urt. of the moment and a habitual defect. Remember that true virtue is not harsh and that .a smiling countenance inspires~cgnfidence. A cold and severe exterior, ~Imost alx~ays re~els, because, it bears the appearance of pride. ~nusDt ob en owti speu sWh iptheirnf etchtei omne taosou rfeh ro.f f doirs mcreetni oanr.e Ontohte .r~wnigseel tsh, ea nydo u~nogu' will conceive an.aversion, for you. and will weary¯ of piety itself. It is: not the repetition of precepts wh!ch makes novices improve. One ¯ migh~ preach all day long without-accomplishing anything if-prin-ciples are,not inculcated. When the~mind is convinced by reasoning that tl~ere necessarily exists a God. and hence a religion, and that' the. only true one is that which we profess, it does not allow itself to be dhzzled by sophistry; if sin is committed, it is with the conscious-ness of doing wrong. Do~ away with the system of, spying, as a public nuisance. It accustoms people to play the part of hypocrites and false friends. Do not allow yourself to conceive a prejudice against anyone. It' is thr~ugh.such ,prejudices that the innocent are every day. persecuted, -whilst the guil.ty triumph. If something is reported~ to you about a third party; take care tc; inform yourself of the facts of the case. and never condemn anyone.without giving him an ,opportunity to clear himself. Do not chastise withoutprevious warning, unless there is ques-tion of an-offense that demands the immediate infliction of'suitable punishment. Be more indulgent towards ¯secret' faults, as they ,are ,not attended with scandal which is the grea~er evil. Follow the Ggs-pel rule in r~gard to g~ving charitable admonition ~o such as go astray. ",(Remember "seventy times seven" and the father "of the prodigal.) " Do not forager that the y6ung must hhve recreation, and that~the mind is as a soil,"which to yield, greater ,fruit has need of., rest. More-over, ~t is advisable that everything sh'ouldhavethe appearance of being done freely. Obedience becomes an intolerable yoke unless the-superior is careful to lighten its burden. 200 Julg, 19.52 MASTER OF, NOVICES Do not place iff the.hands ~)f your novices any of those apocry-' phal.books which St. Paul" calls old wives tales .--"ineptas autem et afliles fabulas devita." Faith is not supported by lying, and religion is truth itself. Vary the readings of your- young scholars, and for tear ofexciting or mis'directing their imagi.natio.ns, do not apply them exclusively to the contemplative styl~ of works.,¯ Besides, at an age s6.t~nde&the memory must have facts that it can-retain. Above a~ll preserve peace in the midst of your little flock', by endeavoring to lift up the souls entrusted to your care above all the little details of the life of the cloister which only too often degenerates into disputes, hatred, ~nd jeaiousy. Teach them to-be great in the smallest .things, and to impart a value to their:meanest duties by the manner in which they acquit tbemse|v~es.of them. Smother ambition; stir.up emula'tion. Otherwise you will train up proud men or boors. Instil] into your novices an espY'it de corps, but without anything exc.essive. ~ If one is not attached' to the insti-tute to which he belongs, he gra~lually grows weary of his state;" if one is so excessively, he thinks his order hecessary, despises all other religious" communities, and g6es so far as to canonizecertain ~buses t6 which he has become attached through routine or prejudice. Show yourself always even tempered. ¯There is nothing more .ridiculous thhn a man who is unlike himself. The young have a keim eye for deciphering a superior's character. - They are rarely mis-taken in the case of one who is odd or whimsical. It throws them ¯ otit in their calculations and Wins their esteem when they see a supe~ riot who pursues always the same even tenor, showing firmness on all occasions but without any sign¯of.ill-temper. ¯ Avoid familiarity: yet, be less the superior th~.n .the-bosom friend of those.who have been confided to you. Let tb~m find in you a fath'er, and let them understand that it is your grehtest pain to re-. prove them. Show no predilection except towards such as have more wisdom and piety, and let it be only in circumstances in which it may serve as a lesson for the indolent and flighty. Never employ artifice tO bring about the faults that you wish to discover. Such clever tricks" are not consistent With honesty. Let your ~unishmeffts~ be in pro-p~) rtion tO th~ gravity of the faults, and do not go.and make a crime out of certain light transgressions which imply neither malice nor disorder i~f the heart. .It is not by sho.uting that men are corrected. St. F~ancis de 201 L. GANGANELLI Sales used to say that he touched sinners more by professions of friends.hi~ for them than by scolding them. The language, of the Gospel is that of persuasion. Do not 'lead anyone by extraordinary paths and check those who would wish to follow them, unless there be evidence of a stiper-natural call; but these cases are so rare that they cannot serve as a 'law. The time for' mysticism and that sort of pure speculation is gone. It would be dangerous to rec'all it. ' Leave young men free to speak in your presence Without intimi-dating them. It is the way. to discover their interior. In a word, demean yourself as a kind father of a family who does. not wish to make his children either slaves or hypocrites .or dolts but subjects knowing how to render to God His due, to religion its rights, and to so'ciety what belongs to it. The first of all rules is to learn to l'ove the Lord, and to do nothing, that could displease Him. This is the one object of all religious institutions; for you know, Reverend Father, as well as I do, that our regulations would be often puerile, were they not meahs of leading us to God. Every founder has de- . vised such as he thought most suitable for his purpose. Beware of such pedantry as to po, se as one incapable of error and knowing everything. When I was teaching and ~som~thing was asked that I~ did not know, I admitted mY ignor~ance without make-shift of any kind before my pupils themselves, who only esteemed me the more for it. Young people like to ha'ce you put yourself on, a level with them. If I have drawn this paper out at length, it is because the life of a master of novices is a life of details. You might have addressed someone better qualified to speak on the points at issue, but it would have been hard for you t6 hit upon one who would have served you with greater interest. . FRA L. GANGANELLI Convent of the" Holy Apostles, Rbme (between 1760-1769) TEN-YEAR INDEXmSTILL AVAILABLE C0pies~ of the Ten Year Index of the REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS '(1942-1951) are still available at one dollar per copy. Kindly enclose paym~ent with the order from: REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, St.Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas. 202 bligher I::ducat:ion and \ "Real Religion" Sister M. Bofiaventure, O.S.F. ALTHOUGH formal higher education is a relatively recent fac-tor in the spiritual life of S!sters, when viewed in the light of the g~neral history of religious .orders,. yet its. impact has already been felt deeply' enough to draw comp.laint, comment, and serious study. Beginning with a consciousness of inadequate.returns f~om university w, ork, as attested by members of various religious communities, the reaction has grown at times to a serious conviction of over-emphasis on intellectual and professional training and a fore-boding tendency to generalize that American religious women of the mid-century 'are more widely instructed but less cultured, less dis-ciplined and balanced than the Sisters of a generation ago. Since th~ blame cannot be lald upon higher education in itself without destroy-ihg the intrinsic meaning o~ the term, we face the alternative that the fault must lie in the relation between the r~ligious and the experi-ences of higher educatior~. The error must be sought in the .formula used for integrating these experiences. For mdst religious, the initi~l mental attitude toward higher educatiori, the acceptance or the denial of its necessity, basically con-ditions all furtbe~ reactions. This facto~ of "necessity" should no longer be debatable: its validity has been pointed out repeated.ly in the authoritatiye language ot~ papal encyclicals and in the exhorta-tions of religious leaders. Yet restatement might be in order. Through the centuries of her existence Holy Mother Church has constantly defined and demonstrated that the scope of education is the whole aggregate of human life, physical and spiritual, intellec-. trial and moral, individual, domestic, and social. Irt his encyclical on Claristian education Plus XI reminds the world that such an edu- .cation can be imparted only by good. teachers thoroughly grounded in the matter they seek to teach, teachers who' have learried to under-stand and evaluate properly all the various aspects of human life-- religious, social, political, industrial, economic, and scientific--in their modern dynamic setting. ~ : Our present Pontiff, Pope Plus XII, has h~ightened this empha-sis. The encycl!cal "Humani Generis" not only stressed the prepara-' 203 SISTER M. BONAVENTURE ," ~ory n~ed ,of higher education but ~reeminence in intellectual le,adership Review foc Religious also sounded a clarion call to : "It is well kn,own how highly the Church re.gar,ds human reason . But reason can perfgrm its functions safely arid well only when properly tiaine~i, that is~ when imbued with that sound philosophy, which has .long been,,as it were, a patrimony . For' this philosophy safeguards the genuine validity of human knowledge . Let them (Catholic teachers) strive with every force and effort to further the progress of the sdences which they teach.let them enga'ge in most careful research.". (N.C.W.C. translatibn, p. 13:) The present picture.of Catholic ~ducation in America.is patent proof that religious are making great efforts tb ~realize the educational ideals of the Church. Today we face smaller, threat of the old accu-shtion that Catholic education is not Catholic enough. But the need to implement .fully our understanding of ed[~cation, to "fulfill the tdrm" remains, and this need is identified with the need for higher education. Translated into specific language, i~means the need for an understanding of present day problems of health, labor, govern-ment. and pehce: fdr contact With the realities which condition mod-ern life--pr.!ces, wages, taxes: for common grounds on which reli-" gi~)us can closely contact those whom they would educate: and, above all, for the ialibre of leadership that will focus attention on the potentialities of Catholic education. To meet this need religious communities must supply active members who are thoroughly famil-iar with the directives of the Holy See for a confused world: leaders who have mastered'bbth the theory and prac.tice of Catholic" action: teachers who can recognize ~ind champion truth wherever.it is found, nor confhse tolerance of persons with the tolerance of false principles: scholars who can chart the course of modern science and ,speak the language of .modern art. Higher learning, then. seen in its true nature and 'function. becomes a necemary .religious activity. Not ~gnly is it completely compatible with spiritual grdwth, but it should be a vital factor in such growth. Since God is Infinite Knowledgeand Wisdom, there is reverent,logic in the observation that "nature rightly developed is a condition for and a more fit subject, of elevatlon to the supernatural order and a more precious dedication to God." The lack of proper , adaptation to modern needs has been with justice analyzed as a cur-rent grieoance against religious.life and one cause of its depreciation today. In his allocution to. members of, the First Congress for Reli- 204 " gio~us. (1950),-Pope Pius XII has 'emphasized.repeatedly the vital ,.relation betw~en.religioi~s life and higher learning. As Father Letter has concisely summarized it, the Holy Father points to. per-sonal sanctity as the essential object of religibus vocation, but at the same time underlines the obligation which binds religious in regard to the means of sanctification the avocations of religious life. "In these avocations religious rna~/and muststrive to be as up~to-date a's any of their contemporaries. That way, we may add. the~ will help. to remove a pretext for d~p, reciatinreg h g "l o" u~s' life.". (.REVIEW FOR RELm~OUS, Jan., 1952.) A'sense of precaution alone, might well lead to the same'cohclu-sion. Religious educators concerns&with th~ complex problem of training-new meinbers have been. raising stron.g"voices .against the dangers with which inadequat~ preparation for work ~hreatens reli-gious vocation. We cannot pass over,lightly ~he wa~ning of Sister Madeleva, C.S.C.: "No.group can deteriorate more quickly or, more terribly ~han young girls~of the type that enter our novitiates today without proper and adequate intellectual, cultural'and spiritual chal-lenges;' (NCEA Bulletin. 1950 .255)'. ¯ Granting. then. the vital need of-higher ~d~cation in the active religious life. it is at once-apparent that the adjustment of conflicts , arising from this need rests .primarily with religious superiors and community directors. Such problems may arise in regard to safe-guarding ~egular community life and observance.of rule under aca-demic schedules; the selection of religious for higher~trMning, and most pertinently, in providing adeq~iate religious formation and con-tinued guidance~in: the integration of educational e.xperience. in the' past twenty years religious communities have evidenced a gro.wing awareness of such problems. Some of the solutions sug-gested and attempted have proved highly significant. There has been self-examination and frank admission o~ the stagnation in eduCa-tional woik, which results from community inbreeding. Complete reorganization of educational programs in many communities is demonstrating concretely tl~at adequate syn,thesis, of religious voca-, tion and avocation is possible. Such programs have been tested. analyzed, and evaluated at meetings of the National Catholic Edu-cational Association in recent years. Where attention is seribusly .focused on such synthesis, religious superiors find greatest opportun-iiy to bring ripened experience and intelligent zeal to the aid of the individual religious caught in men~al tensions. Neveriheless, the fact 205 ~ISTER M. BON,~VENTURE Reuiew /:or Religiou}~, remains th~;t it is on the plane of personal, interior integrati'on that the decisive conflicts of religious life are resolved.-No religious, whether in the" active.or in the contemplative life, can escape the basic problem of knowledge: bow to transmute knowledge into wisdom. To keep the balance! T, bat is the goal which spells personal sanctification. On the other hand, it is precisely¯ thee lack of balance that vitiates the relation between higher learning and. religious iife, building up the pressures and conflicts that draw condemnation. And since, for the active religious, contihued growth in knowledge and culture, is progress toward perfection in her state of life,. ~he problem' of proper balance is a perennial one, It faces the matur~ as well as the young religious. There is consensus in the observation that where ~ducational ex-periences are hot properly integrated ~by religious the resulting pres-sures may produce'three types of personality reaction: 1. Worldliness: Loss of spiritual¯ perspective. A shifting of ifocus from God to human activity. The ¯religious is nolonger'a Catholic educator but a mere devotee of science or of art. 2. Scrupulosity: A false dichotomy which constantly demands ¯ choice b~tween prayer and study as two independent activities. The religious finds her spiritual life increasingly cramped and is~ no longer ¯ able to find sahctifying unity in the labor of the laboratory or library and spiritual exercises. 3. Discontent: Unanalyzed pressures, which¯ are not always, the "divine restlessness" of St. Augustine, but which '.drive the religious to seek escape measures .in change of occupation or vocation. The adjustment necessary to prevent such reaction or to resolve" the conflict when it does .occur demands self-knowledge. And though it may seem anomalous, the need of s~If-knowledge may grow~ apace with.higher learning. For the religious with university¯ degrees may still be .the dangerous man of "one book," if the ~legrees. represent a knowl.edge of books alone. A clear knowledge of the im-mediategoal can be a dangerous pressure when not integrated with an equally clear grasp 0f the proper means for reaching the goal. And since we cannot discount ¯human inertia with its tendency to stop at ge, neral principles, instead of making concrete applications, there is reason to review some of the factors essential to adjustment 6r read-justment in religious life. Because the heart of the higher-education problem is conflict, the 'solution ~rests on a¯choice of method and of means. 206. July, 1952 HIGHER EDUCATION Method Conflict grows from disorder. Butorder is the recoghition of ~i definite hierarchy of succession among the parts of a rational entity,. It is established and maintained first, by a proper evaluation of each" part in t~rms of the. whole: then by a complete; integration of these parts-into an organic whole in which'each individual activity is sub-ordinated to the good of the whole organism. Neither the pursuit nor the. results of learning can be allowed a position of dominance. A mastery of s~abject matter must remain always a mastery, a iecoilected control which rules out avidity and passionate intens.ity and the vain, curious study that makes of learning the curiosiiates philosophantiun) denounced by St. Bonaventure. For.the Seraphic Doctor had learned from his master, St. Francis, that all science leads the mind from the consideration of' the creature to the contemplation of the Creator only when it is rightly pursued. Given their proper subsidiary evaluation, the learning activities ---courses and lectures, problems and examlnations--must be con-tinuously integrated into the brganic whole of the interior life. This can be accomplished only through the medium of love, the "unction" of St. Bonaventure. Interior inspiration, the fruit of daily medita-tion and mortification, must inform tile activities of the lecture hall and laboratory. If the arts';ind sciences, as we are told, are "'forever waiting the spiritualizing influence 6f revealed religion," surely the religious cannot forego this apostolate. Nor is it necessary to follow an~ complex formula in order to integrate, empirical knowledge, in-tellectual principles, religious intuition, and emotional response into a meaningful and orderly whole. The means are the staples of reli-gious life: faith, obedience, humility, and love. MeaDs Faith is the basis of integration. Of the religious, who makes learning a ladder of sanctity it may be said in the literal sense, "Thy faith hath made thee whole." We know the threefold object of faith: 1) to enlighten the mind with regard to God; 2) to show us the proper relation of creatures to God; 3) to'direct our'activity towards God. The.religious who ~'xercises dail3; the habit of faith hold~ the unfailing sblvent for every interior conflict. To the eye of faith every person, every situation, every idea is a transparency through which shines the Divine Countenance. Wi~h a living faith it is possible to hear the voice of the Eternal Lawgiver above every 207~ ~ISTER M. BONAVENTURE " Review for ~eligious lecture on history, economics, or politi~s and to read glimpses,of His beauty written large "6r small across the pages of ancient liteiature and modern letters. TO liveby ~faith is to see, ~albeit darkly~ not a threat but a divine wisdom and p!an behind academic sthedules,,and challenging assignments. It is. above all, to have an unfailing source of confidence and courage to face¯ any God-given task in the" knbwl-edge that'the power of heaven is ours. For in .the words of. our Holy Father "we are rich in supernatural assistance through the grace poured out in the floodtides of the' Sacraments and prayer.'.¯ Wh~t room is left for confliCt,in the mind of th~ religious who learns to find under the mate'rial "species" of 1.earn!ng experiences the sacra-mental "substance" of a spirit.ual reality which is a part of her com-plete consecration? No more time, no argu'ment is n.eede~ for the finding. -- Active faith provides the religious with a second 'effective means of integration, a means which is at the same time a gtiarantee against doubt and.mental c6nflict. This gi~aranteeis obedience,-the hinge of religious life,',formulated by the vow.of ~onsdcration and in its full implication t6uching every act of the human will. If the entrance of a religious into the field of higher e~ducation is dictated by vocational need, according to the judgment of superiors, rather than by a desire .for personal achievement, obedience provides firm ground on which every situation can be met with the peace which is the fruit of faith. But to prove the perfe, ct safeguard against con2 flict obedience mus~ rise above passive resignation. It must be the active, personal element ol~ our friendship with God, the beneoolentia of St. Thomas'i by which we will what comes to. us by God's order .because it is the expression ~f His love for us. Through faith, obedi-. ence reveals as the core of each new l~arning experience the recogni-ti6n of a .Divine Provideiice. ¯ The abiding habit of such active obedience, is the foundation of the perfect peace ,recognized by,Dhnte, the peace of a mind relaxed not on the defensive-=therefore, a permeable mind that. absorbs and retains ~ith ~least. effort. TOO frequently well-meanifig,but confused religious, who fear to launch out into the depths of faith and trust, block by feverish activity and fearful tension the very channels' through which God is expected toanswer their pleas for aid, t~eir imagination, memory, understanding'. The r~li~ious who desires in obedience "to be to God what a hand is to a man" will be cdntent to do what G6d indicates as reasonable in any situation, as best-she can, HIGHER I~DUCATION° then without qualm or conflict leave the results to Him, even when. these results affect entire communities. Faith does not' lessen daiiy, responsibilities nor dilute .them with nonchalant optimism. But it does enable the religious scholar to bear the burden lightly, with the detachment and'joy that are the marks of ~ will surrendered tO God. " Perhaps the most subtl~ and least, recognized source of tension f6r the religious .studen~ is personal susceptibility and its tenuous roots of pride. The ignorance of a child reaches out.foi knowledg~ with a'joyous freedom and pliancy. The adult mind can grasp truth safely and without pain qnly by the grace of,humility. ForAearning is~always a' "receiving," ari acknowledgement of need. The mind that is undonsciously'on the defensive against such acknowledgement to superiors.in~tructors, fellow ~tudents, even. to itself is under a psychological pressure that brakes every :lear~aing process. Not only does such pressure pre~clude an open-mind but, more seriously, it is incompatible with recollection and inspiration. " The religious who ~onsi~tently strives for complete ~ integration of all" her activities in the field of higher learning by seeing every ex-. perience with the eyes of faith, recognizing p.eacefully its seal of providential design and accepting it with a humble and open-heart, will find within herself what is at once the fruit and lthe only valid-test of such integration. That fruit is know, ledge transformed into wisdom by the alchemy of love--wisdom which makes love come .full circle iia contemplation. This is the wisdom which, whefi~ com-municated, iadiates, transforming love and is the truth.which makes. men free. " But unless recollection and devotion draw knowledge within .the circumference i3f a personality whos~ center is God, its widest reaches W,ill mdrely parch the soul, leaving 6nly a" hard glittering surface. What is worse, this arid desert of surface knowledge is the soil which ~ fraelasdei lcyo ;npsrcoidenuccee,s sac rhuopslte os,f rfaatlisoen daliiczhaotitoonmsi.e Os'na nthde m oethnetar lh caonndf,l tihctes-: religious who remember'with Maritan,. that "just as. everything which is in the Word is found-once more in tt'ie Sp!rit, .so must 'all that We know pass into our power of affection " by love,", will find .th.a.t. every facet of ~aature on which man may concentrate can be made to yield fuel for the inner life,of re!igious perfection. Only the flafiae thus fed-can dispel the darkness of the cold materialism which sur: rounds "us. Need we hesitate to conclude that prop(r evaluation of educa- 209 NATIONAl; C(~NGRESS Review t~or Religious tional goals and adequate spiritual integration of learning experiences cannot fail to eliminate th~ conflicts and tensions frequently.associ-ated with higher education for religious? Will it not de~pen appre-ciation ~ religious life and underline the tragedy of the loss of voca-tion? Religious thus educated do not merely know more ~hings, but thdy understand the vivifying unity underneath all things and in this understanding taste the peace and joy of "real religion." Such religious respond fully ~o the exhortation of the'Holy Father, which cannot be repeated too freque.ntly: "Be what you are. Let your'live~s bear witness to the reality of rtehheg "lo "u's state, Then' men,within and without the Church, will understand and esteem the state of ~erfection." Nal:ional Congress [EDITOR'S NOTE: Fa~'her Francis J. Connell. C.SS.I~., the executive chairman of the National Congress of Religious Men, kindly sent us the following communica-tion about the Congress to be held at Notre Dame University in August.] The First National Congress of Religious will be held at Notre Dame, Indiana, from August 9th to August 13th this year. Both religious men and women will be present, but 'will hold se)arate meeting~, except for a few meetings in common. It ik hoped that all orders and congregations now having a foundation in the' United States will be ~epresented. Housing facilities for about 1800 will'be available on the campus at Notre Dame University. It has been agreed by those in Charge of the Congress that 800 religious men and 1000 religious women will be invited. , O~ Saturday evening, August 9th, an address will be made.to the assembled religious by the Most Rev. John F. O'Hara, C.S.C., Arch-' bishop of Phila°delpbia. Solemn Benediction of the Mos~ Blessed Sacrament will theft be given, with Father Arcadio Larraona, cele-brant; Father Elio Gambari, S.M.M., deacon; Father Joseph Giam-pietro, S,.J., subdeacon. These of~cials.have been deputed by the Sacred Congregation of Religious to be present at ~he.Congress as re-presentatives .of the said. Congregation. On Sunday morhing the~e will be a Solemn Pontifical Mass after which His Excellency, A. G. 210 dul~l, 1952 ~ QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Cicognani, Archbishop of Laodicea and "Apostolic Delegate t£ the United States, will ~ddress tbe oentire Congress. Undoubtedly .the main purpose of this Congress is to discuss p~obl.ems of. religious life' especially.pertaining to the present-day con-ditions in America. The Holy See isvitally interested in this sub-ject, and beyond doubt, many of the ideas which will be broached at this Congress will be brgugbt to the attention of the Roman au-thorities. The religious in Americi believe that it is possi,ble to main-tain a high standard ofreligious life in the United State~ i:lespite the materialistic and pleasure-loving tendencies of our country. With a view to attaining this objective, papers will be. read by representatives of the Congress on special subjects, e.g.,' stinlulation of vocations to the religious life in the United States; the obligation of superiors to fulfill their duties with p~oper regard for the innate love of indepen-dence of }:he American .people--in itself an admirable trait of charac-ter, and capable of being perfectly conformed to the higher.ideals of religious obedi(nce. Al~o, particular consideration will be given to the contemplative life, the sect~lar institutes, American religious of the Oriental Rites, and similar topics. The.dlosing ceremony" will be a Candlelight Procession to the Grotto of Our Lady at Notre Dame. It is very "evident that only a comparatively small proportion of "r~ligious in our dountry will be able to attend this gathering, but it is firmly boiled by'those in charge of the Congress that all will pray fervently that'God may bless this meeting with abundant fruits, and that Our Blessed Lady, on whose University grounds this first National Congress is being held, will obtain many graces for the par-ticipants and for all those whom they represent. ¯ .Questions and Akiswers 19 Please explain the prescriptions of the Church regarding the chap,fer of faults.in a religious community. " ' . : The chapter° of faults has beenpracticed 'for centuries in som~ form by'the older orders in the Church. As regards modern congre-gatipns, the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars had the following prescriptions in the Norrnae of 1901: . . 211 -- QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Review for Religious 1), It is'not necessary, that a congregation, prescri,be the chapter of faults in its constitutions. This does not.meah, howe~rer, thatthe religious is fre~ not t6 attend, if the constitutio'~as'.do prescribe the chapter of faults. (Art. 167.) 2). If it is prescribed, it should not be held oftener than 6nce a wed(. nor less frequently than once a m6nth. (Art. 167.) 3) . The accusation of faults~ which a religious makes to his supe-rior in the .chapter ro6m should be limited to faults and violations Of the constitutions that are external. 4) After-each accusation the superior imposes a penhnce. Obvi- . ously there Should be some pr, oportion~between the fault and the penance, and prudence and discretion should temper the penance ac-cording to persons, and circumstances. (Art. 169.) This exercise of fiumility and penance can be the occasion for the practice of virtue and for stimulating religious to overcome external f~iults to which they are prone. It al~o affords the.opportunity of" repairing th~ scandal (disedifi~ation) given to fell6w r~ligious by the faults. "" In some institute~' custom permits the members of the comr~un-ity to accuse one another of faults that they"have observed. If this practice is not already p.rovided for in the constitutions or book of customs, it should not be introduced without permission. Finally~. the superior may take the occasion of the chapter of faults to admon-ish the.community regarding external faults that aremore-or less common. This method of pate.rnal correction is especia.lly efficacious at the time of the devotional renewal o-f vows. -~-20--- At our novltlatewe have professed, novices, and postulant 'Brothers. who assist at Mass; which is served by novices. And on ~erta;n feast days the Sisters participate. Please cj;ve the cc;rrect order. ;n which Holy Com-munion should be distributed. - The Roman Ritual (tit. IV cap. ~I)- telis us that the priest:dis-tributing Holy Communion should begin with the Mass servers, if the~i Wish to cc;mmunicht~. A decree.bf the Sacred Congregation-of Rites (N. 107~, 3uly 13, 1658) sta'ted that the Mass server was to receivd Holy Communion before the nuns and other persons present. A later decre~ (N. 4271, lj permitted a lab, man serving~Mass,. ,~'though he do not wear the clerical garb, to receive Holy Communion. within the sanctuary, at the plat~orin of the altar. As there was a" '2"12 ¯ " . ' . ~ul~, 195Z .QUE~TION~ AND ANSWERS difference of opinion" in the interpretation-of these prescript{ons, the. Sacred Congregation of Rites gave the following detailed' regulations in a decree dated January 30, 19F5 (AA$, VII 1915, 71-72) : "The term Mass server or server at the altar includes any cleric or layman who serves l~/Iass at the altar.and he is to be preferred to others in the distribution of Holy Communion with the.following precautions: clerics are to be preferred to alayman serving Mass, and. clerics in major orders are to be preferred to cl~rics in~ minor orders , who are serving Mass." Keeping these various presc,~iptions {n mind,- w~ may now answer our question as follows: The Mass server, whether cleric or.layman, recei~res Holy COmo reunion before others ~who may be present, unless some are clerics; all clerics receive Holy Communionbefore a Mass server who is a lay-man: if the server is a cleric, he should receive first in his lank of clerics, precedenc~ being given to clerics 6f higher rank. Lay religious, Brothers and non-cleric~il religious, that is,.r~ligious not yet tonsure.d though destined for the priesthood, as well as Brothers and Sis: ,ters, all.receive Holy Communion after the Mass server, l~e he a cleric or a layman. " Finally,. an exception is made at a NuptialMass, at which the bride and groom may be given Holy Communion before, the. Mas~ server. As to the order of precedence in receiving Holy Communion at the Communion rail 6n the par,t of non-clerical religious, there are no regu'lations. Hence local customs may be observed if the consti~ tutions do not prescribe the precedence. It may be well. to recall here that a reserved instruction by the Sacred Congregation of Religious, December 8, 1938, said there should be no "rigid and quasi-military order" in coming to the Communion rail. Many commentators on ¯ this instruction suggested that the order prevailing in numerous reli-giou~ communities of receiving Communion.in a definite order should be changed. For the text of the instruction se~ Father Bouscaren's Canon'Law .Digest, II, 208 ft. ; ~nd for an article on the instruction, as well as a digest of the text, see REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, III (1944), 252-70. SHALLI START TO DRINK? . . Shall 1 Start to Drink?, by 3ohn C. F6rd~ S:d., p~esents a clear discussion of ¯ the moral and ascetical aspects of total abstinence. A pamphlet; published by The Queen's Work, 31 15 South Grand Boulevard, St. Lohis 18, Missouri. .213 I THE MORNING OFFERINGs. By Thomas ML Moore, S.~. °Pp~ t69. .Ap0stl~shlp.o~f Prayer, New York, '1950. $3.00. 40,000,000 members of. the Apostleship of Prlayer" scattered throughout the world, priests; ~ligious, men and women and chil-dren of every race and clime, recite "The Morning Offering".~laily. This formidable army of prayer is sending up unceasin~ petition to the Throne of God tbrdughout thehours of the day and night that "through the [mmaculate Hdart, of Mary" He may.acdebt their "prayers. works, joys and ~suff_erings of the day for all the int,entions of the Sacred 'Heart. in union with' the Holy. SaCrifice. of the Mass throughout th'e world, in reoaration for sin. for the intentions of all the Associates. and in particular, for all the intehtions"of the Holy Father." ¯ The last half of Father Moore's book .is a detailed expl~natio, n 6f the mo~ning offering. The chapters o'n the Immaculate Heart.of Mary the Comfiaunion of" Reparation.and the /kpostleship of* Suffering d~serve special mention. . o The first half.of the book contains a simple, untechnical expla-nation of the fundamental notions of theology, which underlie the Morning Offerifig': -cre'ati0n, end of man, tlSe love~ of God and of the Sacred Heart for men as.shown in the.redemption, man's free co-opei'atiori in~he work of God. the nature and .efficacy O,f prayer. union with ~hrist, especially in the Eucharistic Saerifice. The history a'nd*development of the Apostleship of"Prayer as well as. itS adapta-tion to-modern times, especially through the S~cred Hear( Radio Pr?grgm, bring the book to a close. - " This bpok is ~arnestly recommended to all religious for their own personal use in order to get-acquainted wi'th the Apostleship,of Prayer if they,are not. members as ye~.and to help' the~rfi spread.the °Ap0stl~ship far an~l wide among the faithful who come under their ¯ influence.' "It i] v/ell suited.: fo~ spiritual reading, either .privately or .in' common.--ADnM C." ELLIS[ S.J. WHAT IS THE iNDEX? By Redmond A. Burki~, C.S.V. Pp. x -k" 130. Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, 1952. $2.75. . Thislohg needed book gives a brief but'solid expos.ition of the. origin, .nature, and extent of the laws of. the, Church re~arding censorship and~ p.~oh!bition of books. It is. directed not merely to theological students and the pra~.icin~ clergy, b~Jt primar!ly "to, the 214 . BOOK REVIEWS intellige~nt laity, whether Catholic or.no~-Catholic, and it attempts~ to discover th~ effects of e~clesiasti~al regulation~ with 'reference to, the entire world of literature. For this reason the termsare, as far as possible, nontecbnical.'~ After gi,ving the~ historical, background of the Church's .legisla-, tion in chapter.ond. [he author goes on to treat the foliowing sub-~ jects in subsequent chapters:, censorship of books in adyance of pub! lication:0condemfiation of ,publisl~ed books: general classes Of for5 bidden literature: methods of examining books by the Holy Office: I'ndex of forbidden, books: penalties for. violations of book regula-tions: permission to read forbidden books: and promotion of' - re~ding. Perhap.s the most valuable chapter in the book is that in which he treats general classes of forbidden lit~ratu're.' It is. in reality, commentary on canon 1399 of the'Code of Canon Law. Too many Catholics including some priests and religious, labor under the false impressio.~i that as long as a book,is not listed in the Index of For-. bidden Boobs it .may be read w. ith impunity. Most forbidden books are not listed in theIndex. ~Inste, ad. their are t~) be judged by. probi-bition-~ f different classes Of books as determined in canon. 1399. The author gives ~ brief, but satisfactory comm~n,t on each clas~ of books contained in this canon. Of special importance also is the chapter telling.how to bbtain permission to read forbidden books. This .will prove very.helpful for st~udents doing ~esea.rch work, as well as those in professional schools. - In an appendix the aUthor g~ves various listings of books ~n~the Index: 7We are deeply" indebted to him for l~a, ving given us'also Abbd Bethleem's valuable lists of selections of the work of F~ench authors which.may be :read,.in spite ot: the fact that the authors' works.are forbidden in ge'neral. A final app, endix on "The C;reat Book~ Program" completes the work. Af~er,.poi~ating out the,-valu'e of this praisewo'rthy project, the autho~ lis~s the booksbn the pro'gram which'may not be read with-out permission. This excellent book should, be~on thesheJv, es of every Catholic school !ibFfiry beginning with the high school, and on up to college and university lentil. Likewise, every religl6us community .engaged in teaching in secondary schools and co!leges should have a copy in the faculty library. Other religious engaged:in act.ire works will als0 find it useful. ADAM~C. ELLIs. S.O,. 215 BOOK R~VlEWS . . " ". Reoieto for Ret(gious " THE SEMINARIAN AT'HIS PRIE-DIEU. By'Robert.Nash; S.d. Pp. 312. The-Newman Press, We~fmlnster, Md., 1951. $3.50. This is a book of meditations for seminarians. Fr. Nash's thirty-eight meditations are aimed at hdping s~mingrians gr~ow into p, ray-erful priests who will be ready for the!r work in the p,resent world of social unrest, of threatening Communism, of secularism, and the rest. As in histwo previous companion works, The Nun at Her Prie-Dieu and The Priest at His Prie-Dieu, each meditation containsa prepara-tory prayer, the setting or cdmposition of place, the fruit desired, three or four points (each of which the author rightly suggests could serve for one or more meditations), a brief, summary of the points, and a tessera or catchword to be recalledduring the day. Particularly well done is the setting,, which can help a busy'stu-dent cast aside extraneous thoughts and.apply his mind more readily to .the subjec~ matter of the meditation. Though this book cannot remove all the thorns that beset the paths of mental przyer, s~mi-narians, t~erhaps more especially those fresh from the "world," will find in it plentiful material and a good method to follow in their meditation. It could also be u~ed profitably for spiritual reading. JOHN F. MOORE,. S.J. THE CARMELITE DIRECTORY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. Translated from ~the'Lafln. Pp. xxlv -F~ 575. The Carmelite Press,'.Chlcag.o, II1., 1951. For Carmelites themselves, for their followers, and for students of their spirituality, this directory will be an invaluable and almost inexhaustible gold mine of doctrine. It is official, being introduced and commended by a letter, of the Prior General. It dales not bear the name of any writer or corn'piler, but seems, to be put forth l~y the ~armelite Order itself. It is recent/ the Latin o6ginal being dated 1940. Its purpose is t~ complement 'and implement the Rule ~nd Constitutions. ~ The work consists bf four major parts. Parts one ~ind two, en-titled, respectively,. "Dogmatic Fundamentals of the Spiritual Life" and "Principlesof Religious Life," are of a general and Catholic, ha-. ture and prepare for what is specifically Carmelite. This is presented in tile latter tWO.l~art,s.Of these the third is headed "A Holy Heart~" and deals mostly "i¢ith the conquest of bad habits, the acc~uisition of ¯ the virtues, and the pursuit of perfection. The last part is devoted to ."The Contemplative Life." Some people no doubt will note with surprise how little space is. given.to the m3~stical phase of the spiritual ~ life. (pages 525-551)'. . , 216 July, 1952 . BOOK I~OTICES It is interes'ting to observe, in view of Wl~at certain welJ-known authors on prayer, for instance, Saudreau an~t Arintero, hold, that where "the higher degrees of mental prayer wl~ich can be attained by ordinary grace" are treated, we find the statement that "there are two higherdegrees x~hich today are usually called affective pra~,er and the prayer of simplicity or filso acquired contemplation" (p. 425). Toward'the end of the section on the gifts of the Holy¯ Spirit it is affirmed that persons who cultivate them carefully "may :lawfully expect to_be led day by day to greater perfection and to work great things for the glory of God and*His kingdom" (p. 299). No promise is made of mystical favors. The 'Prior General has a sentence in his letter that is enlightening about the spirit of Carmel: "In this book.will be found fully explained those key principles of Carmel: to give our whole selves to God--to stfi.ve for purity of conscience--to foster intimate union with God" (p. xxiii). Lastly, the delicate problem of the historical connectibns of the Order witch "our Holy Father Elias" is handled devoutly but-Cautiously. ~-~AUGUSTINE G. ELLARD, S.J. BOOK NOTICES Som~ years ago Father Henry Davis, S.J., rendered an invaluable ser'vice~to the English-speaking clhrgy, as well as to theology-minded laity, by publishing a 4-volume work on moral and pastoral the-ology. Before his death at the age of eighty-five, in January of this year, he had increased his measure of service by preparing a 1-volume SUMMARY OF MORAL AND PASTORAL THEOLOGY. The book covers the whole of moral theolpgy: principles: precepts, and sadraments; and it includes much sound pastoral advice. It is a very useful book for priests, libraries, and those 9fthe laity who wofild like t6 become. acquaifited with a standard manual of moral .tl~eology. One' caution might be added for the laity. The treatise on the Sixth Command-ment, since it follows the pattern of the theological textbook, con-tains certain technicalities that might be more confusing than help-ful. The laity'who "irish to read on this subject for their personal benefit would do better to use a book written expressly for them. (New York: Sheed ~3 Ward, 1952. Pp. xxxvi -b 486. .$5.00.), A decidedly readable explanation of the doctrine of the Mys~fical, Bddy of Christ is THE LIVING CHRIST, by John L. Murphy. The t .217 BOOK NOTICES - Revi~ for Religious explana~tion is based o~n Pius XII'~ encyclical." M~/st, ic[ Co?~oris. The author avoids the use of technical terms as much as possil~le and plains those that must be used. The style i~ marked by clarity, simplicity, "ahd. a certain down-to-ear~hnes~ that contributes con-creteness without losing digni

Issue 66.2 of the Review for Religious, 2007. ; Challenges Ignatian Insights Experiencing Prayer Religious Life Perspectives QUARTERLY 66.2 2007 Review for Religious fosters dialogue with God, dialogue with ourselves, and dialogue with one another about the holiness we try to live according to charisms of Catholic religious life. As Pope Paul Vl 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: 314-633-4610 ¯ Fax: 314-633-4611 E-Maih 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 ° 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 stibscription rates. ©2007 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 distribution, 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. religious Editor David L. Fleming SJ Associate Editor Philip C. Fischer SJ Canonical Counsel Elizabeth McDonough OP Scripture Scope Eugene Hensell OSB Editorial Staff Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Judy Sharp Vdebmaster . Clare Boehmer ASC Advisory Board Martin Erspamer OSB ¯ .Kathleen Hughes RSCJ L~uis and Angel.a Menard Bishop Terry Steib SVD Miriam D. Ukerids CSJ QUARTERLY 66.2 2007 contents prisms 116 Prisms 118 challenges Between the Culture of the Satisfied and the Culture of Death John Lydon OSA looks at the challenge religious life faces in the developed world in light of declining numbers of mem-bers. Calling for an .ethic of solidarity, the article proposes not losing sight of our mission to the poor in these difficult financial times. Reflection Questions for Personal and Group Use 130 The Spiritual Blahs--Rejection or Invitation? George Aschenbrenner SJ interprets the painful, empty, dull experience in prayer and finds an invitation to greater intimacy with God. ignatian insights 138 The Finesse at the Finish of the Exercises A. Paul Dominic SJ studies the Ignatian Three Methods of Praying in the Spiritual Exercises and finds that they serve to carry the fervor and glow of the retreat into the prosaic chores of daily living. 114[ 154 "Here I Am": Ignatian Ways of Serving David L. Fleming SJ explores the notion of "to serve" in the spirituality of St. Ignatius Loyola through Ignatius's life expe-rience and through the Spiritual Exercises. Reflection Questions and Prayer Mantra Review for Religious 168 176 ~p~rJ~ncin~ pr~yer ~ Prayer Is a Risk Rick Malloy SJ reviews the practical benefits of a daily personal prayer life. Reflection Questions Beginning Contemplation according to John of the Cross James W. Kinn carefully explains the beginning of contemplation according to the writings of St. John of the Cross and his practical advice for praying this way. 188 rsJigious ~i~ p~rspoctivss ~ Living Religious Life with Chronic Illness Mary Therese Johnson OP shares her experience of how chronic health problems affected her person, her ministry, and her life in the community. 197 Revisiting My Revisit of Religious Life Lucy Fuchs recounts a reunion, after fifty plus five years, of former novices, those remaining in their religious congregation and those who have left it. A deep sharing and friendship is now all the more evident. 2O5 209 214 ~epar~men~s ~ Scripture Scope: The Bible for Meaning and Nourishment Canonical Coun'sel: Conscience Matters Book Reviews II15 66.2 2007 prisms ~here do we find our contact with the risen Christ? When we read the post-resurrection accounts in the Gospels, we are struck by the always unex-pected presence of the risen Jesus to his follow-ers. Their slowness in recognizing him leaves us perplexed. If he still wore the marks of his crucifixion, surely they would immediately know the One they had been with, perhaps for some three years. Wouldn't they recognize his eyes, his smile, his tone of voice? Of course, when he addresses Mary Magdalene by her name, then she knows at once. We might want to consider ourselves as superior to these first followers because we certainly would not be so slow in recognizing Christ. would we? I think that the church has treasured the gospel writings about the resurrec-tion appearances just so that we Christians of all ages can appreciate the difficulties we humans have in recognizing God's presence in our lives. Like the first disciples, we struggle to name our "unusual/divine" experience as an encounter with the risen Lord. Maybe we are afraid of fooling ourselves. Perhaps we have a fear of God enter-ing so closely into our ordinary life. But just as Jesus came in surprising ways and at unexpected Revie~v for Religious times to his early followers, so he continues to come into our lives today, if we but take note. If we look to the most obvious place, Jesus meets us in our praying. Most of us are all too aware that our prayer time can be "ordinary," full of attention meanderings, dis-tracted, heavy in time-waiting. But, then, there are those prayer moments when we are taken out of all time, and we know Jesus' touch, Jesus' presence, Jesus' love, Jesus' calling our name. Even though the experience is immedi-ate, we need to note God,s presence by a review of our prayer or by our journaling. It is when we take notice, looking back, that we acknowledge and make our own that "it is the Lord." There is also the same type of "moments" in the pan-orama of our day where Jesus is present in the comfort-ing kind act or in the challenging question asked by the stranger. There are the moments when we are in the midst of a party or when we are riding on the public transport and we experience that "you are the one I love." Again it requires a looking back, a reflection, on our part, likely a noting through the daily examen or through some brief or extended journaling. We are claiming our experience and "incarnating" it even by our noting the divine inter-vention. Why does the risen Jesus want to enter into our lives? For the same reason that he appeared to his first follow-ers after his resurrection. He wants us to share in his joy of a life forever with God. He wants to confirm our faith. He wants to strengthen us in our own life mission. It is important for us to note how the risen Jesus enters into our lives. Our contact with the risen Jesus is not just through the testimony of others. All of us Christians are the recipients of Jesus' attention and presence--if we only take note. David L. Fleming sJ 66.2 2007 JOHN J. LYDON Between the Culture of the Satisfied and the Culture of Death challenges 118] Let us clarify the terms. "Culture of the Satisfied'? comes from the tide of a book by John Kenneth Galbraith, i a study of how the well-off econo-mies of the world have shaped the .entire world's economic culture. "The culture of death" refers to the poor, who, as Peruvian theologian Gustavo Guti~rrez says, "die before their time." The United States is part and parcel of the culture of the satisfied, yet we as religious are called to bear witness to something better. What are the challenges this poses for us? Can we be relevant in either or both of these cultures? We are challenged by two dominant features of American x;eligious life. First, we are immersed in the culture of the satisfied, in the consumer-ori-ented culture that never seems to have enough. An October 2000 article in the New York Times reported that hundreds of millionaires were asked if they considered themselves "wealthy.". John J. Lydon OSA has been for eighteen years a professor in the Seminary of the Archdiocese of Trujillo, Peru. Email: jlydon@osaperu.com. Review for Religious Of those whose net worth, apart from their home value, was between one million and four million dollars, only a few considered themselves wealthy. The rest said that being wealthy meant having around five million. People having .five million dollars in net worth also said they were not wealthy, just "comfortable." And so it went. People having ten million dollars gave the same answer: they needed to advance one or two steps more up the economic ladder to be wealthy. It would appear that the consumer culture convinces most people that they never have enough even when all of their basic and frivolous needs are satisfied. We American religious, immersed as we are in this culture, may--without a critical conscious-ness-- easily assume these same values and lose sight of our mission. Second, we live in the sociological reality of American religious life. It is a vocational option being chosen by very few. All of our communities are getting older, and many are simply going to disappear. And so the closing of apostolates, the reduction of personnel, the advancing median ages, and the declining health of older members is already a reality. In the middle of that stark reality, it is easy to forget the vast numbers of people who live in great poverty beyond our horizon--and to forget what still remains our mission in the world. The Option for the Poor At its roots, religious life has an evangelical reason for the preferential option for the poor. As the Congregation on Consecrated Life in its document Fraternal Life in Community puts it, one of the marks of religious life is "everyone for the poor," "many with the poor," "some [living] like the poor" (§63). In the light of this, our mis-sion seems clear. It is to somehow challenge those that live in the culture of the satisfied and to reach out in solidar- 119 66.2 2007 Lydon ¯ Between Cultures Solidarity is an attitude based not simply on but also on justice, 120 ity with those who are in the culture of death. Solidarity is the key to understanding our mission, as it is the key to understanding the church's social doctrine, especially under the papacy of John Paul II, who used the word constandy.2 For him, solidarity was intimately related to the cause of peace and justice; this explains its importance in his social doctrine: "The motto of the pontificate of my esteemed predecessor Pius XII was opus iustitiae pax, peace as the fruit of justice. Today one could say, with the same exact-ness and the same power of biblical inspiration (see Is 32:17, Jm 3:18): opus solidaritatispax, peace as the fruit of solidarity.''3 For Pope John Paul, there are two kinds of solidarity. (1) Solidarity is the binding together of people who are disadvantaged so that they can be stronger in the face of injustice. The classic example of this is trade unions, sup-ported by the church since Return novarum (1891). It is no coincidence that the trade union of Poland that went up against and helped bring down the Communist govern-ment was called Solidarity. (2) There can also be solidarity between those who have a great deal and those who have little. This is where the greater emphasis of this term is placed in John Paul's writings. Solidarity is an attitude based not simply on charity but also on justice. The church has always maintained that the goods of the earth are destined by the Creator to be used by all of God's creation. The accumulation of a great part of the goods of the earth in the hands of a small number of people, while the great majority of the Review for Religious world's people live in misery, is an affront to the plan of creation and the manifestation of an unjust social order. "The church's admonition is clear, and it is a faithful echo of the voice of Christ: earthly goods are meant for the whole human family and cannot be reserved for the exclu-sive benefit of a few.''4 What are the temptations we face that can lead us to lose sight of our basic mission? We need to be aware of these because we may be so immersed in the culture of the satisfied that we are no longer a symbol of protest or an authentic invitation to solidarity. Jesus faced three temptations as he went into the desert after his baptism. It would seem that we face at least an equal number of temptations that would pull us away from our mission. Temptation 1: Focus on Ourselves and Not the Mission As we become older and have a rising need to take care of sick or less mobile members, we are tempted to see that as the principal preoccupation of our religious life. We look to build better healthcare units and accord-ingly to find benefactors to better equip them or to pro-vide endowments for them. These are noble concerns that require attention, but the danger is that they become the principal focus. Erik Erikson, the famous psychologist, developed a theory of eight stages of life in which we grow as human beings. Each stage faces its own challenge and thus can involve either grace and sin. Erikson adds that, if we fail at one stage, we cannot hope to move to the next one. The last two stages are of particular interest here. In the penultimate stage we might choose either the grace of generativity or the sin of self-absorption. Generativity is a concern for the betterment of others and of society. We either reach out beyond ourselves in service to better our environment, our world, or we fall into self-absorption. ,121 66.2 2007 Lydon ¯ Between Cultures 122 ]. In the final stage the struggle is between integrity and despair. Those who see that they have made a contribu-tion, that their life has had meaning and they leave .some-thing better behind, .~c~n leave this world in peace. For those who wonder if i~"Fihs been worth it,if they have left anything good behind, the destiny is despair. As much of religious life in the United States and Canada enters the last stages of its sociological growth, Erikson's insights can guide us. If we lose sight of our mission and focus on ourselves and our own needs, all the up-to-date healthcare units, all the endowments in their name, will not bring us fulfillment. Having failed to make use Of the grace of generativity, we cannot move to the final stage, integrity. It is not easy to keep that mission in the forefront ¯ of our existence. John Paul II, then, reminds us to con-front society's consumerism, which leads people to accu-mulate more, believing that their worth is in what they have rather than in who they are. The way to challenge this unbridled consumerism is through a .greater sim-plicity of lifestyle. If.the goods of the world are to be shared with the poor, those who are economically bet-ter off must adopt spiritual poverty and strive to simplify their lifestyles so as to make more of the world's goods available for the poor.s "Evangelical poverty is something that transforms those who accept it. They cannot remain indifferent when faced with the suffering of the poor; indeed, they feel impelled to share actively with God his preferential love for them.''6 Temptation 2: Change the Meaning of the Mission Marshall McLuhan coined the famous adage "The medium is the message" to assert that the mass media have been shaping modern culture. The medium gives any message a new meaning. Similarly, we are tempted to Review for Religious give mission a new meaning because our needs push us to change the meaning of the words. We readily change what we mean when we talk of the "poor." Our evangelical mission as religious is to have a pref-erential option for the poor. But people debate who are poor. (Gustavo Guti~rrez has often pointed out that the poor have no difficulty identifying who are rich.) And so we are tempted to change the definition of who are poor, even to believe ourselves to be "the poor." We think we have a preferential option for the poor because we take care of our weak and infirm members and our parents and family members. We give them "the best of care" and see this as fulfillment of the option for the poor. No doubt they are needy, and we reach out to them. We should, however, avoid the temptation of identifying ourselves as the poor. We may be needy, but we are not the poor. At the Millennium World Summit, heads of state and other officials met at the United Nations to mark the year 2000 ~nd set up goals for humanity over the next quarter century--goals mostly having to do with the poor, the marginalized, those excluded from the benefits of devel-opment. Their definition of "the poor" is those who live on $2 or less a day; remember this. When our mission requires a preferential option for the poor, the question is not what we give to the needy in our own religious family. The question is what we do for the needs of those that fit the world's definition of the poor. What exactly do we mean when we say "preferential option for the poor"? The phrase, like all such terms, has its limitations. Let us examine briefly, the words "option," "preferential," and "poor." Option has not always been interpreted correcdy. It does not mean "optional"---choose according to your own wishes. Option here implies a con-scientious choice of, a profound permanent commitment to, solidarity with the poor. 123 66.2 2007 Lydon * Between Cultures The very word preferential rejects any kind of exclusivity, 124 The very word preferential, as should be obvious, rejects any kind of exclusivity. It highlights who should be the first--not the only--objects of our solidarity. It specifies those most in need of our attention, and is not "exclusive or discriminatory towards other groups.''7 Poor has perhaps been the most misunderstood term here. At times it seems that people do not want to identify the poor, or they identify them as everyone so that the word and the expression lose meaning. The Latin American Episcopal Conference of Medell~n examined this same issue and made it clear who is being referred to by the word poor, making a distinction between three types of poverty. (1) Materialpoverty. This means a lack of what is nec-essary to live a dignified life. It is an evil that is always denounced "as contrary to the will of the Lord, and mosdy the result of man's injustice and sin.''8 (2) Spiritual poverty. A quality to be imitated. The poor in spirit are people open to the Lord's will. Like the anawim of the Old Testament, the poor in spirit are the humble people who put their trust in the Lord. The poor in spirit are followers of Jesus. The Beatitudes indi-cate the attitudes for disciples who welcome the kingdom and show solidarity with the excluded. In this "spiritual infancy," they seek to remain fully available to the will of the Lord. It is a quality that everyone is called to adopt. (3) Poverty of solidarity. This is a free decision to share the plight of those who are victims of material poverty in order to bear witness against the evil that such pov-erty represents and to demonstrate spiritual freedom Review for Religious from material goods. "In this one follows the example of Christ.''9 Likewise, it obviously is one of the principal marks of our religious vows. The "poor" of the "preferential option for the poor" are dearly identified in the Medellin document as being those who lack the necessities for a dignified life. After Medell~n, attempts were made to debilitate this option by broadening the definition to include everyone and thus effectively eliminate the idea of a preference "for the poorest and most needy sectors."~° For this reason, the Latin American Episcopal Conference document of Puebla,11 in one of its most moving and significant sec-tions, precisely explains the identity of the "poor" to whom both Medell~n and Puebla refer. As the bishops mention, the faces of the poor include the indigenous peoples who live in inhuman situations, the campesinos (farm workers) who have no land and are exploited, fac-tory workers with little pay and no unions, outcasts of the cities who have no money, children weakened by poverty even before they are born, and those that are abandoned because they can no longer produce.~2 The poor, then, are not just an economic category but are dominated peoples, exploited social classes, despised races, and marginalized cultures. They are the "excluded," those who have no power, no voice, and for that reason suffer the effects of injustice. Undoubtedly, these groups of people are almost always the economically poorest as well. They are those who suffer unjust death, premature death.~ The Social Viewpoint of the Poor To adopt this preferential option, some attempt must be made to understand reality from the viewpoint of the poor. This requires a change of "social position." Poverty (and marginalization and exclusion) must be seen from 125 66.2 2007 Lydon ¯ Between Cultures the point of view of the poorest, though not necessarily by living among the poor. If economic conditions worsen for the poor while the gap between poor and rich widens, then the situation is unjust, whatever the macroeconomic statistics may say. This "social position" to interpret real-ity is a viewpoint we must all take up, whatever pastoral work we undertake, because only in this way can we be "for the poor." Only thus are we ready to fulfill the man-date: "everyone for the poor, many with the poor, and some [living] like the poor."!4 The church wishes to be a "church of the poor.''Is This means that it gives "preferential attention to the poor, seeking to share time and resources in order to alleviate suffering, [and] works with all sectors of society, including the poor themselves, in search of solutions to the problems of poverty and so freeing people from mis-ery and want. [It means using] the talents and gifts of the poor, relying on them in her mission of evangelization. The church of the poor is a church in which the poor are welcomed, listened to, and actively involved . A true church of the poor contributes decisively to the needed transformation of society, to social renewalbased on the vision and values of the gospel.''16 Those who still lack the means to live are the only measure of whether we live that preferential option or neglect it because we put our own needs (as real or imagined as they my be), rather than the poor, at the center of our mission. 12:6 TemPtation 3: Lose Our Trust in the Providence of God Mark Twain famously remarked, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics." Numbers have power to persuade, but even accurate numbers may bol-ster inaccurate statements, and so we need a critical eye in examining them. They remain an important tool, but a tool to use only within the perspective of our mission. Review for Religious In our communities we face a clear loss of numbers and an aging population. We.can see that attending to the old and infirm means greater costs while income-produc-ing members are fewer and fewer. In the light of this, we make budgetary decisions to reduce costs, but we also invest more in ourselves. We start to build endowments, and we seek to be "fully endowed" so that we can meet these needs on just the interest generated by our endow-ment portfolio. Yet perhaps the gospel story of the man who has a great harvest and builds storage bins to keep it all should alert us not to make our goal the establishment of an endowment that more or less eliminates a need to believe in God's providence (Lk 12:16-21). If we look at the poorest among even the relatively rich (by world levels) American population, the latest studies of the Federal Reserve show that the bottom twenty percent of the population have an average net worth of only $7,500. At that level they lack any degree of security about the future. If we move beyond the poor-est Americans to average American families, the net worth goes up to $93,000. This is the net worth, including prop-erties, of the average American family. And so, as we build up our endowment portfolios, we need to ask ourselves whether we are a community of faith, vowed to poverty, looking for a.guaranteed future that is not only out of line with the poor, but also out of line with average families in our culture of the satisfied. Does our fear of the future lead us to forget God's provi-dence and put so much en.ergy into building up endow-ments that we eliminate some or all of our programs of solidarity with the poor? Most of our world lives in the "culture of death." Much of the human race lives on less than $2 a day while a few live in the "culture of the satisfied." As religious living in this latter culture, we are still called, perhaps 127 66.2 2007 Lydon * Between Cultures 128 especially in the sunset of pastoral commitments and even congregations, to make a difference in our world. The fulfillment of our mission, to have a preferential option for the poor, requires of us that we do not sacrifice our mission for the sake of our own futures. In the end, that would only result in our losing both. It is in our mission that we realize our dreams and desires for a church that is more eternal than apostolates and congregations. It is in contributing to that mission that we find integrity and peace. Through our acts of solidarity with the poor, with those who "die before their time," we raise a prophetic voice in favor of divine providence and against the con-sumer culture that encompasses us. We tell the world by our actions, by "walking our talk," that joy and peace come from narrowing the gap between the world's haves and have-nots. We recognize and/'eject temptations that can lead us astray, not because there is nothing good in them, but rather because they are not the "walk" taken by Jesus Christ. Notes t John K. Galbraith, The Culture of Contentment (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1992). In Spanish it is La Cultura de la Sati~Caccidn (Barcelona: Ariel, 1992) although it is often cited as La Cultura de los Sati~Cecbos. I use this Spanish idea here. 2John Paul II used the word 104 times in his documents related to the social doctrine of the church (Laborem exercens 6, Sollicitudo rei socialis 13, Centesimus annus I 1, 1995 UN speecb 7, World Peace Day messages 67) 3 John Paul II, Sollicitudo, §39. 4 John Paul II, If You Want Peace, Reach Out to the Poor, §3, cites Centesimus annus, §§31 and 37. 5John Paul II, lfYou l/Vant Peace, §5: "In order to promote the social, cultural, spiritual, and also economic welfare of all members of society, it is therefore absolutely essential to stem the unrestrained consumption of earthly goods and to control the creation of artificial needs. Moderation and simplicity ought to become the criteria of our daily lives. The quantity of goods consumed by a tiny fraction of the world population produces Review for Religious a demand greater than available resources. A reduction of this demand constitutes a first step in alleviating poverty, provided that it is accompa-nied by effective measures to guarantee a fair distribution of the world's wealth." See also Gaudium et spes, §88: "The greater part of the world is still suffering from so much poverty that it is as if Christ himself were crying out in these poor to beg the charity of his disciples. Let us not be guilty of the scandal of having some nations, most of whose citizens bear the name of Christians, enjoying an abundance of riches, while others lack the necessities of life and are tortured by hunger, disease, and all kinds of misery. For the spirit of poverty and charity is the glory and witness of the church of Christ." 6John Paul II, If You Want Peace, §5. 7 John Paul II, Centesimus annus, §57. 8 Medellfn, §14, 4. This was held in Medellin, Colombia, in 1968. 9 Medellfn, §14, 4. ,0 Medellln, §14, 9. 11 Held in Puebla, Mexico, in 1979. " Puebla, §§31-39. 13 John Paul II identified the "poor" with the "marginalized." As the new millennium approached, he asked, "How can we fail to lay greater emphasis on the church's preferential option for the poor and the out-cast?" (Tertio millennio adveniente, §51). Such marginalization can be more than economic; it can also be cultural and religious. See Centesimus annus, §57. 14 CICLSAL, Fraternal Life in Community, §63. is CICLSAL, Fraternal Life, §63. 16 John Paul II, address in September 2003 to bishops from the Philippines, §25. Reflection Questions for Personal and Group Use 1. Lydon identifies three temptations that can head us to lose sight of our basic vision. Do you agree with the ones he identifies? Would you want to add other temptations from your own experience? 2. How can religious men and women be relevant to the culture of the satisfied and to the culture of death? 129 66.2 2007 GEORGE A. ASCHENBRENNER The Spiritual Blahsm Rejection or Invitation? /~r some people, spiritual boredom is not painful. hey are so distracted by exciting pleasures and challenges in daily life that an interior emptiness, smoth-ered by all the excitement, is not bothersome to them. They do not even seem to notice. Though they have not overtly denied faith and God, they have become unim-portant realities, rarely experienced in any lively personal way. This is a sign, a sad sign, that both their sensibil-ity and their deeply personal desire have been numbed. Something might snap them out of their stupor, but, until it does, life just rushes on. Crisis of Interpretation For many of us, however, the effect is very differ-ent. The inner boredom is painful. It discourages and stings with frustration. Beneath all the busy concerns, and even the quick superficial pleasures, something seems t30 George A. Aschenbrenner sJ is rector of the Jesuit Community at the University of Scranton; Scranton, Pennsylvania 18510. This article, published in the fall 2006 issue of Ignatian Imprints, a new publication of the Maryland Province Jesuits, appears here with the permission of its editor and of the author. Review.for tCetigi~us stale, drab. There must be more to life. How to ignite the fire? The issue is a matter of interpretation. Before know-ing what to do, we must honestly feel and face the interior boredom. We must appreciate what it means, what it is saying to us. A quick automatic interpretation rises in the face of this dulling pain. Nothing is going on so why waste time with prayer, with usual signs of devotion? This is not our time. Such an instantaneous interpretation, though understandable, is often misleading, incorrect, even dan-gerous. A more mature and helpful interpretation requires more time and faith-filled reflection. Once we let the quick emotional explanation pass by, we can look more deeply at a larger array of possibilities. In the first place, this may be happening to us because we have not been very serious, very personal, about our faith and have not prayed much. In such a case this festering frustration serves as a wake-up call to get more serious about our relationship with God and not to settle any-more for careless and heartlessly mumbled words. This may be a call to a more lively personal relationship, a call to pray in our own words beyond the traditional ones, a call to listen more openly and interactively to God's Word in Scripture and throughout our whole life. If we are undisciplined and out of shape spiritually, some hard work at tuning up our spirit will be required before the dismal "nothing's happening" lethargy will lift. On the other hand, if the dreary dry condition is not caused by our negligence, then a whole new and more serious possibility presents itself. In this case, we are not out of shape spiritually, nor stuck in complacency with numbed, untended desires. We have personally known God's love. We have .been stirred, .consoled, emotion-ally touched by that love and have fashioned our daily life accordingly. Recently, over days and weeks, that has 66.2 2007 Ascbenbrenndr * The Spiritual Blabs--Rejeaion or Invitation? We must carefully turn to God in faith for appreciation and interpretation of this malaise. changed; a smog has settled in and contaminated the sunny enthusiasm of our faith. It sure seems as though nothing is happening now. And the temptation to aban-don our prayer life stares hauntingly into the eye of our SOU1. Seriously misleading, however, this temptation beck-ons to exacdy the wrong decision. In the awareness of no personal negligence on our part, we must carefully turn to God in faith for appreciation and interpretation of this malaise. This crisis of interpretation is an important point in the spiritual life of the mature believer. The invitation turns our hearts away from the emotional discomfort (oh, how boring and dull it all feels!) to what God is really saying in and through it all. This always involves a second look of reflection beyond the spontaneous disheartening emotional response. In this dark, dreary dryness, God, whose love is as personally present as ever before, is inviting us to draw closer by entering a deeper part of our faith relationship. i32 Invitation to a Deeper Faith Even though the emotion of God's love can be pre-cious grace, this felt sensation of love can easily turn into a golden calf, an idol, a false god for selfish wor-ship. Without intending it and sometimes without even noticing it, we begin to presume on the presence of this emotional grace and cannot imagine life without it. But such emotional experience, grace though it is, registers on the superficial, unpredictable level of our person. God, Review for Religious whose desires for each of us are all-embracing beyond our imagining, is inviting us to an ever more profound and, therefore, more intimate, more personal union. Development of such a union always involves a purifi-cation, a stripping away of selfishness, of too much "me." And, put starkly, this stripping always hurts. In this inter-pretation, which is critical to a deeper, more personal rela-tionship with God, flae dry, stale emptiness of our faith is not a mistake, a negligence on our part, but rather a call from God, our lover extraordinaire. We are being invited to believe beyond our feelings, to enter a realm of pro-found faith. Though it may not emotionally involve lots of fun and intense pleasure, our relationship with God at this level is more trustworthy, more foundational, more dependable than any simply emotional sense. This profound interpretation of God's loving presence does not downplay the emotional, even exciting, experi-ence of God's love. The truth here pushes deeper into our soul than the level of feelings. We see the same truth in our human interpersonal experiences of love. Though the emotional excitement of falling in love can be intense and wonderfully endearing, such goose-bump experiences of love cannot endure forever. No, these beloved emotional experiences must be rooted in a more profound dimen-sion of our relationship. Belief in the Presence of God's Love How easy it is to get stuck in these emotional traps. We want always to feel the fire and comfort of God's love. Because God is so jealous as to desire all of us in relationship, our divine lover must pry loose our emotion-ally fierce grasp, must wean us away from the wonder-ful, but undependably fluctuating, emotional satisfaction. This purification of our experience of God calls us deeper into our person beyond the realm of emotion and feeling. 133 66.2 2007 Ascbenbrenner ¯ The Spiritual Blabs--Rejection or Invitation? This deeper invitation does not kill and bury forever the emotional part of us. But the pain of temporarily letting go of this sensual dimension of our relationship with God hurts--and is risky. What will be left after such a letting go? For this reason, such purification invites and requires grieving. These tears at the apparent loss and absence of God can sting and burn, and should honestly be shared with God. But the tears and ache are soothed finally in a dawning realization: God is more than emotional spontao neity. Such a loving God is our very life. Far beyond any emotional impulse, God's love, intimate and uniquely per-sonal, is profoundly and ineradicably present at our very core, intentionally loving life into us breath after breath. This profound presence gives a peace, a harmony, a humble confidence beyond any intensity of emotion. Such an awareness can quiet us and synchronize us to the divine breath-giver's artful creation of us in the imme-diacy of every moment. Simply to breathe is to be loved, just to exist is to be cherished beyond imagining. This realization is truly awesome: for me as I write this, and for you as you now read it. A centering such as this reveals a foundation, always there, beneath all emotional and spon-taneous fluctuation. The apparent drying up, even death, of emotional fervor does not imply rejection. The belief in the core presence of God's love blessing us with life reveals the emotional nagging dullness as invitation, not rejection, on God's part. This appreciation of God's kind and insistent invitation does not automatically deluge us with emo-tional fervor. Nonetheless, this felt sense of God's love will always be part of our relationship, though now rooted in a more profound and personal dimension. In this deep-ened experience of God, our emotional sluggishness and lack of fervor reveals God's intentional loving dynamic, if joined with other signs: a keen desire for prayer, for Review for Religious simply being with our loving Creator all through the day, and for serving God's will in everything. These signs demonstrate that the sensible dullness is not a matter of divine reiection, nor does it drain our energy for serious effort in response; rather it is a precious moment of lov-ing invitation. Acting as if. Activity, concretely imaginative and bordering on the heroic, puts our faith to work beyond any emotional stimulation. This is a time for "acting as if." While we do not feel like belieying, praying, or serving in love, it is time to act, to act as if we do feel it. Why? Because we are loving, believing, acting out of a genuine experience of our loving God, but from a depth of ourselves more profound than emo-tional. But this "acting as if" can seem insincere, dishonest, even hypocritical. The insinuation of this type of inter-pretation reveals an evil, unholy spirit always eager to mislead and deter us. -- Rather than hypocrisy, we are here in the depths of incar-national, sacramental faith. To cling to and to kiss a cru-cifix when we do not even feel like giving time for prayer, to reach out to the needy person when we rather feel like turning away in withdrawal are not acts of dishonesty. These can be heroic efforts, whether quietly private or publicly observable, to sacramentalize in hope our deepest center of faith and love. Without such quiet heroism, our faith, our intimately personal relationship with God, will not mature and persevere over the long haul of life. An important distinction, however, is at work here. We are not acting as if we believed what we actually do not believe. That is hypocrisy. Rather, we are acting in line with what we deeply believe, even though, at this This is a time for "acting as if " i135 66.2 2007 Ascbenbrenner ¯ The Spiritual BlabsnRejection or Invitation? 136t moment, the emotional drive for such acting is absent. This is mature faith: to act as if we are always feeling what we deeply believe. The ability to believe and sacramental-ize in action what we are not now feeling marks the seri-ous believer. Often we are tempted, quite unconsciously, to identify faith and feeling. This always short-circuits faith, and, though we enjoy the emotional intensity, such an identification of faith and feeling often precludes the permanent fidelity of a mature faith commitment. Couples, for whom the honeymoon is long past, know, live, and act from a depth of love, mutual trust--and a more mature emotional caring for one another--devel-oped over years. In the hit Broadway musical "Les Miserables," Jean Valjean, the central obvious Christ figure, promises to care for the daughter of the dying and poverty-stricken Fantine with these words: "I swear this on my life." This promise cuts far below any momentary surge of emotion. And the beautiful climax of the show reveals Valjean's fidelity to this promise through a great variety of chal-lenges. Mature adult believers know the challenge and the blessing of acting what they believe, and acting it as if they felt what now, as a matter of fact, they are not feel-ing. This faith-filled acting is always blessed over time with an emotional fervor which, at certain times, in God's mysterious loving ways with us, seems absent and lost. A Presence in Faith A lack of accustomed satisfaction and felt closeness to God in our prayer and ordinary devotions when accom-panied by a lively desire, on our part, not only to be with God but also to serve the justice of the Risen Jesus in our world, reveals finally a clear message of divine endearment for us. Beyond the realm of graced emotional intimacy lies a presence in faith sometimes too deep for words, but Review for Religious more trustworthy and dependable than the fluctuations of graced feeling in our relationship. This is often a rather new land for many of us. It is a land where God is always with us inviting our trust. It is a land where our identity, satisfaction, and fire for generous service most deeply and personally reside. A spiritual staleness, when insightfully investigated, is always an invitation, never a rejection--an invitation to greater intimacy with God, whose love in the Risen Jesus is serving us, at every moment, in a more charming fash-ion than we could ever fully realize before we die. Couldn't You Return? You came to be with us. From strips of linen to strips of linen, swaddling to shroud, You began and ended as the least of us, a man martyred in a power game you wouldn't play. Now we must put ourselves where You can find us, with the least, the last, the lost: children of the homeless, pawns of politicians, those religion oppresses. Dear manger-born, martyr-torn One, we are small again today. Couldn't you return now? Bonnie Thurston 137 66.2 2007 A. PAUL DOMINIC The Finesse at the Finish of the Exercises ignatian insights "It is relatively easy to live a life of clarity.and peace if you take yourself on retreat to a moun-taintop. But how do we bring the fruits of that stillness and clarity into the rush of the modern world?" The question is raised by a travel writer about his writings taking on a spiritual tone.l How much more would St. Ignatius have been seized with such a question in relation to the Spiritual Exercises! Given his thoroughness, he would have left his own answer to it. The last of the formal exercises, the Contemplation to attain love.would seem that answer. But after it come "three methods of praying" (§§238-260).2 Lowly compared with the Contemplation, they too may serve to carry the fervor and glow of the Spiritual Exercises into the prosaic and profane chores of daily living. A. Paid .Dominis SJ last wrote for us in early 2005. His address remains c/0 Missionaries of the Poor; Fatima Nagar; Warangal 505 004; India. Re'vie'~ for Religious . Prayer after the Thirty-Day Retreat This thought impressed me more and more as I sought to understand the place of the unsung "three methods" in the whole ensemble of the Exercises. The first method is four modes of examining our conscience; the second and third are ways of praying orally. The question of these methods in the overall progress of the Spiritual Exercises came to me in a practical way as I planned a course of meditation and prayer for a group of novices whom I had directed some months earlier in the full Exercises. I asked the novice mistress if the three methods of praying would satisfy her expectation. However she envisaged it, it was clear to me that, to do anything really useful for her nov-ices, I had to teach them to pray as people who had made the full Exercises more or less well according to the mea-sure of grace given them by the Lord. I do not remember having heard anything special about the three methods from the "specialists" with whom I had either made the Exercises or studied them. An exception was the unassuming, unlearned specialist my own novice master, who after the long retreat kept us novices praying for some days using the three methods, in the best tradition of the Exercises (§256), though with-out explaining why. That tradition is worth discovering, recovering, and pondering. The Three Methods as Part of the Exercises First, as the various methods of meditation and con-templation are part and parcel of the full Exercises, so are all three methods of prayer without exception, though not in the same way. All appear in their proper order. Meditation comes in the First Week of the Exercises and contemplation runs through the remaining Weeks, the three methods emerging towards the end of the full Exercises. They are clearly and cleverly appended to the [139 66.2 2007 Dominic ¯ The Finesse at the Finish of the Exercises 1401 Fourth Week. What is more, the three methods form an "inclusion" with the early sentence that defines and explains the phrase "spiritual exercises" (§§238 & 4). Polanco's witness is consistent with this in letter and spirit; he says: "The Fourth Week is completed when he [the exercitant] is judged to have made sufficient progress in the exercises on the resurrection and on enkindling the love of God, as well as the methods of prayer.''3 Of course, The threeme ho'dS lend themselv, es~to.different levels of exercising and experienCihg them, the three methods may be detached and used for those who go through the partial Exercises restricted to the First Week alone (§ 18). That only suggests and emphasizes that the three methods lend them-selves to different levels of exercising and experi-encing them. The level at which the exercitants will ben-efit to the full, however, is when they make use of them as the last part of the full Exercises of roughly one month. Such an understanding is in accordance with what has been called the circular nature of the Exercises.4 The idea of circularity, I believe, implies that the principles and practices with which the Exercises begin run all through the Exercises with an ever greater intensification and leave their effect even afterwards. That is to say, the aim is the same in the beginning and the end; in the beginning it is present at least as an urgent desire, and at the end, hope-fully, it finds its actualization. Thus, for example, though no one can begin the Exercises without some magnanim-ity and generosity toward God as expressed in offering God one's entire will and liberty (§5), no one is expected to make the offering of the Sume et suscipe (Take and receive) right at the beginning, but only after a month Review for Religious of maturation, with or without struggle, climaxing in the Contemplation to attain love (§§230-237), a part of the finale of the Exercises. In the same way, if the three meth-ods of prayer (examen and vocal prayer) are practiced at the beginning, they ought to provide the exercitants a far greater relish and perfection at the end, with no abrupt ending, but rather a continuation. How that happens is the matter for consideration now. The First Method The first method of prayer (§§238-248) appears to be at first sight a plain and simple examination of conscience, making use of various headings: laws (decalogue) or gifts (three powers of the soul and five senses) or related topics (capital sins). Given the usual emotional perception of most people, the examination of conscience does not pass for prayer. But in the Exercises it is out-and-out prayer, albeit of a particular kind; St. Ignatius mentions it first in his list of prayer exercises (§1). No doubt a conscientious examina-tion yields an account of our soul during a certain period of time, but not all on our own; it involves attentiveness to God's presence from start to finish, and so it qualifies as prayer. It begins with gratefulness for God's benefits and asking for grace to know our general ingratitude or our unfaithfulness in a particular matter; it is followed by asking God's pardon and receiving grace to do better (§43). This prayer practice of the examen twice daily all through the Exercises is deepened towards the end by the first method of prayer, engaging the exercitants with focused soul-searching under the guidance of the Lord, who has sought and found and accompanied them for as long as a month. This argument gains further force from the fact that, like the other methods of prayer in the Exercises, the first method has its bwn assigned subject matter: the ten commandments, for example, to focus the prayer of 141 66.2 2007 Dominic * The Finesse at the Finish of the Exercises interior purgation. This prayer leads us to beg first for a complete understanding of the commandments as expres-sions of God's good pleasure (well enunciated in the first two modes of humility, §§165-166) soas to arrive at a greater recognition of one's failures and the correspond-ing need of forgiveness. The aim is "to keep them [the commandments] better for greater glory and praise of the Divine Majesty" (§240). If anything, the expression Divine Majesty suggests the awesome holiness of God (the mysterium tremendum) and calls for our correspond-ing reverence. To this must be added what may not be so apparent. For Ignatius, the designation "Divine Majesty" also invites devout retreatants' more personal approach to God, resulting from God's winning presence and initiative as mysterium fascinans.S Those who have felt such reality in the Spiritual Exercises are bound to respond with repentance and rev-erential love worthy of our God of majesty of love. The plaintive prayer of the converted soul--"Against you, you alone, have I sinned; O wash me more and more from my guilt and cleanse me from my sin" (Ps 5I:2,4, Grail)mis not for just a moment or occasion. Although the purga-tive way of the First Week leads on to the illuminative way of the Second and the unitive way of the Third and Fourth Weeks, the exercitant is never beyond the purifi-cation that is ever refreshing and re-creative. Indeed, it is those who have experienced the illuminative and unitive ways who appreciate all the more the need to get rid of even the least sin or imperfection. The first method of prayer, with its varied subject matter listed by Ignatius and added to by ourselves, wonderfully meets the never ending need of exercitants who have learned discernment in the Exercises. The first method of prayer is, then, not only "a com-plete examen"6 that keeps exercitants from slipping back; Review for Religious it is also an aid to progress. For example, bringing the five senses to this method, we do not stop with mere examina-tion of ourselves, but go beyond it. Intent on doing some-thing more, we pass on to the imitation of Jesus and his mother in their use of the senses. Ignatius mentions this explicitly. "He thereby recalls the exercitants' attention to their strivings during the last Three Weeks to behold, observe, and contemplate either Christ, the model of all perfections, or those holy persons whose life most faith-fully mirrored Christ's perfections, in order that they may learn from this how to perform all their actions more perfectly, day after day.''7 The Second Method The second method of prayer consists in contemplat-ing the meaning of each word of a familiar prayer such as the Our Father. I wonder if there has been much serious appreciation of the explicit Ignatian directive to conclude all daily examens, meditations, and contemplations in the Exercises with the Our Father. Anyway, those who have been faithful to Ignatius in this small detail will have an occasion now to discover its sense and intrinsic usefulness, and so come to pray it better with greater understanding and relish. In this second method, Ignatius offers a way to find depth in set routine prayer. It happens not by reflecting on but contemplating the meaning (significaci6n) of each word of the Our Father or other vocal prayers used in the triple colloquies. Contemplating the words of a prayer is certainly something new at this point. It consists in opening ourselves to the "meanings, comparisons, relish, and consolations connected with it" (§252). It is a matter of sensing and entering the evocative aura of each word. Coathalem has spoken of this as penetrating, assimilating, and tasting each word.s Though this method is new at this 66.2 2007 Dominic ¯ The Finesse at the Finish of the Exercises 144 point, still it is not unlike what has transpired all through the contemplations of the Exercises as the exercitants lis-tened to the words uttered by the persons in the scene. Anyway, in the second method of prayer, exercitants contemplate as their own words the words of a traditional prayer they know by heart. In their devotion they may go on to recognize and appreciate the words as hallowed because of the hitherto unsuspected personal import they have. They may become sensitive to the human words now bringing them unction from God, along with God's embrace and the grace to give God better service (§15). The words have been given to them by none other than the Spirit (see Rm 8:26). Thus privileged and engrossed, the exercitants make bold at the end to ask for whatever virtues and graces they feel greater need of (§257). This is a colloquy in the usual terminology of the Exercises. But, according to Peters, its purpose and its way are markedly different from the col-loquies mentioned throughout the Exercises. Given the second method of prayer as not only a contemplation but a high contemplation--shown by the person practicing it being called not the exercitant but the "contemplant" or contemplator (persona que contempla, who enjoys devo-tion, relish, and consolation, §§254, 252)9--the needs here are greater than any experienced earlier. Peters argues: "One would think that the exercitant had been taken into the seventh heaven, that he did not lack anything at all. Evidently, at the height of contemplation, he feels more than ever his own insufficiency; he realizes how he falls short in virtue and is in dire need of special help. Close union with God goes hand in hand with a profound sense of one's own unworthiness and even helplessness.''1° In other words, even as we are delighted immensely by the nearness of God, we are distressed by the spec-tacle of our own sinwall the more disturbing because of Review for Religious the .contrast. In this situation, reminiscent of Paul and his visions (see 2 Co 12:2-9), what need could be greater than overcoming the lingering failings that frustrate our desire to be united with God? While experiencing such a need, the praying exercitant descends into silence, and the silence speaks louder, and there is no need for many words. As Peters points out, Ignatius directs the exercitant to ask en pocaspalabras, that is, in a few words (§257). The Third Method The third method of prayer is simply an inward reci-tation of a known prayer, slowly synchronizing each word with one's respiration. Since this method uses the same material for prayer as . the previous one, a natural way to under-stand it suggests itself. .~ The third method is a repetition of the sec-ond, in the spirit of what Ignatius consis-tently advocates for every meditation or contemplation. 11 We come to savor ever more what we have already prayed more than once. The whole exercise unfolds and rests in contemplative peace, poise, and relish. If each word of prayer is uttered with the breath, it rises from silence and ends in greater silence of repose. It is the receptive silence of the human word answering the penetrative silence of the divine Word or Spirit and turning into silence of communion, as when a drop of water falls into a sponge (§335)--that is a simile, coming from the unpoetic St. Ignatius himself. In this way, whatever word keeps us praying and imbibing The third method is a r~etition of the second, in the spirit of what Ignatius consistently advocates for every meditation or contemplation. 66.2 2007 Dominic ¯ The Finesse at the Finish of the Exercises becomes more and more part of ourselves; the very prayer makes a home in those who pray. Whoever prays thus not only prays but becomes the prayer by virtue of one's very breath. Anyone who has reached the stage of the third method of prayer knows how "to join the praying man to the breathing man, or more accurately the other way about: take the breathing man that he is and gently make him into a praying man as well.''12 Whether directing our attention to the word's meaning or the person addressed or our own lowliness (§258), we are inhaling and exhal-ing rapt in contemplation of the divine in and around ourselves. 146 The Three Methods as "Repetitions" The three methods taken together provide three perspectives on the full Exercises. First, they appear as concluding repetitions of the entire month of Exercises. Right from the First Week (§§62&64), Ignatius directs and insists that individual exercises be repeated once or twice or thrice so that the exercitant may reap ever greater fruit from them. The three methods he proposes towards the end of the Exercises may well be viewed as repeti-tions, not of one or another exercise, but of the whole of the Exercises as orie-prolonged prayer experience. If the Exercises as a whole aim at removing all dis-ordered affections and so ordering our life according to God's will, the first method finds its place as a compre-hensive examen. It brings the daily examens to comple-tion, shaping a greater, more sensitive response to what must have been grace upon grace for a month (§238).13 If the subject matter of the second and third methods is mostly the vocal prayers that conclude contemplations of the mysteries of the Son, these methods together certainly provide ready repetitions of the manifold experience of the Second, Third, and Fourth Weeks. Such repetitions Review for Religious will be at once evocative and expansive, delightful and deepening, looking back and looking forward. The Three Methods as "Review" The three methods may be viewed in terms of another typical Ignatian practice too, namely, the review following every meditation or contemplation. As there is no spe-cifically mentioned last exercise in the Exercises, there is no specific reminder to review it. Another closely related fact worth thinking about is that, though there is no specified last exercise, there is a concluding tempo. This tempo may be observed right at the start of the Fourth Week, with the omission of the midnight contemplation and the reduction of the daily exercises from five to four. Whatever happens after the exercises of the resurrection in the Fourth Week definitely concerns the retreat's final days. The lack of detailed direction may well suggest the importance of the very content available for those days. While the Contemplation to attain love revolves round grateful love to the God of all gifts, the three methods of praye~ aim at exciting the same kind of response to God all holy and all loving, in and through Jesus. Viewed thus, they cannot but lead the .exercitants over all they have done in the preceding long period of grace, resulting in an overwhelming sense of gratitude and love. Come to think of it, all who have faithfully reviewed their meditations and contemplations four or five times daily ought to have learned and could not but have learned the dynamism of review for their spiritual practice. And so they are likely to hold on to the same dynamism as, rather reluctantly or not, they finish their retreat. Almost all retreatants, even those who have not been fervent enough all along, would, I believe, wish near the end that the retreat would not end. How much more, then, might the enthusiastic exercitants miss those days of 147 66.2 2007 Dominic ¯ The Finesse at the Finish of the Exercises fervor. But such a feeling is not altogether a true conso-lation, and discerning exercitants would avoid it, sensing that their real consolation is in God and God's pleasure. They know that the period of grace and consolation must end, not abruptly, though, but gradually and gently. In this situation the three methods as review of the whole Exercises can help. To appreciate this, remember that the ordinary reviews of meditation or contemplation during the retreat bring the exercitant slowly from prayerful absorption to the ordinary activities of eating, drinking, resting, and so forth which we cannot do without.~4 Given devout per-sons' absorption in God at the end of the Exercises, there is all the more need for them to pass smoothly from the retreat to ordinary engagement and activity outside the retreat. This very need is filled by the three methods serv-ing as review of the whole course of the Exercises. The Three Methods as Reformation Corresponding to the "gradual lessening of bonds with the four preceding Weeks" evinced by the three methods, there emerges "an ever-increasing occupation with the duties of the exercitant's normal life.''~5 Though St. Ignatius does not say anything so explicit, his entire exercises are directed to that, namely, leaving the retreat and beginning our life anew as we have discerned God inspiring us. The genuine exercitants cannot but be con-cerned positively and negatively about their life after the retreat. Negatively, they may be anxious about the uncertainties of daily life after the peaceful certainty of the Exercises. Positively, they may be zealous to live for the glory of God. In this struggle between leaving Tabor and returning to their trade, the three methods bring a stabilizing sobriety. The first method of prayer helps their still weak selves to remain steadfast. The second and Review for Religious third methods, with their peculiar combination of famil-iar words and a fresh interiorizing of them, sustain and nourish their trustfulness by disposing them to receive the lights and consolations of God's love and grace.16 The conviction grows that the God of the Exercises will be their God after the Exercises. Thus they ready themselves to take up again the humdrum of day-to-day life with the zeal of a contemplative. It should be no surprise if their enchantment with God enhances their enchantment with the world they return to. Passing through the in-between period, the exercitants exercise themselves in faith, hope, and love, not from any nostalgia for the month gone by, but with a simple examination of conscience or with age-old prayers prayed contemplatively,j7 If the main value of whatever is done during the Exercises is "for living a Christian life after the Exercises are completed,''18 as Jules Toner says, this living clearly stems from the Exercises and is confirmed as the retreat's last days and hours run their course. St. Ignatius says something very practical in his directive for the three methods: before entering prayer one should recollect oneself in spirit, either sitting or ambling up and down, and consider where one is going and for what (§239). On the face of it there is nothing special here, but one familiar with the spiritual genius of Ignatius may discover something more. If the instruction here under consideration corresponds to the usual second additional direction (§§74-76 & 131), it nevertheless differs from it in its advocacy of recollection and suggestion of suitable posture (sitting or walking) different, from before. From this, one may suspect that the regularity of the Exercises is giving way to ordinary life, as Peters argues clearly and cleverly before concluding: "The pattern of the Four Weeks has completely gone, and yet the retreat itself con-tinues under totally different circumstances.''j9 There is .149 66.2 2007 Dominic * Tbe Finesse at tbe Finisb of tbe Exercises There can be intense Chris tian !i iyg without constant prayer: I50] no better way of envisaging how one ideally passes from the time of the retreat to the time after, neither needing nor wanting an exit. There are convincing reasons here that retreats last indefinitely, there being no last exercise prescribed as such by St. Ignatius. Since the Exercises train people in profound prayer over a long period, they surely will want to continue it even in, or in spite of, their changed circumstances after-wards. There can be no intense Christian living without constant prayer (see 1 Th 5:17). The third method trains the exercitant in such prayer. If it does not have the pre-ludes of the usual Ignatian meditation or contempla-tion, the reason would seem to be that it is done in the midst of a busy life. It can and ought to be done any-where and anytime for any length of time, directed always by discreet charity. If the prayer of the Exercises has grown all along through a regimen of do's and don'ts, it can now dispense with them all. The contemplatively trained exercitant can rejoice to find God in all circumstances and enter into silent collo-quy as constant as breathing. So, depending on the grace of the moment, the third method can be as simple "as a spirit of recollection floating, as it were, upon the rhythm of one's breathing"; and it can also be--here Peters is per-fect-- as profound as reliving the Exercises "to the extent of their being integrated into the quiet and tranquillity of one's breathing.''2° If earlier the exercitants went by the principle of sensing and savoring much in prayer rather than knowing ever more (§2), now they ought to have arrived at a new principle: "Brief time and bounteous con-solation!" Review for Religious The whole of life after the Exercises may be expressed as continuing the reforming of our life (§189). One may find this confirmed by what St. Ignatius designed for his young men after their noviceship, which included the long retreat. Besides attending Mass, they were to spend no more than an hour in prayer. The prayer was to include first the examen twice a day and next reciting the Office of Our Lady,21 both of which cotild certainly be done fol-lowing the three methods. St. Ignatius writes, echoing St. Thomas Aquinas, "In the midst of actions and studies, the mind can be lifted to God; and by means of this directing everything to the divine service, everything is prayer.''= Obviously for Ignatius formal prayer, like everything else in our life, must be not for itself but for God, as is well expressed in the unchanging preparatory prayer of every exercise (§46). That constitutes the sublime fruit of the Spiritual Exercises. The exercitant desires to persevere in it after the Exercises. For this the single-minded exercitant needs noth-ing more than the three methods of praying that are at once simple and sublime. When no surprise sublimity of the Spirit is manifestly active, we are to be content with the ready-made prayer that the vocal prayers are, know-ing that they come to our breath because of the Spirit's breathing in us. The Ending Finesse The three methods are perhaps like the performance of the circus artiste Philippe Petit. He had walked on a high wire between the towers of the World Trade Center in August 1974. Some time afterwards, on a much lower high wire between two "towers" in a circus in New Haven, Philippe walked and jumped and danced playfully, mak-ing it look easy. But more surprising was the ending. He began walking down a wire from one of the towers to the 151 66.2 2007 Do~ninic * The Finesse at the Finish of the Exercises ground. This was not easy. "Attention as well as tension grew and all kept their eyes on his outstretched arms. Everyone was so engrossed in his act that no one real-ized that for five seconds Philippe had been walking on the safe floor. Only after he himself looked down to the floor with a puzzled face and then up to the stands with happily surprised eyes did the tension break and everyone explode into roaring applause.''23 The applause seemed to be no less for walking on the circus floor than performing on the high wire--no less than when we managed to walk for the first time. If the thirty-day retreat is a feat, its success lies in making the days following it no less a feat and a feast to boot. The three methods help in accomplishing this. Notes ' Pico Iyer to a columnist. See Pradeep Sebastian, "In Autumn Radiance," The Hindu Literary Review, 5 November 2006, p. 6. 2 Such numbers in parentheses refer to the paragraph numbers in The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. 3 See Martin E. Palmer, On Giving the Spiritual Exercises: The Early Manuscript Directories and the Official Directory of l Y99 (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1996), p. 126 (emphasis added). 4 See Gilles Cusson, Biblical Theology and the Spiritual Exercises (Anand: Gujarat Sahitya Prakash, 1988), pp. 155-156, 327-330. 5 See William A.M. Pet~s, The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius: Exposition and Interprdtat~on (Rome: CIS, 1980), pp. 51-52. 6 Jos~ Calveras, Th~ Harvest-Field of the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius (Bombay: St. Xavier's College, 1949), p. 251. 7 Calveras, Harvest-Field, p. 252 (with a change of singular to plu-ral). 8 See Herv~ Coathalem, Ignatian Insights (Taichung, Taiwan: Kuangchi Press, 1971), p. 235. 9 This does not appear so clearly in English translations: The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius by George E. Ganss (Anand: Gujarat Sahitya Prakash, 1993) or by Louis J. Puhl (Bombay: St Paul Publications, 1965). ,0 Peters, Exercises: Exposition, p. 175. Review for Religious ~t See Calveras, Harvest-Field, p. 248. ~2 Peters, Exercises: Exposition, p. 177. 13 Taking the cue from the comment of Calveras as found in Ganss, Spiritual Exercises, p. 186, n. 127. t4 See Peters, Exercises: Exposition, pp. 41-42, 178. ,s Peters, Exercises: Exposition, p. 179 (though he excludes the first method here). 16 See Calveras, Harvest-Field, pp. 245,249. 17 See Calveras, Harvest-Field, pp. 245-246. ~8 Jules J. Toner, A Commentary on St. Ignatius' Rules for the Discernment of Spirits (Anand: GSP, 1982), p. 39. 19 Peters, Exercises: Exposition, p. 172. 20 Peters, Exercises: Exposition, p. 179. 21 See The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, trans. George E. Ganss (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1970), §342. 22 See Constitutions, trans. Ganss, p. 183, n. 4. ,3 Henri J.M. Nouwen, Donald P. McNeill, and Douglas A. Morrison, Compassion (London: Darton, Longman, and Todd, 1982), p. 77. In Impressione Ss. Stigmatum S. Francisci wings and wood, fire and air and the pain goes right through it is harder to bear, Francis told a brother, "than any martyrdom. I am not speaking of the reward, but only of the intensity of suffering it causes" (Thomas of Celano, Vita Prima S. Francisci, ii, 7). love into blood, blood into love and the pain goes right through Sean Kinsella 66.2 2007 DAVID L. FLEMING "Here I Am": Ignatian Ways of Serving 1541 One of the key phrases capturing the charism of Ignatian spirituality is "to love and to serve in all things." In Ignatius's Spanish it reads "en todo amary ser-vir." The phrase is used in describing the grace we pray for in the prayer exercise the Contemplation on the Love of God, the final exercise within the Spiritual Exercises. Ignatius lets us know how he is considering the verb, to love, by his prenote of two points in this exercise. He tells us that love is shown more in deeds than in words in the first point. Then in the second point he says that people in love share what each has with the other. The Ignatian Spanish word we translate in English as "to share" is comunicar. And so in a paradoxical way, though Ignatius does say deeds express true love more than words, he goes on to say that what lovers do for each other speaks or communicates love. David L. Fleming SJ delivered this presentation as a keynote address for the first Ignatian Spirituality Conference for Asia, held in Hong Kong from November 24 to 27, 2006, with the theme "Finding God in the 21st Century." His address is 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, Missouri 63 I08. Revie'w for Religious Although Ignatius helps us in some way to appreciate his understanding of to love, I do not find him as helpful in letting us know what he might mean by to serve. It is true that we find some thirty-nine uses of the words ser-vice or to serve in the Exercises, but we do not find a kind of definition. If we can cite some seventy times a form of the word service being used in the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, we still are left to imagine what the word itself means for Ignatius. I want to explore with you this notion of Ignatian service. Ignatius the Mystic Ignatius Loyola is numbered among the great Spanish mystics of the 16th century. Although he did not reflect in writing on his mystical experiences in the way that Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross did, Ignatius takes his place with his own spiritual legacy alongside these two great Carmelite mystics. A most important mystical experience for an under-standing of Ignatian spirituality happens to Ignatius in 1537 as he is journeying to Rome with his companions in order that they might offer themselves to the pope for his missioning. Ignatius makes reference to this vision in his Autobiography §96, but he does not expand on it. He makes even a more passing reference to it in his Spiritual Diary when he writes, "i recalled the day when the Father placed me with the Son" (§22, 23 February 1544). At a shrine at La Storta, Ignatius received an extraordinary response to his novena-like prayer to Mary, "Place me with your Son." Ignatius describes his experience in these words: "He experienced such a change in his soul and saw so clearly that God the Father placed him with Christ his Son that he would not dare doubt it--that God the Father had placed him with his Son." In the "seeing" (Ignatius's 155 66.2 2007 Fleming ¯ "Here I Am": Ignatian Ways of Serving vision), Jesus was carrying his cross. The Father addresses Ignatius and says, "I shall be favorable to you at Rome." Then the Father turns tO Jesus, who is carrying his cross, . and makes this request: "I want you to take this man to serve us." Jesus, with his cross in hand, looks at Ignatius and says, "We want you to serve us." The vision is an obvious answer to Ignatius's prayer to Mary. He is con-firmed in his being placed with Jesus. But the placement is made with Jesus in action--Jesus carrying his cross. This vision becomes an icon of Ignatian spirituality. The vision is about Ignatian service. A Spirituality of Service Ignatian spirituality, always identified as an active spirituality, finds expression in the phrase "to serve." Many commentators on Ignatius have noted that the you in Jesus' invitation to Ignatius "We want you to serve us" is plural. You would ~opnras~s~'-e~' --- e~"~-e . seem to point not only in . 0" roe,. '~i to Ignatius but also to all the people who find life in Ignatian spiritu-ality. As we try to live Ignatian spirituality, we want to be a people who serve. We are moved, then, to ask what does service or to serve mean in Ignatian spirituality? Does Ignatius help us to understand what service might include? Is it confined to tasks performed or work accomplished? Is service always about a project or jobs? Is service restricted to certain kinds of actions or deeds? I am suggesting that we might follow Ignatius in some of his experiences as recorded in his Autobiography to see a R~iew for Religious development in his own life about what it means to serve. Then we might return to the Exercises themselves tO see how Ignatius incorporates an openness to God's invitation to serve the Kingdom. Ignatius's Experience The young Ignatius was a man of great ambition. He was one who could dream of doing great deeds, being recognized for signal service in the service of a king, and perhaps by glorious accomplishments he might win the hand of a noble lady. The cannonball in the siege of the city Pamplona by the French forces against the Spanish shattered not only Ignatius's leg but also his dreams. During his long recovery at the family castle of Loyola, he had only two books--a Life of Christ by Ludolph of Saxony and the legendary .tales about many saints by Voragine--to fill his reading time. But through these two books Ignatius's dreams returned, only to be fired by the challenge to do glorious deeds like the saints, glorious deeds in the service of Christ, his king. Although service was still caught up in glorious deeds and accomplishments, Ignatius also found himself listening to the still, small voice of God calling within him. Little by little, he began to pay attention to the different spirits that stirred inside him, some leaving him to feel sad and desolate and others giving him joy. He began to under-stand a language of God through a process of. discerning these spirits. He would spend long hours gazing at the stars in the skry, and felt within himself a great drawing to serve the Lord. In the midst of his dreams, he asked him-self what was it that he really desired to do. As an answer, Ignatius felt that the content of his dreaming was to be a pilgrim, one going to the Holy Land where Jesus lived. Ignatius at this time represents all those first aposdes called by Jesus in the Gospels. He is like the fishermen 66.2 2007 Fleming ¯ "Here I Am": Ignatian Ways of Serving Peter and Andrew, James and John, and like the tax collec-tor Matthew, who heard Jesus say "follow" and they did. A!though Ignatius still harbored his idea of great deeds, at this moment of recovery at Loyola castle, he knew only that he wanted to follow Jesus, and somehow this follow-ing seemed to lead him to the land called "holy" because Jesus was born and died there. He wanted to be identified with Jesus. That would be service enough, and perhaps he could help souls. "Following" is a way of serving. But it is not so much our doing some deeds as it is an active passivity on our part, just to let someone take the lead and we come behind. But, for the apostles in the Gospels and for Ignatius at Loyola, the first form of his newfound service of Jesus is just to follow, wherever he may lead. Manresa becomes another stage in Ignatius's growth in understanding service. At Manresa, through a long and sometimes zigzag forming by the grace of God, Ignatius becomes available, available to go wherever God may lead him. At Manresa, Ignatius was initially self-determining his way of serving Christ. He set himself some seven hours of prayer each day. He fixed on his way of getting God's grace by a total fast. A major temptation was phrased in the question: How will you be able to endure this life for the seventy years you have to live (Auto §20)? When he was beset by debilitating scruples, he correctly took all the human means he could to rid himself of them. But finally he had to cry. out to God for help only God could give. In a dramatic image of being a child, Ignatius tells God that however God wants to work with him, he, a grown man, would chase after a puppy dog if that is how God would give him a healing remedy (Auto §23). Immediately he reflects that God was at this time treating him like a schoolmaster with a pupil. Why was God teaching him Review for Religious this way, he asks. Because of the strong desire that God himself had given him to serve him (Auto §27). Manresa became the schoolhouse where Ignatius began to learn that serving is not focused on our own predetermined efforts. To serve God means first of all to be available to God's direction and grace. God is the master, the teacher, and we are the disciples, the learners. To bring home the fact that God is the director, Ignatius recounts five special mysti-cal experiences--all of them pointing towards an under-standing or grasp of the deepest of faith realities: God of serving Christ. as Trinity, creation as worked by God, the Eucharistic presence of Jesus, Christ and Mary in their holy human-ness, and finally insights into spiritual matters as well as matters of faith and scholarship (Auto §§28-30). God was making Ignatius his disciple, a person available to God. For Ignatius, to be available is to serve. He would reflect this stance particularly in the attitude of the third class of people in the exercise "The Three Types of People," in the Exercises. As Ignatius moves to the next phase--the pilgrimage to Jerusalem--he opens another door which leads to a notion of serving. He discovers through many experiences of being the pilgrim that a way of serving comes from faith--believing and trusting. Whether it be with the use of money (prudently having some or not), or with the choice of boat (going with the bigger and better outfitted one or not), or with weather at sea (cold and stormy or beset by pirate ships), or with church authority (allowing or not allowing his stay in Jerusalem), Ignatius came to a realization that believing God and believing in God and Ignatius was initially self-determining his way 66.2 2007 Fleming ¯ "Here I Am". Ignatian Ways of Serving trusting God and trusting in God was to serve God. This understanding of seryi.'ng is reflected in Ignatius's contem-plative approach to the Gospels. When Ignatius determines that studies were impor-tant for carrying out his desire to serve God and others, he slowly moves to another stage of serving. Although it is at Salamanca that he evidences his desire to have companions with him in service, the realization of this desire will have its fruition during the time of his stud-ies in Paris. There it was that Francis Xavier and Peter Faber and four others form the nucleus of the "friends in the Lord." Whether it is the call of Christ coming to every person to be with and to work with Christ reflected in the Call of the King exercise in the Spiritual Exercises that inspires Ignatius to seek to serve in relationship with others, we can only infer. ¯ But, whatever the stimulus, we see another stage in Ignatius's own growth in understanding and practicing service. To serve is to be in relationship with others. It is to accompany and to be accompanied. This is the root foundation for the Company of Jesus, the Jesuits, ones who call themselves companions of Christ and so companions with one another. The service of the Society of Jesus mirrors always men-in-companionship, not the individual aposde. Ignatian service historically is people working together because of their working with Christ. I believe that Ignatius's growth in understanding ser-vice came out of his experiences which we have pointed out through the citing of certain incidents recorded in his Autobiography. Ignatius reflected upon his experience in terms of being helpful to others, and the result was his writing of the Spiritual Exercises. The Exercises, then, I believe, become a summation of what Ignatian service is. Let us look more closely at the Exercises. Review for Religious The Evidence from the Exercises What Ignatius discovered and what he hands on to us is that God is the One who first serves. This is the vision that Ignatius shares with us in the Principle and Foundation and in the Contemplation on the Love of God. Ignatius begins his Principle and Foundation state-ment with the catechism-like answer to the unspoken question "why did God make us?" Ignatius writes: God creates human beings to praise, reverence, and serve God, and thereby save their souls. Ignatius goes on to say that God gifts human beings with all their personal talents and presents everything in creation as gifts to help them to come to know, love, and serve God. Our human response is to choose among the many gifts which ones help us in our direction towards life-with-God forever. God is the first to serve us by gifting us with an abundance of gifts so that we can make the choice among them which ones better help us seek and find God. Ignatius makes his approach eminently clear in the final exercise, the Contemplation on the Love of God-- what I call the "other bookend" of the Exercises similar to the Principle and Foundation. We are praying for the grace to be empowered to love and to serve in all the .ways that God does. All four points outlined by Ignatius are pictures of God serving us. Of course, by his prenote on love, Ignatius has prepared us to see that God shows his love in deeds--in all the ways that God continues to serve us. These deeds, these giftings, speak out and com-municate to us how much God loves us. In loving us, God is the first to serve. As directors, not as first-time retreatants, we are aware that the vision pieces that mark the beginning and end of the full Spiritual Exercises are about a God who gifts, a God who loves, and a God who serves. In every way God communicates his love for us and so serves us. If God 161 66.2 2007 Fleming ¯ "Here I Am": Ignatian Ways of Serving is the first to serve, then how better can we learn what service means than by perceiving all the ways that God communicates his love for us by his deeds--all of which are meant to speak. Just as there has been a tradition of the four points of the Contemplation on the Love of God being a rtsum6 of the Four Weeks of the Exercises, so we might review some aspects of the Four Weeks to obtain, perhaps, a better grasp of how God serves, with the result that we might learn to serve. I am selecting a few key images that speak of ways of serving. In the First Week, we might turn our eyes to Jesus nailed to the cross as we are asked to image him in the colloquy in the first exercise. When we are caught in wonder that Jesus, being the Word made flesh, the Word in whom all things are created, is being crucified, we are open to hearing his response to us as a part of our prayer conversation. Jesus would tell us that his hanging on the cross is a way of his serving. Moved by love of God his Father and focused in his love for each of us, his brothers and sisters, he gives himself over to us, holding noth-ing back, even allowing us to put him to death. Sin in our lives is the way that we keep trying to pot him to death. But Jesus waits for us, Jesus' arms are held wide to embrace us, Jesus offers us his forgiveness. How does Jesus (God) serve us? Jesus serves us by his patience, by his ever-present welcome, by his words of forgiveness. Jesus loves and so he serves. In the Second Week, we might look at and listen to Christ issuing his call to every man, woman, and child today. The exercise is called the Call of the King. This is the risen Christ, the one who is still busy about the king-dom to come. This Jesus personally invites each one of us to be with him and to work with him. God's kingdom will come, the victory is assured in Jesus' resurrection, Review for Religious and life forever with God is our realizable goal. How does Jesus (God) serve us? Jesus serves us by calling us to an intimacy with him, but being with Jesus is not enough. Jesus serves us by asking us to work alongside him as together we serve the kingdom. Jesus loves us so much that he wants us to be _~ right alongside him as we act together in our work for the kingdom. Just as Jesus' being caught up in love of God his Father has him serving just by being with him, so too our being with Jesus models this divine intimacy--essential to all other forms of serving. In our eagerness to work as our form of ser-vice, we often forget that service of God demands a loving relationship with God. In the Third Week, we are struck by the first exercise as imaging service in a special way. In his points for the Last Supper contemplation, Ignatius highlights the pas-chal meal context, the washing of the disciples' feet by Jesus, and the Eucharist as the greatest mark of his love. The paschal meal is a liturgical context in which Jesus, known as the Lamb of God, will bring to a fulfillment the Mosaic celebration so that it becomes a celebration of a new covenant "in my blood." Jesus serves us by entering us into the liturgical celebration of the covenant between God and humankind. Celebrating liturgy, then, is a way of serving. In washing his disciples' feet, Jesus clearly identifies himself as teacher and wants to expand their understand-ing. He wants, above all, to broaden their understanding of what it means to serve. Jesus is not asking them to fix their attention on one action of a good deed done to We often forget that service of God demands a loving relationship with God. 163 66.2 20O7 Fleming * "Here I Am": Ignatian Ways of Serving understand service. He has them first of all reflect on the One who serves. Created in God's image, just like the eternal Son, our very being is realized in our being people who serve. In challenging their understanding, Jesus is exploding whatever restrictions these first apostles and then all of us later ones humanly use to limit our notion of service. When Jesus institutes the Eucharist as the greatest mark of his love, Jesus again shows his love by his deed. The Eucharist is the ever-making-present total gift of self that the risen Jesus continuously makes to his Father and to us. The actuality of the event of the cross, limited in time and in space, receives its "now" reality and meaning in every celebration of the Eucharist--the greatest mark of Jesus' love. Jesus is forever giving over himself to us. Jesus shows us that service is embedded in surrender, a giving over of self, with nothing ever held back. In the Fourth Week, once again it is the first exercise that is most suggestive of our drinking in ways of serving. The first exercise is the appearance of the risen Jesus to Mary, his mother. Ignatius dismisses the fact that there is no scripture passage to support this contemplation by claiming that Scripture says that there are other appear-ances and that we have understanding. By having us con-template the risen J~sus appearing to his mother, Ignatius brings home to us the newness of the risen life and the change in relationship that it necessarily entails. Jesus' intimacy with Mary his mother, before his resurrection at a level incomprehensible to us, is taken to another, wholly unimaginable, level at this resurrection time. This Jesus, whose risen body knows no natural, physical boundar-ies, meets his mother in an intimacy that can only be described with explosive joy. Jesus shares with his mother the joy of the resurrection as his way of se]'ving. Mary, then, becomes our key to something of the newness of Review for Religious our relationship with the risen Jesus. We experience Jesus' way of serving us sometimes by this gift of joy, at other times by his gift of consolation. In joy and in consolation, we feel a oneness with the Lord that leaves us faltering in our language to describe our experience. This brings us back to our two "bookends" of the Exercises, the Principle and Foundation and the Contemplation on the Love of God. We realize now more fully that the phrase "to love and to serve in all things" has a necessary proper sequence. To love comes before to serve. With Ignatian insight, loving always is the root and foundation of serving. If we love, then we will be serving people. Ignatius sees that God loves, and so God is the first to serve. As he has experienced God in his own life, he has come to a wholly new way of under-standing service--a transformation of the great deeds and accomplishments that made up so much of his dreams. God has taught him, and now he knows that by drinking in God's actions, by watching Jesus in the Gospels, he has expanded his notion of service and has taken in its breadth, its length, its height, and its depth. Ignatius writes into the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus the richness of this understanding of service. Some would complain that the Jesuit order has little specifica- ¯ tion for its mission. Although the Formula of the Institute (like the basic Rule of a religious order) does describe the mission of the Jesuits, we Jesuits must confess that it does not so much restrict our activities as open up many doors to the needs of our world. The Key of Helping A part of Ignatius's first insight into the service of following Christ never left him. The Spanish verb ayu-dar, meaning to help, is the kernel of all Ignatian service. Ignatius always wanted "to help souls." His Exercises 66.2 2007 Fleming ¯ "Here I Am": Ignatian Ways of Serving are written to be a help first for the director and then through the director for the retreatant. Consistently Ignatius urges the director of the retreat to use or not use material on the basis of whether it is "helpful" for the one making the retreat. In terms of the special vow of obedience of the professed Jesuit, the mission was to be determined by the pope, who saw where the need was greatest and, as a result, the Jesuits could be of greater "help." "To help" is hardly an exalted notion of service. It does not conjure up great deeds and accomplishments. But it is a way of serving as God serves. What have we learned about Ignatian service? First, by looking at God, who is the first to serve, we begin to learn about service. Second, from God, we learn that love is the foundation and love is the stimulus for ser-vice. Love is expressed in deeds--in acts of service--more than in words. And yet our service should speak out and communicate the love that is at its source. Third, service cannot be restricted to certain actions or deeds, to certain results or accomplishments. From Jesus and the Gospels, we learn that to follow is to serve, to be available is to serve, to believe and to trust is to serve, to accompany is to serve, to forgive and to be compassionate is to serve, and to celebrate the Eucharist is to serve. We also learn to serve is always to share what we have been given. That is why serving always follows upon loving--because lovers share their gifts. After our explorations of this idea of service, we find that Ignatius again leads us to the grace that we prayed for in the Contemplation on the Love of God. We pray for the grace that we might be empowered "to love and to serve in everything," "en todo amary servir." Our ways of serving will be as rich and deep as our ways of loving. We are acting with God. We are God's servants. We stand ready and willing. We say: Here I am. I want to serve. Review for Religious Reflection Questions 1. How do I define or describe what it means to serve as a Christian? Do I find myself making changes in my thinking as I reflect on the Ignatian ways of serving? 2. "God is the first to serve." What has been my experience of God serving me? Prayer Mantra Lord, teach me to be generous. Teach me to serve you as you deserve. The Christ of Psalm 19 Champion. Waking to his strength and the morning's grace he seizes the radiant sun as it sets out on its way, and runs, runs and leaps, clasping it joyously to his breast. The light f!lls him, glows from his hands, haloes his footsteps, shines in his exultant laughter. Climbing, bounding across the sky, he spreads lavishly the beneficent light to mirror his heart's fire. Kate Martin OSC 66.2 2007 experiencing prayer RICK MALLOY Prayer Is a Risk ¯ 168] At a community meeting when I was a Jesuit nov-ice, someone asked our provincial about the big-gest problem he faced. His blunt answer startled me: "Jesuits not praying." As novices, our lives were so structured that not praying was impos-sible. After the novitiate I learned, painfully at times, that the demands of the apostolic works easily crowd out the time for prayer (although I always seem to find the ten minutes to catch Jay Leno's monologue). Why is it so difficult to engage in prayer, contemplative prayer? We know that many people pray, that prayer is something we as Catholic Christians ought to do, and we hear that prayer can change things. But many of us are conflicted and confused when we go to pray. Does God really respond to our prayers? Does God really listen to, or care about, what we say? If we prayed some other way, or Rick Malloy sJ is professor of anthropology at St. Joseph's University; 261City Avenue; Merion Station, Pennsylvania 19066. Review for Religious prayed more regularly and faithfully, would we be better people? Can our praying make the world a better place? In our age, which tends to elevate activism to ethereal heights, would our time not be better spent serving the poor or doing something for somebody in need? Would God not be interested more in our doing something "worthwhile" than in our sitting in silence and trying not to pay attention to the random thoughts rumbling end-lessly around in our heads? And when we get right down to it, do we all not ask ourselves sometimes, "Does prayer really work? Does prayer really do anything?" The way to move forward and avoid getting lost in the flurries such questions generate is to realize that prayer is a risk. There is no science of prayer. Just as you cannot prove sci-entifically the worth or effects of real love, the day in and day out lov-ing and caring and living with other persons, you cannot prove the worth of prayer, the practice of paying attention to God day in, day out. If we could prove prayer's value scientifically, it would not be prayer. Pyayer is a risk because it is a lifelong, life-changing act of faith. The word "believe" comes from the German belieben, meaning "to belove." Prayer is all about the risks involved in loving. Much of our reluctance and resistance to pray is in our fear that God might really respond to us. On one hand, we fear God will not take us seriously. On the other hand, we are afraid that God may take us very seriously, as seriously as we take ourselves and our loved ones. Prayer is a risk because the God who calls us to conversion and Much of our reluctance and resistance to pray is in our fear that God might really respond to us. !169 66.2 2007 Malloy ¯ Prayer Is a Risk 1701 change takes us up on the invitation to get involved in our lives. VChen that happens the adventure begins. To be Catholic is to be aware of our call to great trans-formations, transforming us over our lifetime into persons incorporated into the reality of God--the promise made to us all, that we may "come to share in the divine nature" (2 P 1:4, NAB). Our personal transformations are part of larger cosmic processes: the transformation of all human history and all creation (Rm 8:21) into the coming king-dom of God, where God will be "all in all" (1 Co 15:28). Right at the beginning of Lumen gentium, the great docu-ment of Vatican Council II that describes what the church is and ought to be, we are told what Catholicism is all about. God's plan is "to dignify men and women with a participation in his own divine life" (LG §2). This is not some radical, unorthodox, crazy, Jesuit spin on spirituality. Back in the early days of the church, St. Athanasius said the same thing I am saying here: "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, §460). Prayer makes us aware of, and committed to, this transformation in Christ. Risk comes in refusing to cooperate in the offered transforma-tions. There is also risk in yielding to the transformation, freely accepting who and what God is making of us and our lives. Prayer Is Relational. MI prayer is relational. By pray-ing, we relate to God, our God who loves us passionately, consistently, challengingly. When we truly relate to any-one we love, we may be called to change. The parent who loves a child suffering from cystic fibrosis changes in many ways. The son or daughter loving an aging mother or father makes many unexpected life changes. Such changes always call us to deeper, more active love. Knowing that extreme poverty in Africa can be alleviated changes one who prays about it. Witness Bono and the ONE campaign Review for Religious to eradicate extreme poverty (www.one.org). When we pray we risk changing and being changed. Prayer may make us know that we need to change. Prayer may make us able to change things, from addictions to relationships to social problems. Prayer may make us willing and able to do something for God and others we never imagined doing. Prayer is relational because we relate to God on both personal and communal levels of reality. We never pray alone. Always, and in all ways, we ourselves and someone else are involved. As soon as we try to pray, God takes us up on our effort. Prayer is neither a competition nor a goal-oriented activity. To try to pray is to already have "won." Prayer is much _ __ more like making love, or hitting a baseball, or learning to play a musical instrument (even loudly and badly) than it is like getting a promotion, or achieving a goal, or mas-tering a skill. Prayer is more like floating on water than paddling strenuously to get somewhere. Prayer is more "letting go" than "holding on." Prayer is a journey on which we are simply "there" while paradoxically always being "on the road." Prayer is allowing our lives to be har-monized. Prayer is getting our lives and loves in order, and prayer is inviting God's ordering of our loves and lives. We are all being divinized. Pray-ers know this truth. To be aware of and cooperate with divinization takes work. Real prayer is work; it is spirituality that is disciplined as Catholicism is disciplined. We find ourselves recognizing that consolation is not always comfortable, and desolation is not always disagreeable. Being disciplined about prayer is essential and beneficial just as regular physical exercise Prayer is the effort to consciously experience God. 171 66.2 2007 Malloy ¯ Prayer Is a Risk 172 gets and keeps our bodies in shape. The more in shape we are spiritually, the more we are likely to realize and recog-nize God in our lives. Prayer is the effort to consciously experience God. Praying is consciously paying attention to the central relationships of our lives, with ourselves, with others, and with God. Our relationship with God is the one that makes all these other relationships possible. With conscious attention to our relationship with God, we find whispers of God's presence in the other relation-ships of our lives. We speak to God in prayer, and the word God speaks back is our life. Prayer is paying attention to what is really real. Prayer is not just finding God in all things. It is more than that. Prayer is seeking God in all realities, realities that were, are, and are to come. Our heart's awareness of God and God's ways of divinizing is evident in how we make choices. At the moral level, prayer leads us to wisdom and cor-rec~ choosing. When I was a little kid, in wintertime my mother used to dress us up in those bulky blue snowsuits that made us look like midget Michelin men. She would let me and my siblings out along with the dog. As soon as I was out in the snow, I would reach down and grab a mittenful of the cold, delicious snow and begin to eat. My mom would yell, "Ricky, don't eat the yellow snow!" Prayer is learning what is, and is not, "yellow snow." What is not good for us is whatever frustrates and foils our trans-formation in Christ. For serious pray-ers, life becomes a series of exercises for discerning in God what we truly and deeply desire. Such holy desires reveal God's will for us, and prayer, mediates the grace that helps us choose what we deeply desire and thus make the right choices. Prayer, practiced regularly and faithfully, can become the pivotal center of our daily lives, keeping us on plan and focused. Prayer, even engaged in sporadically and Review for Religious frenetically, is valuable. Annie Lamott, one of the most refreshing if iconoclastic contemporary writers on prayer, says the two best prayers are "Thank you" and "Help." How to Pray. Prayer does not have to be elaborate to be the stream carrying us through life to life eternal. There are many ways of praying: prayers of petition (probably the most common form of prayer), Mass each day, the Liturgy of the Hours, daily spiritual reading, sys-tematically and slowly working one's way through various books of the Bible, reading beforehand the readings for the upcoming Sunday, the rosary, Eucharistic adoration, the utterly simple practice of centering prayer. These are all valid ways to pray. Prayer groups are helpful for many people. Choose freely what you find agreeable. No one stays with a prayer practice they find tedious and frus-trating. Experiment with unconventional methods that make use of and stimulate the imagination. See a movie with Jesus, write someone a letter while in prayer mode, create a dialogue with the Holy Spirit, draw pictures for God. The imagination is the arena where we can often most powerfully experience God. Ignatian contemplation of gospel scenes is a tried and true example of using our graced imagination in prayer. Prayer Guides. Many have traversed the paths through the forest of prayer. Do not feel you have to reinve'nt the wheel. For the beginner, Jesuit Mark Thibodeaux's Armchair Mystic is an excellent book. Pushing Jesuit works on prayer may seem too much like I am pushing the fam-ily business, but anyone who knows about free and flee-ing spirituality will agree that anything by Tony DeMello sJ is worth reading and pondering. Franciscan Richard Rohr's amazingly brief and deceptively simple Everything Belongs is the best book on prayer I have ever read. Rohr orients the 2 lst-century person to what prayer is and can be. The Cloud of Unknowing is a classic on prayer and is 66.2 2007 Malloy * Prayer Is a Risk 174 the inspiration for the contemporary Trappist method of Centering Prayer. Annie Lamott's Traveling Mercies is a wild zany take on everything from prayer to writing to parenting to eating disorders. Kurtz and Ketcham's Spirituality of Imperfection is a real jewel. There are many more good books one can read. Magazines like America and Commonweal are excellent sources and guides for spir-itual reading. The Internet, where so many young adults spend their reading time, offers great sites like the Irish Jesuits' "Sacred Space" (http://www.sacredspace.ie) to ori-ent you in prayer. What Does Prayer Do? Ultimately the practice of real and consistent prayer changes our desires. When we find ourselves wanting what God wants, we are in right relationship with God, and that is the experience of jus-tice on the personal level. Prayer practiced over time will lead us through the process that the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius aim to elicit. Prayer will free us from, free us for, and free us to be with. This means free from all that frustrates our transformation in Christ, from addictions to personality faults; free for service and the righting of relationships on many levels, which ultimately denotes social justice for all; free to be with God as the Holy Spirit transforms us in Christ, and thus free to be our deepest, truest selves in relation with others. Real prayer is about deep transformation and everyday mysticism; it is not some kind of magic or tawdry grace. Prayer does not do anything if we do not pray. I go to the gym three times a week, once a year. The results, or lack thereof, are rather predictable. Regular, consistent, committed prayer is worth the effort, but we never know it until we do it. That means going ahead and taking the risk. Then we can authentically urge others to follow our example. Review for Religious Reflection Questions for Personal and Group Use 1. In view of the title of this article, do I feel that I am risking anything when I pray? 2. What has been the most helpful insight about praying that Malloy has offered to me? 3. In trying to help another person in their prayer life, what two or three points would I want to share? Ubi est mors victoria tua? (1 Corinthians 15:55) Who is this jealous Lover, leaving to any Shylock his pound or two of.flesh, but coming himself and claiming ALL? Who, this unknown Knower, sounding the yearning depths of hearts that run, pursued, from that Encounter (frightful!) which ends at some strange Jacob's-ladder dream (or game)? See: the brand burns deep! No doubts remain; the claim is made; the stake is driven. Take, Lord, receive. (What did Ignatius say?) All is yours, now. Agnes Cunningham SSCM 175" 66.2 2007 JAMES W. KINN Beginning Contemplation according to John of the Cross 176 SDt. John of the Cross deserves the title Mystical octor. His writings are profound and original. He is without parallel in his rich content and brilliant teach-ing on the mystical life. To many, however, his writings seem almost opaque. They include tedious repetitions, disproportionate emphases, misplaced material, unwieldy sentences, and imprecise language. For example, John often speaks of "this night" without specifying the active night of sense, the active night of spirit, the passive night of sense, or the passive night of spirit. We can determine what night he means only by careful study of the con-text. Spiritual writers who interpret John often confuse his meaning instead of clarifying it because they mix the nights indiscriminately. The focus of this article is quite narrow: it centers on John's description of the beginning of contemplation. James W. Kinn is a retired priest of the Chicago Archdiocese. This article is a further development of his book Contemplation 2000: St John of the Cross for Today (Saint Bede's Publications, 1997). He can be addressed 6318 243rd Court; Salem, Wisconsin 53168. . Review for Religious First we will try to clarify his mystical teaching on the dark night as the actual beginning of infused contempla-tion. Then we will describe his practical advice for pray-ing this way. John treats this beginning of contemplation especially in his Dark Night, Books I and II. Spiritual writers agree with John of the Cross about the general description of contemplative prayer. They see contemplation as an integral -- development of prayer. That is, ¯ mental prayer exhibits a natu-ral progression from discursive mental prayer to more affective prayer to simpler prayei" and then to more passive prayer, in which God takes over our prayer in contemplation. Writers agree that the beginning of contemplation is generally dark and gentle; the first experiences are so subtle and tenuous that we hardly know what is occurring. Writers also agree with John on the three essential characteristics of infused contemplation: (1) in contem-plation we have some vague experience of God as present within us; (2) this direct contact with God is general and dark in the beginning; it is not accompanied by images or distinct notions, but consists of a simple and dark intuition; (3) we receive the experience passively, not as a result of our own efforts. We cannot obtain it, retain it, or recall it. We no longer meditate by means of ideas, images, or affections. John's Teaching on the Beginning of Contemplation The Dark Night, Book I, is titled "a treatise on the passive night of the senses." John says, "this dark night signifies . . . purgative contemplation.''l The memory, understanding, and will are dark and empty. That is, just as actual night leaves our eyes dark and unable to func- 177 66.2 2007 Kinn ¯ Beginning Contemplation according to John of the Cross tion, so dark contemplation leaves our memory, under-standing, and will dark and unable to function. And John calls this the night of the senses because "at this time God does not communicate himself through the senses as he did before . . . but begins to communicate himself through pure spirit by an act of simple contemplation, in which there is no discursive succession of thought.''2 This night of the senses consists essentially in our inability to meditate, becaus~.e all our natural faculties (memory, intellect, wi!l.,.-affections) are now darkened. This very inabilityAs'the necessary condition for the new form of prayer that God is beginning to bestow. John insists that this new way of prayer is properly called con-templation: A person should not mind if the operations of his fac-ulties are being lost to him; he ought to desire rather that this be done quickly so that he may be no obstacle to the operation of the infused contemplation which God is bestowing., and make room in his spirit for the enkindling and burning of love that this dark and secret contemplation bears and communicates to his soul. For contemplation is .nothing else than a secret and peaceful and loving inflow of God) John wants us to know that this dark prayer is actually the beginning of contemplation: This food is the beginning of a contemplation that is dark and dry to the senses . Now in this state of contemplation, when the soul has left discursive medi-tation and entered the state of proficients, it is God who works in it .At this time a person's own efforts are of no avail.4 That is, this prayer is not just a period of transition between meditation and contemplation nor a proximate prepara-tion for contemplation; rather it is the very beginning of contemplation: "At the time of the aridities of this sensory night, God [withdraws] the soul from the life of the senses Review for Religious and [places] it in that of the spirit that is, he brings it from meditation to contemplation--where the soul no longer has the power to work or meditate with its faculties on the things of God.''s He teaches that this is actually something new in the soul, a new experience; it is not simply a deep-ening of what has gone before, not just a continuation and further simplifying of meditation. We have seen our own personal activity in meditation become more simple and even reduced to nothing. The old world of our senses and intellectual ideas is now remote and useless. We no lon-ger meditate by means of ideas, images, or affections. Now God begins to act, though darkly. God almost impercepti-bly infuses himself into our soul and awakens a new level of awareness. This is the actual beginning of contemplation. We experience this night of contemplation as darkness, because we have only an undefined intimation of God's presence. The experience itself is ineffable, for it is void of any intermediary of sense or image. The critical point, which John of the Cross often repeats, is that this dark, pas-sive, and simple form of prayer is truly contemplation: In this state of contemplation, when the soul has left discursive meditation and entered the state of profi-cients, it is God who works in it. He therefore binds the interior faculties and leaves no support in the intel-lect, nor satisfaction in the will, nor remembrance in the memory. At this time God does not communi-cate himself through the senses as he did before., but begins to communicate himself through pure spirit by an act of simple contemplation, in which there is no discursive succession of thought. John takes great care in repeating just what this begin-ning of contemplation consists in, because it is not what most people understand it to be. They hear about more advanced forms of contemplation such as raptures, ecsta-sies, and visions. They do not understand that those are not at all the experiences at the beginning of contempla- 179 66.2 2007 Kinn ¯ Beginning Contemplation according to John of the Cross tion. They do not realize that their natural progression of prayer from meditation to affective prayer to simpler prayer leads them to this very next step. They see their own personal activity reduced to nothing; their reflec-tions, personal affections, and quiet insights have mostly disappeared; God no longer seems to touch them through ideas, images, or affections. They find themselves in front of a wall without any satisfying thoughts and they wonder, "Where did I go wrong?" John wants us to know that this troubling development is not a dead end, not a wall at all. It is actually the natural development of our prayer and the necessary condition for God to act in us in a new way.7 As long as we filled our minds with all our rational ideas, images, reasoning, . and affections, there was no room for a new and infused way of experiencing God. Only when we admit that all our rational efforts can take us no farther do we willingly let God take over and let ourselves be peaceful and atten-tive in that dark night. Then God begins to act and show his presence, though obscurely. God almost imperceptibly infuses himself into our soul and awakens us to a new level of awareness. God opens a new door for us. At first we experience this as darkness because the experience itself is so subtle and elusive. In addition, we have no words to describe it; we use words such as "know, see, feel, sense, perceive, touch," but they are not adequate to express how we experience God now; they are only metaphors or analogies. The experience itself is ineffable, for it is void of any intermediaries of sense or image. But this direct inflow of God is actually the beginning of contemplation. Over a period of time, this new way of experiencing God will gradually reach some degree of clarity. Only little by little does this gleam in the night seem closer and some-what distinct. God only increases his light according to our ability and our faithfulness in this way. Review for Religious How to Pray in the Beginning of Contemplation What is John of the Cross's advice for those who can no longer meditate and are beginning contemplation? Fortunately, he is entirely clear and simple: The attitude necessary in the night of sense is to pay no attention to discursive meditation, since this is not the time for it. They should allow the soul to remain in rest and quietude, even though it may seem very obvious to them that they are doing nothing and wasting time. ¯. Through patience and perseverance in prayer, they will be doing a great deal without activity on their part. All that is required of them here is freedom of soul, that they liberate themselves from the impediment and fatigue of ideas and thoughts and care not about think-ing and meditating. They must be content simply with a loving andpeaceful attentiveness to God and live without the concern, without the effort, and without the desire to taste or feel him. These desires disquiet the soul and distract it from the peaceful quiet and sweet idleness of the contemplation which is being communicated to it.s John teaches here that, once we can no longer meditate with sensible images, imaginations, rational thoughts, and affections, we should not continue to struggle with our natural faculties but "remain in rest and quietude" with "a loving and peaceful attentiveness to God." Very simply, we should remain peaceful and attentive in God's presence. Again and again he assures us that the primary agent in this contemplative prayer is God:. The principal agent [now] is God, who secretly and quietly inserts in the soul loving wisdom and knowl-edge, without specific acts . Thus the individual also should proceed only with a loving attention to God, without making specific acts. He .should conduct him-self passively . . . without efforts of his own but with simple, loving awareness.9 That is, all our activity can be summed up in this one 181 66.2 2007 Kinn ¯ Beginning Contemplation according to John of the Cross 182]. word: attentive. Since the natural operations of our intel-lect and will are helpless to attain the direct knowledge of God, all we can do is put them at rest. Only when we put to rest all our sensible ways of knowing will there be room for this direct, infused experience of God. Our whole effort is to remain quiet, peaceful, open, and recep-tive to this new experience. Various metaphors might help to describe our situ-ation in this beginning of contemplation: (1) There is nothing we can do to water this garden; we can no longer even bring up buckets from the well of meditation. We have no control over the rainwater that comes from God's infused contemplation. (2) We need a new way of breath-ing in this rarefied air; only the pure oxygen of God will sustain us at this altitude. (3) We are beyond our ability to swim any more; all we can do is float in the water and wait for God to carry us along. (4) All our efforts cannot open this door to the new experience of God; the most we can do is remove all the obstacles of our mental images and rational thoughts. (5) God is the sun ever shining; he will certainly shine in our soul once it is empty of the clutter of sensible images and natural reasoning. And these same metaphors may help us to be patient in this passive form of prayer--content to be peaceful and atten-tive in God's presence. John wants us to know that, once we no longer have the power to work or meditate with our faculties, God will soon bring us from meditation to contemplation: "As soon as natural things are driven out of the enamored soul, the divine are naturally and supernaturally infused, since there can be no void in nature.''1° Again he repeats his assurance: "Little by little and very soon the divine calm and peace with a wondrous, sublime knowledge of God . . . will be infused into his soul . Learn to be empty of all things--interiorly and exteriorly--and you Review for Religious will behold that I am God.''~1 John's words, "there can be no void in nature," remind us of the familiar experience of opening a can of vacuum-packed coffee; as soon as we puncture the can, the air fills the void with a hiss of air rushing in. The image suggested by John, then, is that, once we have learned to remain in the presence of God peacefully and attentively, God will soon fill this void with an infused sense of his presence and love. Now, if this dark and passive prayer is really the beginning of contemplation, then what is the source of that infused grace? John answers clearly: "The principal agent and guide and mover of souls in this mat-ter [at the beginning of contemplation] is . ¯ . the Holy Spirit. ¯ When the soul frees itself of all things . . . it is impossible that God should fail to do his part by communicating himself to it, at least silently and secretly.''12 That is, instead of relying on our own rational faculties and efforts, John tells us to rely on the infused wisdom of the Holy Spirit, who is "the principal agent and guide and mover" in all of contempla-tive prayer¯ Throughout this dark night, the Holy Spirit continues to infuse this contemplative prayer in our soul: "This communication [of dark contemPlation] is secret and dark to the work of the intellect and the other fac-ulties insofar as these faculties do not acquire it but the Holy Spirit infuses it and puts it in order in the soul." Finally, throughout The Living Flame of Love, John identi-fies the source of further union and transformation of the soul as the Holy Spirit: "This flame of love is the Spirit of its Bridegroom, which is the Holy Spirit.''~4 We have no control over the rainwater that comes from God's infused contemplation. 183 66.2 2007 Kinn ¯ Beginning Contemplation according to John of the Cross I84 So, in this beginning stage of contemplation and in all the stages of contemplation, our singular effort will be to be quiet and attentive. At first, our usual sense of God's presence will be dark and unsatisfying; we will feel weak and empty. Yet this is the only way we can learn not to rely on our rational faculties but only on the Spirit of Jesus. In Scripture, Jesus promised us this "Spirit of Truth" who will "be with you always" (Jn 14:16-17); "he will teach you everything" (Jn 14:26) and "will guide you-to all truth" (Jn !6:13). Certainly this "everything" and "all truth" include this wonderful infused contemplation. We can trust in Jesus' assurance: "How much more will the Father in heaven give the holy Spirit to those who ask him?" (Lk 11:13). One Example of Contemplative Prayer V~hen we reach this dark night of the senses, we can feel lost in our prayer because all our faculties, are dark and all our efforts are useless. Despite the guidance of John of the Cross, we would like to have some example of just how to proceed in this beginning of contemplative prayer. Here is one example. Receive, 0 Lord, my whole freedom--my senses, my imagination, my affections, my reasonings. All these faculties l have received from you. I renounce the use of all of them during this prayer, unless it be according to your will. Grant me only the inspiration of your Spirit, nothing more. Lord, I am content to dwell in this dark night in which all. my faculties are helpless. This dark-ness is my friend, for on!y in this night can your new light become visible; this silence is the.way to wisdom, for only in complete quiet can the gentle voice of

Issue 48.5 of the Review for Religious, September/October 1989. ; R~:.vn~w voa R~:.t.~c,~ous (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at St. Louis University by the Mis-souri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus: Editorial Office: 3601 Lindcll Blvd. Rm. 428; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Second-class postage paid at St. Louis MO. Single copies $3.00. Subscriptions: $12.00 per year; $22.00 for two years. Other countries: for surface mail, add U.S. $5.00 per year; for airmail, add U.S. $20.00 per year. For subscription orders or change of address, write: Rl~v~'0,, ~:o~ Rl-:t.~c;ous; P.O. Box 6070: Duluth, MN 55806. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Rt:v~t:w roa RELIGIOUS; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. David L. Fleming, S.J. Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Richard A. Hill, S.J. Jean Read Mary Ann Foppe Editor Associate Editor Contributing Editor Assistant Editors September/October 1989 Volume 48 Number 5 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to Rv:vt~w you R~:~.~;~otJs; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the department "Canonical Counsel" should be addressed to Rich-ard A. Hill, S.J.; J.S.T.B.; 1735 LeRoy Ave.; Berkeley, CA 94709-1193. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from Rv:\'~v:w voa Rr:~.~;~o~JS; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. "Out of print" issues 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 I0010. PRISMS . We Christians come to know our calling to a certain kind of minis-try in the Church through our fidelity to prayer--a continuing dialogue in our relationship with God. By way of analogy, those in the vocation of married life know that the sacramental celebration of matrimony rep-resents only the start of a new relationship together with God. It will take a married lifetime of dialogue with each other and with God and of so living to make the reality of the sacrament come true. Similarly, those in the vocation of religious life signify in some way (commonly through some kind of vow-taking) that they are professing and aiming at a spe-cial relationship with God with the wholeness of their lives. Again re-ligious are well aware that vow or profession day is only the beginning of the dialoguing and of the living out of this "aimed-at" relationship. In these vocations of married and religious life, the Christian prayer of both the individual and the community (marital or religious) is a neces-sary part of the continuing dialogue which keeps alive and nourishes the particular vocation undertaken by our first responding to God's initia-tive. The call to minister in the name of Christ and officially authorized in the service of the Church also remains grounded in the prayer-dialogue. Ministry, not rooted in prayer, is no ministry at all. Good deeds done may represent admirable humanitarianism which we honor and appreciate, but we do not grace it with the identity of ministry. Min-istry flows from a consciousness of God and God's ways of acting and from a sense of responsibility in acting in the name of Christ's Body, the Church. The pervading consciousness of God and the connatural way of acting as God acts are the fruit of a prayer life, which is consistently fostered "for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health." This dialogue pei'meates and empowers our Christian life as well as our ministry whatever it may be. In this issue, we highlight two aspects of this continuing dialogue so necessary for our vocation and for ourmin!stry. The passion or fire in our Christian way of praying is reflected in the articles "The God of the Scriptures: An Invitation to Passionate Prayer" .by Anthony Wieczorek, O. Praem., "Romantic Relations with the Sacred" by Richard J. De- Maria, C.F.C., and "A Joyful Supp!ication for Justice" by A. Paul 641 642 Review for Religious, September-October 1989 Dominic, S.J. The passion--meaning self-emptying and often a sense of dying--is also a part of our Christian experience of growth in prayer; the articles "Negative Floating" by Barbara Dent and "Spiritual Dryness: Some Practical Guidelines" by Eamon Tobin give some insight into these always difficult moments. Three articles, viewing various aspects of our religious life vocation, are written within the specific prayer context of our lives. "Religious Formation: A Contemplative Realignment" by Jane Ferdon, O.P., con-siders the formation task. "Discernment and Elections in Religious In-stitutes" by Marcello De Carvalho Azevedo, S.J., focuses the very spe-cial moments of leadership choice and policy-making in religious in-stitutes. Finally, "Rituals of Death, Denial, and Refounding" by Ger-ald A. Arbuckle, S.M., reflects on the importance of religious celebrat-ing in a truly Christian manner the dying and death moments in their con-gregational life if revitalization or refounding is to occur today. In the northern hemisphere, the summer months are coming, to an end, with the traditional vacation time behind us for another year. We move on to another "work" year and whatever our ministry may be. With the help of God's grace, .we find ourselves at an opportune time to assess again how our lives, our ministries, and our prayer truly form one healthy and supportive ecological system. May our various authors in this issue contribute to our insight and give us perspective in our quest. David L. Fleming, S.J. The God of the Scriptures: An Invitation to Passionate Prayer Anthony Wieczorek, O.Praem. Father Anthony Wieczorek, O.Praem., is currently chaplain of the Sign of God Deaf Ministry office which serves the Deaf and Hearing Impaired community of the Green Bay diocese. He also directs the Theological Institute, a summer program at St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin. He continues to write a weekly article for the local diocesan newspaper. His address is St. Norbert Abbey; De Pere, Wiscon-sin 54115-2697. We all have them. Most of us have learned to control, even ignore them. But for some, they appear unasked for and when they do they are toler-ated with all the patience we have for a head cold. They are our emo-tions, our deep seated emotions, the dark and passionate side of our hu-man nature. We enjoy them when, at sports activities, we give ourselves permis-sion to act outraged or triumphant and they suit our moods. We like it when they sneak out quietly in the form of tears at the end of a touching movie. They may also try to make their presence known during prayer, but here they are often considered most distracting and least desired. And yet, if there is a time for emotion, if there is a time for passion at all, it is during prayer. Prayer is a naturally revealing activity. Ii is natural that passionate emotions should arise within us during.prayer. They are conduits to the parts of ourselves God wishes most to go. It is little wonder we should find them straining to emerge. Could it be that they are even called forth by a God eager to touch this part of ourselves so seldom shared? Unfortunately, they are the parts of ourselves we least of all like. Most often, they are corridors to the side of ourgelves we fear. They lead 643 60,4 / Review for Religious, September-October 1989 into the cauldron of emotion we have not yet learned to control. We may not be really sure what lurks there but we are fairly confident that God has no part of it, that it is best shielded from God,-that what surges there is best atoned for in secret, not something to be proud of and shared openly with God. But are passionate emotions like anger and jealousy and lust called forth during times of prayer so that we can "confess" to them? Or are they summoned at God's own invitation? Can it be, might it be, that God can desire a passionate prayer as well and as much as a prayer that is con-templative, tranquil, and serene? Might it be that the God who appears ¯ throughout the pages of the Bible speaks to us best and can identify with us most through the part of ourselves we keep most hidden? The God of the Scriptures is indeed a passionate God. This article is an exploration of that theme and of the constructive relationship that exists between passion and prayer. The Passionate Nature of God Pascal was right when he said that there seemed to be two Gods: the God discussed by philosophers and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of the Scriptures. Most people prefer the philosophers' God. That Being is reasonable, controlled, logical. The God of the phi-losophers thinks, plans, orders, foresees. There is, of course, a "feel-ing" side to this God too. God does, after all, feel compassion and love for creation. But those "feelings" are held well in check and are dis-pensed cooly and properly. This God seems to resemble a fine Victorian gentleman/scholar. And, very often, especially here in the Western world, that is the image we would like to have of ourselves. That is the standard and goal we set for ourselves. The point is not that this image of God is false. But is it all there is? Is it only one side of a much more complex personality? Do we, with a too exclusively philosophical model of God, lose some of God's mys-tery because we fail to pay proper attention to God's emotion and pas-sionate nature? Perhaps such a theology is no more complete than an anthropology that deliberately ignores the emotional and passionate side of human be-ing? The point of human growth is to integrate and harmonize the parts of our nature i'nto one. To ignore our emotions is to ignore half of our selves. In addition to being rational, thinking creatures, human beings also love, feel anger, jealousy, crave revenge, desire, and feel pity. We are indeed complex beings. Can we dare imagine a God who is any less? Moreover, if we are so thoroughly emotional and if we were made in The God of the Scriptures / 6t15 God's own image and likeness, what can we conclude about God? Scripture tells us that "God is love." Love is, to be sure, more than an intellectual attitude or disposition toward life. Love is an emotion. Peo-ple in love are known sometimes to do strange things, spontaneous things, unpredictable things. Or so they seem to us. But to them, fol-lowing the "logic of love," their actions have a rationality, a purpose, an order. Finding it, though, and seeing the reasoning behind such ac-tions can be almost as hard as finding the sense and reason behind some of God's actions in our lives. God is not illogical nor is God emotion-ally unstable. God is simply love. God is simply in love with us "and with ¯ all of creation. God is a Being of great and passionate emotion. That, at least, is what the Scriptures tell us. Perhaps, to beg the question a bit, that is why God chose the Jews in the first place as recorders of divine revelation. The Jews, and all Near Eastern people for that matter, were extremely emotional and passionate people. Check the papers--they still are. But if you were God, would you have chosen them to write the record of your revelation? Many people would probably have preferred the Greeks. Their philo-sophical bent would more likely have appealed to us. And indeed, they would probably have done an admirable job at revealing God's mind. But could they have matched the Jewish brilliance for revealing God's heart? The Jewish passion for life was a most fitting medium for the man-ner of God's message. For the Scriptures reveal in emotional and pas-sionate imagery and terms the heart as well as the mind of God. Maybe, we argue, the Jewish people were simply transferring their own emotional nature onto God and that God no more has passionate feel-ings than God has legs withwhich to walk around in the garden of Eden. Yet, even though they were not meant to be read literally, all the images and words do reveal and communicate something about God. To glean this, though, the Scriptures must be read with an open mind and heart. God's Emotional Involvement in Life What do the Scriptures tell us about God? The Bible reveals a God who is very much alive and near. The biblical God does not observe the glories and follies of creation from afar. This is not a God who aloofly administri~tes creation and human history. Rather, this is a God who min-isters, to it and within it. The God of the Bible is pastorally involved in human life. We know that because the Scriptures reveal a God who is emotionally involved in human life. There are levels and degrees of involvement in community, in fam-ily, in politics, in everything regarding life. One criterion for measuring 646 / Review for Religious, September-October 1989 or determining the depth of involvement is the amount of emotional in-vestment shown. In community living, for example, it is easy enough to state one's involvement in community affairs. One may even show up at community meetings and functions. But does that person's words and presence communicate an active involvement or a benign disinterest? Does body language alone, for instance, tell the others present that, "I am here to observe. Really, I couldn't care less what happens. It is some-what interesting, even humorous though. Just continue and pretend I'm not here." No words may communicate that. But the message is made, communicated through posture, through sleepy eyes and flacid facial e~- pression. On the other hand is the person very much involved in the pro-ceedings. Like the other, thi~ person says not a word. Yet through all the same means the message communicated is much different. This per-son exhibits interest through a tense body, through a face that while si-lent is red with anger or aglow with satisfaction. The eyes hold an inter-est, the palms sweat, a leg fidgets nervously. This person is truly and pastorally present and alive. Why? Because the person is visibly emo-tionally involved. And that is what we want from each other and from God. Similarly, why do we become upset with the "professional" pastor who runs the office well and administrates the parish efficiently but who cannot feel his people's pain, who cannot rejoice at someone's birth or mourn at another's death? Why do we feel cheated? Why does the per-son seem pastorally out of touch and somehow less a priest than the pas-tor who is able and willing to be emotionally present to the people? Why does the emotionally uninvested pastor seem to communicate less God's presence? Why do we feel disappointed? For what reason do we feel we should be able to expect and receive more? All of this speaks to an image or a set of expectations we have about God. Because God cares, God's ministers should also care. Because God is able to and does feel with the people, so should God's priests and pas-toral workers. We want and need to feel God present in our lives and feel cheated by those who serve in God's name if somehow we cannot sense from them a deeper presence of God than the merely physical. We want and feel a right to expect an emotional presence and involvement. We want our pastoral workers to be passionately present and active. We want and expect that because we feel God is passionately present and ac-tive. But why? Does that expectation and feeling originate within us alone? Or is that the image Of God that is mysteriously and boldly com- The God of the Scriptures /647 municated through almost every page of the Bible? Indeed, God is most emotionally present and involved in the lives of the Jewish people. That is true from exodus to exile, from restoration through resurrection. God communicates through the Scriptures a presence and involvement that is intensely passionate. The Passionate God of the Prophets Nowhere is this more evident than in the writings of the prophets. Within the prophetic books we see a picture of a God at wits' end. The people had rebelled from God's love and were running headlong toward destruction. We hear a response from God that is the emotional equal of what is politically, socially, and spiritually at stake. Read with the emotion befitting the texts Amos 8:4-8 or 4:!-3 or Hosea'l !:1-11 or Jeremiah 7:i-20 or Isaiah 54:78 or any of the other prophets, and you find the words of a person on the edge, the words of a person who is not at all detached or even mildly interested. In those words and so many others we receive a message of a God filled with pas-sion for the welfare of his people, a God who is truly emotionally in-volved in the life, past and future, of his people. If there is anger in God's words, it is the anger of a parent or lover, the passion of someone who cares tremendously about another. It is an anger born of frustration and love. Who has been in love without feel-ing anger? Love is a powerful emotion that opens us up to other equally powerful feelings. And what of the energy invested in both love and an-ger? Passion has a high price in emotional energy that is paid only by those truly sincere about what they feel. The quality and quantity of God's emotion so naked and strong throughout the prophets is testimony to the sincerity of God's passionate love. Moreover, it is a passion and sincerity that God expects in return. Love that is deep and intense expects a return in kind. One of our ways of showing love is through our prayer, both private and liturgical. Note, then, in Isaiah I:11-16 and Amos 5:21-25 and Jeremiah 7:21-28, the re-action of God to worship that is liturgically correct but void of sincerity and feeling. God expects a worship from the heart, a worship that is a reflection of our love. To be proper and true to the rubrics is not enough, not even the most important thing. What God seeks is what God gives, a prayer that is emotionally sincere. What God "hates" and "detests," what is "loathsome" to God is prayer empty of affect. That does not mean that worship must be a wild and ecstatic affair. However, it must be sincere; it must reveal an authentic human warmth. Worship, prayer, is more than so many words or lack of them. We can 648 / Review for Religious, September-October 1989 meditate quite correctly and all without opening our hearts in love. A prayer that is emotionally fl~t.and cold is the sacrifice displeasing to God. Perhaps that is why Paul tells.us that because "we-do, not know how to pray as we ought, the Spirit makes intercession f~or us with groanings that cannot be-expressed in speech" (Rm 8:26). That is an invitation to pray our feelings, to pray from and with our emotions. That is what God asks for and longs to share, for it is that which is most truly in our hearts. The Spirit helps us to raise what we are feeling in prayer, even if it can be expressed in no other way than by a groan. Since we are to live as we pray, God expects from us a life that is emotionally honest and open. How often we repress our feelings and hold in check our passion. We refuse to allow ourselves to feel and that pre-vents us from being as effective and compassionate as Jesus was and calls us to be. The "cry of the poor" is too painful to hear so we learn to close to the poor not only our ears but also our hearts. We dull our abil-ity and willingness to feel and so lose a major motivating force behind Christian action. Pity is not the issue here, rather compassion and jus-tice. Perhaps it was because Jesus was a man of such strong emotions that he was as compassionate and sensitive as the Scriptures say. Yet not only did Jesus have strong feelings, he was willing to live with them and feel them. Because he did not repress what he felt but lived what he felt he could be moved enough to touch and heal the leper (Mk 1:41) and raise the widow's son (Lk 7:11-17). If Jesus was the troublemaker and law-breaker the Pharisees claimed, it was because he allowed his emotions to so move his charity and inspire his faith that he saw not simply the law but the people the law did not and could not serve. God's Call for a Passionate Faith Jesus' emotion is most manifest in his faith. Many people were raised to believe that faith is something we do with our minds, that faith is an intellectual act of agreement or obedience to a tradition or set of beliefs. While it may be that, it is not only that. This is clear from the way Jesus lived and how he believed. For Jesus, faith was an emotion that gripped not only his mind, but his heart and body as well. Oftentimes one emotion is held in check by another. A boy, for in-stance, may want to introduce himself to a girl. The "love" he feels for her is held in check, though, by his "fear" of being rejected. He de-cides to say nothing. Fear has overruled his young love. Similarly, a per-son may feel inclined to speak out on a justice issue. That person too feels fear. But this time the person's convictions on the matter, the per- The God of the Scriptures / 649 son's belief, is the stronger of the two and bids the person to speak out. Here faith overruled fear. All of us know what fear is, all of us have felt it. Reflect for a mo-ment what happens when you feel fear. The mind freezes, it becomes difficult or even impossible to think. The entire body is also affected. Knees shake, palms sweat, the mouth runs dry. If the fear is sharp enough we may even close our eyes and prefer to block out the cause of our fear. Fear, to be sure, is a powerful emotion. It would require, then, an equally powerful emotion to counter it. Only two emotions give us the courage to overcome fear: love and faith--although the two are intimately related. A mother stands terrified at the sight of her burning home when she hears the cry of her child from within. Her fear of the flames and smoke cause her to stand for a mo-ment paralyzed until love for her child overpowers the fear and forces her in to rescue him. Jeremiah the prophet stands equally terrified be-fore the people gathered at the Temple. He too, however, hears--or rather feels--an inner voice, the call of God bidding him to speak in God's name. For a moment his fear prevails before the faith within his heart overwhelms it and causes him to cry out. . How many of us have had our faith compromised by fear? By clos-ing ourselves to our feelings, by repressing our emotions, we have been eliminating a source of strength that could well empower our faith to ri-val that of tl~e prophets. If our faith is solely intellectual it is but half, at best, of what it could be. Faith is authentic when it flows from our hearts, when it flows from our love for God. Jeremiah, for example, and Jesus after him, may have seemed like people without faith because they spoke against the traditions and cus-toms of the people. They could rightly be asked, "Have you no faith, Jeremiah, in the Temple and the promise God made to dwell in it always? Why is it so hard for you to have faith in what our traditions teach.? Why can't you agree with them?" Faith in this sense is an act of the intellect. But for Jeremiah, for the other prophets, and for Jesus, faith was an act of love; its motive force was an intuition of God's abiding presence within. They felt God's love and returned it as they could (that is, they believed) and it was that faith in God's love that enabled them to stand up and say what their hearts could not deny. The love they felt empowered them, gave their faith the spirit of cour-age. All of us are given the gift of that love. All of us have within our-selves the courage to truly use our faith. But so often in closing ourselves to our emotions, in denying them, we deny ourselves the grace, the love, Review for Religious, September-October 1989 that gives us the courage to truly believe. Jesus and the prophets before him were not ashamed of their emotions. Indeed, they prayed with them (Jeremiah's lamentations, for example) by bringing them before God in-stead of hiding them in the dark recesses of their spirits. By so doing, they provide an example for all us of authentic living and prayer. Praying with our Emotions Oddly enough, it is the emotion of fear that most inhibits us from bringing our.other emotions to prayer. As mentioned earlier, prayer is a naturally revealing activity. In prayer, the love and union we share with God is revealed and made known to us. We may receive the revelation of truths and intuitions about questions and problems we may have, as well as insights into God and ourselves. It is this that often scares us into emotional and spiritual repression. In the quiet, centering communion of prayer with God, we forget to maintain many of the blocks and barriers we place between our conscious selves and our more disquieting emotions. Suddenly and quite unexpect-edly we can find the composure of our prayer compromised by unwel-comed feelings. The person whose thoughts continue to center upon feel-ings of passion for a lover, the religious whose heart is suddenly filled with anger and resentment toward a superior, the person who becomes aware of his or her jealousy and envy--all of these people find the re-warding calm of prayer ruined by the onslaught of emotions. In each of these cases, whether or not prayer has been ruined de-pends upon whose agenda is being followed. Prayer is a dialogue. How-ever, especially with meditation, prayer can become a monologue of si-lence. Our meditation can be but another way of saying, "Listen God, there are just some things I'd sooner not think about. Why don't we just sit here quietly and ignore them together." Our prayer agenda calls for some peace and quiet, a bit of reprieve, a break in the action of confron-tation. Yet we find ourselves continually pestered by thoughts and feel-ings we've decided not to share. Might it be, however, that their contin-ual interruption is an effort on God's part to make it part of our prayer? Might God have an agenda too? And might that agenda include the very feelings we are so desperate to ignore? It might do well, then, since prayer is a dialogue, to "ask" God about what should be shared. One way of doing so is by beginning our prayer with a bit of soul searching journaling. We might record what and how we are feeling, any significant encounters we have had with peo-ple, good and bad. The point is not to dwell on any of them. Rather we acknowledge what is already inside of us. We acknowledge it to God and The God of the Scriptures / 651 to ourselves. Then, having done that, we set it aside and open ourselves to God. Yet, the very action of having been honest with ourselves about what we arefeeling has already opened the doors to our deepest selves to God. We have laid everything bare and have effectively told God, "Well, now that you know, what do you say?" Then if our prayer is quiet, perhaps God is saying, "Let it rest for now," and so we should. If, however, we find the emotions returning, perhaps we should pay them some prayerful attention. It is one matter to continually harp on a feeling and another tO at-tend to one that finds its way to the surface. Yet it is here that fear can overcome all else and totally inhibit our communion with God, not to mention any communion with ourselves. We are afraid of what may come if we allow our emotions to flow. We are afraid of what God may think if we stood before God with emotions bare. Perhaps most of all, we are afraid of what we would have to admit about ourselves if we al-lowed our spiritual vision to focus upon our feelings. Especially in times of stress, when we need prayer most, we are most reluctant, most afraid to pray because the emotions we so fear are so close to surface, so hard to dispel. In such cases the fear and shame we so strongly feel should be the opening movement of our prayer. But here is the test. Have we the faith to share what we fear? Here we become the shy person struggling to talk to a friend. Here we become the mother rooted in fear or stirred by love into action. Here we find the revelation, not of God but of ourselves, that prayer so powerfully conveys. Here we find a truth about ourselves. Prayer is a dialogue. Has God been speaking, shouting through hands pressed tight against our ears, trying to get through? Summary We can repress our prayer and weaken our faith because we are un-willing to face the passion of our own emotions. Why? Is it God's rejec-tion or wrath that we fear or is it facing the truth about ourselves? Some people are simply ashamed that they are emotional people at all. Some-where many of us have learned that we should be rational at the expense of being emotional. Emotions are something to master, signs of weak-ness, occasions for sin. To be holy is to be emotionally controlled. Pei-haps. To be sure, some emotions need to be held in check. Some need to be confessed. But not all. Our emotions are occasions for grace, provided we let our God work through them. They can be conduits leading to deeper prayer. They can be the means for facing and overcoming our fear of living. For indeed, 652 / Review for Religious, September-October 1989 without emotions we are less than human. We were made in the image and likeness of a living, feeling God who is revealed in the pages of Scrip-ture as a truly passionate lover, a God who, for example, is quite honest about being "jealous." We were made to have feelings and to use our emotions to feel and act alive. If Jesus was not ashamed of the force of his emotions, why should we? As Christians we are called to become fully alive. That means learn-ing to live with and harness our emotions. Truly, our emotions are gifts from God, gifts to be enjoyed, gifts for which we can be grateful. But before any of that can happen, our emotions must first be accepted. The Dancer Is falling in love with you autumn leaves swirling in the wind, fish swimming in the flooded ,,;hallows after a heavy rainfall? Is this love a meditative symphony, where the listener is impelled to pause, be attentive to the secret voice talking with his heart? Is this love a walk without fear into the forest of Solitude, where I go to plant my tree of hope? Is this love an ancient la Jota, sometimes graceful and slow, at other moments fast and exciting? How do I overcome my reluctance? Become like David, who danced before the Lord because it was pleasing to him? Brother Richard Heatley, F.S.C. De La Salle Centre 45 Oaklands Avenue Toronoto, Ontario M4V 2E4, Canada Romantic Relations with the Sacred Richard J. DeMaria, C.F.C. Brother Richard DeMaria, C.F.C., currently serves as Executive Vice President and the Vice President for Academic Affairs at lona College. His address is lona Col-lege; New Rochelle, New York 10801. In the recent, surprisingly successful film, Th~rOse, based on the life of St. Th6r~se of Lisieux, there is a scene that has remained with me for months. Th6r~se's sister visits her during what was to be a terminal ill-ness, and noticing that Th6r~se has pinned a small crucifix to her pil-low, observes: "So you two are back together again." To which, as I recall it, Th6r~se blushes and nods in agreement. The audience--a New York City audience--to my amazement did not laugh here or at any time during a movie which portrayed Th6r~se as a woman engaged in a ro-mantic relationship with Jesus, a relationship characterized by falling outs, jealousies, reunions, disagreements, and coquetry. And by love. And by passion. The film places Th6r~se in a very old tradition of spirituality, a tra-dition which uses the language and ways of romantic love to describe a person's interaction with the sacred. The romantic poem "The Song of Songs" comes immediately to mind: the longing of a bride for her bride-groom is used as an image of the human experience with the sacred. Ap-parently that image was found sufficiently apt among the Hebrew peo-ple for the poem to be included and preserved in its canon of sacred litera-ture. We find in other religions similar spiritualities linking sexual im-agery and prayer, the link sometimes explicitly recognized and cele-brated, at other times, we assume, camouflaged and unrecognized but fairly apparent to those who read between lines. As R. Zaehner, the Oxford authority on mysticism, observes: 653 654 / Review for Religious, September-October 1989 There is no point at all blinking at the fact that the raptures of the theis-tic mystic are closely akin to the transports of sexual union, the soul play-ing the part of the female and (~od appearing as the male. ~ In the history of religion, one finds many spiritualities that approach life as if there were two lovers involved. In Hinduism, one finds among the different paths by which one can yoke himself or herself to God, the path of bhakti in which one takes on the Lord as lover. Kabir, the fif-teenth- century Indian mystic, as translated by Bly, uses the term "the Guest" to name the inner lover: My body and my mind are in depression because you are not with me. How much I love you and want you in. my house! When 1 hear people describe me as your bride I look sideways ashamed, Because I know that far inside us we have never met. Then what is this love of mine? I don't really care about food, I don't really care about sleep, I am restless indoors and outdoors. The bride wants her lover as much as a thirsty man wants water. And how will I find someone who will take a message to the Guest from me? How restless Kabir is all the time! How much he wants to see the Guest!z The existence of a relationship between mysticism and sexuality is clear and widespread in the historical record. The question is: how shall we interpret and understand the presence of romaritic and sexual lan-guage in religious writing? More to the point are the following questions: Is it possible to carry on a love relationship with an invisible, non-human lover? Does this spirituality find any basis in the way things are? Is there someone there to love? Is this use of romantic language healthy? Unless we at least advert to these questions from the outset, they stand as obstacles to our ability to approach this tradition with openness. There are many analysts who interpret experiences of romantic spiri-tuality as situations in which sexual energy, having been denied its usual outlet, finds a (distorted) outlet in the religious arena. Accordingly, mys-ticism is in reality sexual energy that is misdirected. Although this sub-limation is usually unrecognized by the person involved, its true nature can be readily recognized by the perceptive observer. In sum, people in-volved in religious romanticism are victims of misplaced energy; their lives are based upon an unreal perception of the way things are. Other analysts suggest that the situation is quite the opposite: a ba-sic drive, a basic need within humans, is for union with the transcendent. Romantic Relations with the Sacred / 655 According to this theory, the mystic is a person who is responding quite directly to this basic drive. Other humans respond to this drive by en-gaging themselves in sexual, romantic relationships with other humans. This is a valid way of fulfilling this need. The power of human, inter-personal sexuality, and the way that relationship is experienced and de-scribed, derive from the more basic desire of the human to interact with the sacred. Because the inter-human sexual experience is one form of the more general mystical experience, it should not surprise us that the lan-guage of human love and the language of mystical 10ve are quite simi-lar. Alan W. Watts, in Myth and Ritual in Christianity makes the fol-lowing observation: But a sexually self-conscious culture such as our own must beware of its natural tendency to see religion as a symbolizing of sex, for to sexu-ally uncomplicated people it has always been obvious that sex is a sym-bol of religion. That is to say, the ecstatic self-abandonment of nuptial love is the average man's nearest approach to the selfless state of mys-tical and metaphysical experience. For this reason the act of love is the easiest and most readily intelligible illustration of what it is like to be in "union with God," to live the eternal life, free from self and time.3 Perhaps it will never be possible to prove convincingly which of these two theories is true. Some look to an epistemology which concen-trates its attention not on questions about the way things are but rather on questions about what ways work. Such an approach considers a the-ory to be true, or a path to be true, when it works. Pragmatic approaches to understanding our lives can reflect a careless and shallow attitude about truth, but not necessarily so. The form of pragmatism discussed here, recognizing the complexity of the human psyche and the mystery of the sacred, and recognizing the inability of the human mind to under-stand these with any clarity, reasons that if a particular construct or the-ory works, it works because it approximates the way things are. This is an epistemology often used in the physical sciences. Consider, for ex-ample, the solar system model of the atom. No one has seen an atom. Serious scientists do not think that the atom is composed of electrons, circling a nucleus of neutrons and protons, like a solar system. Scien-tists, however, have used the construct of a solar system when thinking about the atom, because when they have followed out the implications of that model, they have been able to explain many past experiences (ex-periments). And, even more importantly, when they devised new experi-ments and applications suggested by the model, these led to important new discoveries. Science has done well, then, to think of the atom as if 656 / Review for Religious, September-October 1989 it were a solar system. Even if the atom is not a solar system, the solar system picture predicts how the atom will work. And it is not unreason-able to conclude from this that in many ways the solar system model ap-proximates the reality of the atom. In sum, while recognizing that a con-struct is an imagined picture, a person follows it because she believes that it will lead her close to the way things are. Against the background of this epistemology, we can now turn our attention to those paths in which a person is involved in a relationship with a person who is not physically present but who is perceived to be real, important, and worthy of ~ittention; a relationship which according to the person herself and according to observers, gives direction and strength. Whether the other is perceived as guru, teacher, patron, guide, angel, patron saint, or--as in the particular spirituality we are discuss-ing-- as the romantically loved one, the relationship has a real effect upon the growth and behavior of the participant. In his play Big Shot, Jack Gelber portrays the positive, powerful influence which two "imagi-nary" persons--a wise, aged prophetic man, and a seductive woman-- have upon a young man's ability to make decisions about his life and to move toward maturity. (Interestingly, these two visitors never appear to-gether in the boy's thoughts; the appearance of one signals the exit of the other. At the play's end, however, they interact with one another and exit together, perhaps symbolizing something of an integration of the re-ligious and the sexual in his consciousness.) According to what was said above, one should evaluate the tradition of romantic spirituality by asking: What happens to persons when they act as if there were an inner sacred person there? Does it lead to desir-able ends? In this approach one judges a religious path worth consider-ing if it has "worked" for many people, in many religions, in many dif-ferent ages. What is meant by "worked"? The validity of this or any path is established by its ability to lead practitioners into that special con-sciousness which is called "religious." In the Christian faith, people in that consciousness are said to be in the state of sanctifying grace and ex-hibit characteristics such as love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Ga 5:22). History attests that the path of devotion, of romantic love, is a path that has led many to that consciousness; the way works. The seeker of God who utilizes the con-struct of romantic love does not need to know for certain whether there is a real person with whom she can interact in love. She does know that when she acts as if there were such a person, wonderful things do hap-pen. In Bhakti Yoga, the author writes: Romantic Relations with the Sacred / 657 All our attitudes, moral or emotional, as well as religious are due to the objects of our consciousness: the things which we believe to exist whether really or ideally along with ourselves. Such objects may be pre-sent to our senses or they may be present to our thought; in either case they elicit from us a reaction and the reaction due to things of thought is notoriously in many cases as strong as that due to sensible presences. It may even be stronger . 4 How does one follow this path? By undertaking the same practices which a man or woman utilizes in establishing a love relationship with a human being. By conversing. By sharing feelings. By trying to please. By actions of union. By admiration. By efforts to merge into one an-other. By writing poems of love. By singing songs of love. By making sacrifices. By exchanging gifts. By establishing rituals, special places, and special times. By secrets shared. By anger expressed. And by hurts told. By arguing. By compromising. How does one advise or counsel a person on this path? As one would advise or counsel a person struggling with any experience of love. The spiritual director will help him to recognize the stages of love. The di-rector will lead her to expect periods of doubt, of loneliness, of seeming neglect, of loss of attraction--the dark nights of the soul. He must be assisted in learning the art of conversation, and especially the art of lis-tening. (For let there be no doubt about it: the person does experience conversation, responses and answers that surprise by their unexpected-ness. Where do these answers come from? Suffice it to say that when questions are asked of this inner lover, this inner guest,' one "hears" answers.) The director will need to counsel the practitioner about the im-portance of fidelity, to help recall the good times in moments of dark-ness, and to point her to better times ahead. The person engaged in this path does experience another actor in his life. Outside observers may wish to interpret this experience as the ef-fects of the "alter ego," or the "subconscious," or the "repressed self." These interpretations should not be allowed to discourage the lover, if forhim the experience of this other is real, and if the effects of carrying out a relationship of love with that "person" are beneficial and if they are leading her into grace. This path does not work for everyone. In New Wineskins,5 Sandra Schneiders observes that in earlier times it was assumed that all women entering into the religious life would find in this romantic spirituality a comfortable and effective path. Women religious, on their day of pro-fession, came to the altar dressed as brides, as the choir sang "Veni Review for Religious, September-October 1989 Sponsa Christi," in a ceremony that was designed to imitate in many ways that of a marriage. Schneiders suggests that in fact many Sisters did not find this path to be effective for them. For many, it was a kind of play.acting, which in later years---especially if they were influenced by Freudian thinking--they came to regard as a childish effort to subli-mate energies better redirected in other ways. Today, almost all traces of this bridal spirituality have been removed from the rituals and from the language of contemporary religious women. Women who have en-tered religious life in recent years may not even be aware of this spiritu-ality. By way of conclusion, two questions about this path of spirituality suggest themselves. First, in this relationship, does the soul always take the role of the feminine to the masculine God, a role in which the hu-man seeks to be filled, empowered, or taken over by the other? The male poet, Kabir, cited before, who wrote in a culture which knew of both male and female gods, always--at least in translation--describes him-self as feminine in relationship to the sacred. Listen to the following poem: I played for ten years with the girls of my own age, but now I am sud-denly in fehr. I am on the way up some stairs--they are high. Yet I have to give up my fears if I want to take part in this love. I have to let go of the protective clothes and meet him with the whole length of my body. My eyes will have to be the love candles this time. Kabir says: Men and women in love will understand this poem. If what you feel for the holy one is not desire, then what's the use of dressing with such care, and spending so much time making your eyelids dark.6 Can one approach the sacred as masculine? Or must one utilize the feminine side (the anima) in one's relationship with the sacred (assum-ing of course that every person, regardless of gender, is both animus and anima)? And if this is true, will this path of spirituality come more natu-rally to women than to men? Or, again if it is true, would the fact that a person has a gay or lesbian orientation affect the attractiveness and ef-fectiveness of this spirituality? A second questign.: what (if any) is the connection between this spousal spirituality and celibacy? Clearly, spousal spirituality does ap-peal and does work for non-celibates as well as celibates. Does celibacy enable one to pursue this path more quickly or more deeply? Does the fact that one is not pursuing the path of romantic human love dispose one Romantic Relations with the Sacred / 659 toward this path more urgently? Or, to take the quite opposite position, would familiarity and experience with human romantic love give one the lexicon and the understandings that enable one to move more quickly into this more interior love? To conclude: the spiritual path of romantic relationships with the sa-cred has been neglected in recent years, perhaps because twentieth-century psychology has called into question so many of the foundations upon which it was based. There is, however, a way of understanding our ways of knowing, consonant with contemporary science, which gives 'permission' to those so attracted to follow this path, to see whether it leads them into grace. While the path will not attract, nor work for, eve-ryone, a knowledge of its history and dynamics should be made avail-able to those who are searching for ways into the world of the sacred. NOTES ~ R.C. Zaehner, Mysticism, Sacred and Profane, (New York, 1961), p. 151. 2 Robert Bly, trans., The Kabir Book, (Boston, 1977), p. 20. 3 Alan W. Watts, Myth and Ritual in Christianity, (Boston, 1968), p. 104. 4 "Bhikshu," Bhakti Yoga, (Chicago, 1930), p. 19. 5 Sandra Schneiders, New Wineskins, Re-imagining Religious Life Today, (New York, !986), p. 116. 6 Bly, p. 42. Negative Floating Barbara Dent Barbara Dent, mother and grandmother, has been for eigthteen years a Secular Carme-lite. She published "The Floating Prayer" in our issue of March/April 1988. The current article is a part of a book-in-process called Floating in Endless Love. She may be addressed at Poustinia; 7A Cromwell Place; Pukekohe, New Zealand. In this article I use the word "floating" to indicate the kind of detach-ment and freedom that is attained once we have ascended a certain dis-tance up the nada path. When I write of "floating in endless love," 1 mean the traditional self-abandonment to divine providence as exemplified by holy people of any age, and written about by such recognized saints as Teresa, John of the Cross, Francis de Sales, Jane Frances de Chantal, Caussade, Th~r~se. Our Lady is, of course, the supreme exemplar, and her "Be it done unto me according to your word," a succinct summary of the doc-trine. Divine providence is God's endless love. It had no beginning and will never have an end. It is conterminous with his Being and expresses itself throughout his creation. When he made us in his own image, he gave us the ability to be ef-fortlessly immersed in this love, borne along in the currents and eddies of its movement in time and space, as it ordained and controlled the cir-cumstances of our lives, and we rejoiced in its faultless wisdom and ten-derness. At that beginning-time we had our Creator's discerning Spirit within us, and joyfully cooperated with the process of floating in the divine will, for through it the perfection of his love for us expressed itself, and we were fully open and receptive to it. We were in the state of innocence, which means single-mindedness and wholeness of heart. 660 Negative Floating / 66"1 Then came the "aboriginal catastrophe"--in one, or many, of a num-ber of possible forms. Its basic effect was to confuse, divide, and mis-lead us about the nature of our relationship with our Master. We were, and are, no longer in that original state of love-union's positive, effort-less floating. Instead, we are too often thrashing about in protest at being in the water at all. We persist in struggling to reach some imaginary shore, strik-ing out against the current, gulping water, feeling terrified that we are drowning, pushing away Love's hand held out to draw us to safety, and generally being at odds with our spiritual environment. Our innocence lost, we have become acquainted with sin--actual or potential, deliberate or involuntary. Floating in endless love does not any longer seem to be the obvious, healthy, joyous thing for us to do. We have lost the art, and have to be taught all over again by grace. And because we no longer learn the mys-teries of God effortlessly through direct infusion, the Spirit's modes of teaching us often register on us as nay-saying, destructive, painful, and incomprehensible. This is because God's endless love flowing into us is constantly encountering obstacles of self-love and self-will within us. These cause the flow to be interrupted, dammed up, diverted, and im-peded in numberless ways. We now have to re-learn what we were fashioned to know without even thinking about it. This learning is painful and arduous, and regis-ters on us as a state of negative floating. It entails erasure of all those obstacles against floating--whether personally manufactured, handed on to us by our families and social milieu, or inherited and buried so deeply in our mysterious inner being that we shall never even catch sight of them, let alone drag them up and free ourselves from them, unless the Spirit helps us in a very special way. We are weighted down so that we are more likely to sink to the ocean bed than to float in delight in the surface currents of God's purpose, rev-elling in their effortless, exact progress towards our ultimate fulfillment in him. Positive and negative floating are part of the normal cycle of conso-lation and desolation in the spiritual life. If we persevere in floating in God's loving purpose for us, there comes a time when, just as his crea- ¯ tive energy evolved birds out of fish, he somehow dispenses altogether with the metaphorical liquid element in order to lift us up so high in the Spirit that we are suspended in midair. We usually think of such suspension as bodily levitation and miracu- 662 / Review for Religious, September-October 1989 IOUS. But the essence of free-floating in the atmosphere, metaphorically speaking, is entirely spiritual and interior, a flight of the spirit that usu-ally has no physical, exterior signs at all. It is the result of an opening up to God's love that on our part includes the complete abandonment of our whole selves to his usage, and on his part such lavish infusion of his grace that its energy elevates us temporarily into his own Being. This is the ultimate in positive floating. It mysteriously and paradoxi-cally also includes the ultimate in negative floating, for in order to give ourselves up to it, we need to have renounced all the not-God elements so that there is now nothing at all in us or our lives opposing his desire to take full possession of us. God is non-corporeal. When this moment of total possession takes place, he draws up our non-corporeal spirit to merge with his own. This merging, can be accomplished in both, or either, of the positive and nega-tive floating states. After about six months of intensely positive floating immediately af-ter my reception into the Church in 1956, I was gradually translated into the negative floating state and remained there without any remission for nearly twelve years. During my conversion year, 1955, I had already learnt to enter Christ's passion with him by uniting my personal suffering with his in Gethsemane and throughout the various aspects of his passion, especially his cross-carrying and crucifixion. At one particular time in 1958 when I vividly experienced what I came to call the crucifixion of my heart, something extra happened within me that I could at the time define only as "entombment." Yet the crucifixion did not cease. I was somehow still on the cross with Christ even while I was lying dead with him in the cave tomb's cold darkness. I cannot explain how this was. I only know it happened, and was spiritually and interiorily real in an agonizing way. I think I was able to endure these years of intensely negative float-ing only because, during most of them, I was fully occupied being a daily Mass-goer, solo mother, housekeeper, teacher, breadwinner, writer, and student. There was not much opportunity for what my mother disparag-ingly used to call "navel-gazing"--adding, in exasperation, "Why don't you go out and have a good game of tennis!" In spite of immersion in an undoubtedly and unavoidably active life (my form of a good game of tennis!), I yet received insights from time to time that infused some sense into the non-sense of my relationship Negative Floating / 663 with God. For this was where the nonsense, the absurdity, occurred. My rela-tionship with Jesus in his incarnational work of suffering redeemer and crucified Lord made very good sense to me, and gave me the courage to go on enduring. It was from God and his ways that the conundrum originated. Once more he had become for me the "cruel, sadistic mon-ster" who, during the early war years, had caused my rejection of my personal and inadequate version of the Christian religion. One of the key insights I received in the earlier of these negative float-ing years of the 1960s came about as follows. I can visualize clearly where it happened, just as I can vividly recall .where other significant, instant comprehensions occurred, for example, those about "the abyss of corruption" and the self-love involved in my mechanism of setting out to "fascinate" certain people. Such instant dis-cernments come to me like a crystal globe enclosing the truth, and put whole and clear in my mind all at once. The experience is completely different from arriving at a similar conclusion by the laborious process - of ratiocination. It is a matier of immediate comprehension received as a whole and in passivity. In fact, in a floating state, as it were. On this particular occasion I was sitting one morning at the desk in the home of my eldest daughter and her husband, alone in the house ex-cept for a sleeping child. Then in one instant the insight came whole-- just like a very bright light being turned on in my mind, then extin-guished almost immediately, yet leaving behind it the vivid impression of a particular mystery made plain in its illumination. In this case, I "understood" what caused Jesus to cry out, "My God, my God, why have you rejected me?" Just as I had become one with him in other aspects of his passion at various times, now I had become one with him in his cry of derelic-tion. His cry was one with the cry of my own heart to an alien, absentee God, whose face was turned away from me in contempt. Jesus' despair-ing question was to do with his having consented to be "made sin" for us. This was the central point-of the illumination given me. I had bought my Knox bible in 1956 and used it until I obtained the Jerusalem version in 1969. The texts I have marked in the Knox were the ones that had very special meaning for me personally during these darkest years of the cry of dereliction. I have underlined, "Christ never knew sin, and God made him into sin for us, so that in him we might be turned into the holiness of God" (2 Co 5:21). I "saw" that sin was absolutely abhorrent to and automatically re- 664 / Review for Religious, September-October 1989 pudiated by God because it was the antithesis of his own unblemished holiness and purity. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to him-self, establishing in our hearts his message of reconciliation, instead of holding men to account for their sins" (2 Co 5: 19), and "In Christ the whole plenitude of Deity is embodied." Hanging on the cross, dying for us, "made sin," Jesus, though God himself, consented to be relegated in his manhood to the furthest possi-ble distance from God--as f~ir as pure sin must be, of its nature, dis-tanced from pure holiness. It must have been the most elemental, cata-clysmic, schizoid split of all time. In and through this alienation Jesus endured, "the world"--all of us sinners of all time--could be "reconciled" to God instead of being eternally severed from him in self-induced banishment. In effect, Jesus willed to go through the experience of damnation as our proxy, as vic-tim instead of us. This meant knowing God only through the aching void of his ab-sence; submitting to the punitive action of the total recoil of pure holi-ness from pure unholiness; being invaded by a sense of rejection so ab-solute as to know what the hell-state meant, and to be engulfed in it. There is impenetrable mystery here, a paradox so extreme that the human mind cannot encompass it. How could Christ, in whom "the whole plenitude of Deity" remained unimpaired, yet experience himself as "the totality of sin" rejected by that Deity? The how, the mystery, is beyond our human comprehension. The paradox is mind-blowing. I cannot explain fully what I "saw" in the illumination. At the time, I knew it without intellectual explication. This came later, as I meditated upon what I had received, and thought more about what Paul said, out of what was obviously his own personal experience and given insight. Enli/~htenments about this mystery hidden within Christ's dereliction cry have continued to come spasmodically to me up to this present time. "All alike have sinned, all alike are unworthy of God's praise. And justification comes to us as a free gift from his grace, through our re-demption in Christ Jesus. God has offered him to us as a means of rec-onciliation, in virtue of faith, ransoming us with his blood" (Rm 3:23- 25). I had already understood how the solidarity of the human race was such that the salvation or damnation of any one of us must involve and concern all of us. In pouring out in his shed blood his "free gift of grace" for us, Jesus excluded no one, for none of us is sinless. We are all inevitably born programmed for possible disaster by the racial accu- Negative Floating mulation of wrong turnings made while trying to reach a destination whose nature and location we are confused about. Our tendency to get lost is in our genes. ~ "In sin my mother conceived me," is not a reference to the sexual act as such, but to the fact that the whole of humanity is in a state of at least partial alienation from God and can be reconciled only through Christ. Jesus entered the furthest reaches of this alienation when, as the vic-tim for our sins, he uttered his cry of dereliction on the cross. I saw in my moment of illumination that, once I had in 1957 told God he could have me as a victim for the salvation of souls (if he wanted me), I had implicitly consented to enter in some way into this dereliction of Jesus, and keep him company. At the same time, I was not certain God had accepted my offer, for no one had yet confirmed that I was indeed a victim, and I was not to have that assurance for several years yet. It was only then that everything fitted together coherently. But I did see in that moment of revelation that here was the meaning and purpose of the annihilating experience of my-self as spurned and rejected by God, even while at the same time, in my will, I refused to let go of him, and clung on with all my strength. Much later, I realized that even while God "rejected" me, he gave me that very grace I needed to cling tenaciously to him. At the same time, the illumination did not bring me any comforting reassurance, for I could not really believe it applied to me. This may seem a contradiction, but the grace of comfort is an extra grace, and for those years of torment God chose to withhold it from me, no matter what insights he gave my intellect. That I already had a well-established, deep-seated rejection syn-drome as part of my emotional makeup made it simpler and easier for all of this to happen. Grace had only to activate and utilize what was al-ready there, so deeply rooted in my inner being. I believe that God did this in order to use me for others as I had pleaded with him to do. In the terms I have since evolved for myself, I was "floating". in the negative way with Jesus on the cross, as part of "the Dali image." I was there tb help my neighbor, any neighbor--it was for God to choose whom, I never asked to be shown who, how, or where. "Enemies of God, we were reconciled to him through his Son's death; reconciled to him, we are surer than ever of finding salvation in his Son's life. And, what is more, we can boast of God's protection; al-ways through our Lord Jesus Christ, since it is through him that we have 666 / Review for Religious, September-October 1989 attained our reconciliation"(Rm 5:10-1 I). "We who were taken up into Christ by baptism have been taken up, all of us, into his death . We have to be closely fitted into the pat-tern of his resurrection, as we have been into the pattern of his death" (Rm 6:3, 5). Sin and salvation, death and life, crucifixion and resurrection, Jesus and all of us--inseparable. It is all mingled together like the confluence of two mighty rivers flowing as one towards the ocean of eternity and infinity. We have to "share his sufferings if we are to share his glory" (Rm 8:17). Some refuse the suffering and do not believe in the glory. Proxies must, in their stead, agree to be immersed in the passion with Jesus, so that the glory will permeate them, too. He came to save all. His will to redeem the whole of humanity can-not and will not be thwarted, but we are all one with him, and so those who are willing must help him save those who are unwilling. He expects and requires this of his lovers, though not necessarily as explicit victims, for this must be a given vocation. "For thy sake, we face death at every moment, reckoned no better than sheep marked down for slaughter. Yet in all this we are conquer-ors, through him who has granted us his love" (Rm 8:36-37). In the "inscrutable judgments" and "undiscoverable ways" of God is hidden the mystery of the redemption of the human race, in which all participate, consciously or unconsciously. The willing "offer up their bodies as a living sacrifice" because "though we are many in number" (trillions and trillions of us back to the beginning and on to the end of time), we yet "form one body in Christ and each acts as the counter-part of the other" (see Rm 12). Paul insists we are "Christ's body, organs of it depending upon each other" (1 Co 12:27), and therefore "the sufferings of Christ overflow into our lives"--together with divine comfort (2 Co 1:5). For Paul, shar-ing in the sufferings of Christ in order to bring forth spiritual children for him, is a fundamental Christian vocation. He writes, "It makes me happy to suffer for you, as I am sufferi.ng now, and in my own body to do what I can to make up all that has still to be undergone by Christ for the sake of his body, the Church. I became the servant of the Church" (Col 1:24-25). All these teachings of St. Paul, marked in my Knox bible, had had dynamic personal meaning for me ever since 1956, the year of my re-ception into the Church. They had been fortified and elucidated by stud-ies of such theological works as The Whole Christ by E. Mersch, S.J. Negative Floating / 66"/ (Dobson, London, 1956). They were in the very fiber of my interior life, yet, though I knew, believed, and lived what Jesus exemplified and Paul taught and lived, no felt comfort and consolation resulted. I was given strength to endure (while experiencing myself as weak and destitute) and that was all. But to endure and to persevere is at the very basis of the nada path journey, and the grace given me to do this was among the supreme ones of my life. Father Basil had now become my director, though, as he had been transferred, we seldom had the chance to meet. What he wrote to me in a letter of July, 1963, is relevant to the above. I quote: God does love you very dearly. Think of the tremendous graces that you have received from him. Your desire to give him everything in return is all that matters. You give, generously, only to the One whom you love . I am not so much concerned about the aridity and difficulty that you are experiencing at your prayers and the seeming loss of God. What I am concerned about is your loss of peace and near panic, because of the difficulties. The temptation to discouragement is one of the most insidious and dangerous for an interior soul. If you are patient and do not allow this temptation to dictate any change in your program of the day, you have nothing to fear. In his own good time he will give you the light and the warmth that seem to have disappeared. There is noth-ing in your day that is not worthy of being offered to him. This means that you are every hour united more intimately with him. You are grow-ing in charity and all the virtues, without being conscious of the growth. The increase in charity is all that matters. His reassurance was a blessing, calming me until the next spasm of self-doubt and apparent rejection by God afflicted me. Then I would re-read what he said, and be comforted again. In a queer way it was as if God himself was telling me, "Don't worry. Everything's all right-- even though it seems to be all wrong." Again he was loving me through "a soul in which he had established himself," just as he had promised as I lay so ill and weak in the hospital. One or two entries in my journals record various aspects of my nega-tive floating at this time. In the following, I think my way through to a grace-enlightened conclusion in faith, hope, and trust. It was not given to me in~stantaneously as a crystal globe. I quote from a 1963 rare entry: It is the risen Lord who permeates the whole of creation. 1 have been experiencing the suffering Christ. The climax came in the crucifixion of my heart. Then entombment and silence. Only the dead Christ there, un- 668 / Review for Religious, September-October 1989 stirring~ and myself numb and seemingly dead with him year after year, waiting and praying and longing for the resurrection. Now I see the the Lord is risen. He fills my soul and the whole of his Mystical Body. He has risen as he said he would, even while I mourned him dead in me, and I dead with him. He is risen. How can this become more real to me, so that I too rise with him? Let me think . It is the risen Lord who permeates the whole of creation. Therefore he is not dead in me~ for his resurrection truly hap-pened. But something did die in me and was entombed. What was it? The overwhelming sense of entombment. Christ dead and in the tomb. And it was a significant turning point. What died? My attachment to and need of natural love? But the process of purgation through hu-man relationships still continues. Yet it is different. How? What died and was buried? "You have undergone death, and your life is buried and hidden away with Christ." I made a heartbreaking renunciation of my own free will, and I gave up--what? What died? My heart died. Yet I found other loves. "Christ, having undergone death, cannot die any more . He is not here; he has risen as he told you . We have to be closely fitted into the pattern of his resurrection, as we have been into the pattern of his death . We'know that Christ, now he has risen from the dead, cannot die any more. Death has no more power over him . " It was not Christ who died in me, for he cannot die any more. It was something in myself that died. And all the while I have been entombed, he has been living in my soul the life of the risen Lord. His resurrection is continuous just as much as his passion is. Somehow I have to become united with this.risen Christ. Like La-zarus called forth from the tomb, I have to shed my grave clothes and answer the call of the Lord, but "how? How? I don't know how. He has to say, "Come forth," and then I shall be able to move. Yet he eternally says, "Come forth," inviting me to share his life of glory in the Trinity, the life he is already living in my soul all the time I am in a state of grace. Only somehow I cannot unite myself with it, because the tomb wall seems in the way. What is the tomb wall? My compulsion to suffer psychologically in a certain way? Perhaps. Lord, give me light. Holy Spirit, whom he sends, lead me forth. Pray in and for me. I have been in a state of inertia, feeling I could do nothing till Christ rose in me--but he has never been dead in me. It was a part of myself that died, not he. All the time he has been waiting for me to come to him. Perhaps he has already said, "Come forth," only I have been so busy with my self-inflicted mourning, that l haven't heard him. My anguish was the death of some form of self-love, the crucifix- Negative Floating / 669 ion of some kind of seif-will, some aspect of the "world" that I clung to. "The people that lived in darkness have seen a great light . And he shall reign forever and ever . Come and bring forth from the dungeon the prisoner sitting in darkness and the shadow of death . " The shadow of my death. Just one of the excruciatihg deaths one must die before one can mount to a higher level on the nada path. Death and renewal. Part of his passion, but the passion is always inseparable from the resurrection, and the resurrection is. I don't have to wait for it--it is. 1 am already in it by the power of g~:ace and the presence of God in my soul. How then do I.realize and live consciously this risen life? That is the question. The "how" was to remain unrealized by me for some years yet. In the meantime I had to live in pure faith the reality of the crucified, en-tombed, but already risen Lord in me and in the whole of creation. 1 had to stay on the cross and in the tomb till God himself chose the time and way for my personal resurrection. I could not raise up myself. It had to be a work of pure grace. The words I use in another brief entry near the end of 1964 all re-veal a state of unalleviated negative floating. They are: Emptiness. Noth-ing. Waiting. Search. No finding. Grief. No.comfort. Dryness. Frigid-i'ty. Impotence. Waiting. Alone. Loneliness. Wa, iting--on and on. Dead-ness. ~umbness. Insensibility. No tears . . . too dry . . . But I believe. I hope. I suffer. I love. I wait. He loves. 1 know he loves. I believe he loves. Amen. In her Life Teresa of Avila tells of a spiritual state that reminds me of what I call "negative floating." First she mentions how St. Paul wrote about "being crucified to the world." Then she comments on how this reminds her of the soul that is receiving comfort from neither heaven nor earth, nor from any other source either. She says that in such a/ state of suspension and denial the soul is "crucified between heaven and earth; and it suffers greatly, for no help comes to it either from the one or from the other." It is "sus-pended by (its) distress, just as in union and rapture (it is) suspended by joy . It is a martyrdom." She records that when she is not physically occupied so that her mind is on something else, she is "plunged into these death-like yearnings." The "pain is so excessive that (she) can scarcely bear it"; she feels as though she has "a rope around (her) neck, is being strangled, is trying 670 / Review for Religious, September-October 1989 to breathe . . . and crying out for help to breathe." She longs and longs to be able to talk to someone "who has passed through the same torment, for she finds that, despite her complaints of it, no one seems to believe her." (See Life, Ch. XX.) It was not till my own darkest years were past that I came across the above and was forcibly struck by its similarity to what I myself had ex-perienced. When actually immersed in that suffering, I remember having read that one of the worst sufferings of Jesus on the cross must have been be-ing stifled by his inability to breathe. This was caused by the constric-tion of lungs, heart, and ribs in his hanging posture. To ease it he must have had to heave himself up repeatedly on his nailed feet--an extra ag-ony. I think Teresa is describing the spiritual equivalent of this condition for those in the negative floating state of union with Jesus hanging on the cross. John of the Cross, using different metaphors, writes of what I take to be a similar state. He says it is caused by "purgative contemplation" during which the inflowing of God's presence into the soul "in order to renew it" reaches down into its depths, into its very "spiritual substance." The soul seems to itself to be "drowned in darkness," to be "melting away" and to be enveloped by "a cruel spiritual death." Metaphorically it is like Jonah in the whale's belly. (In relation to this present article, it is worth recalling that Jonah's ordeal has been accepted as a scriptural symbol for Jesus' entombment.) John writes that "in this sepulcher of dark death (the soul) must needs abide until the spiritual resurrection which it hopes for." It is consumed by "the lamentations of death., the pains of hell ¯ . . the clear perception that God has abandoned it, in his abhorrence of it, and has flung it into darkness." It feels "itself to be without God, and chastised and cast out, and unworthy of him; and it feels he is wrathful With it." John also speaks of spiritual stifling and "afflictive suffering" that consists of the soul's feeling as though it "were suspended or held in the air so that it could not breathe." The state is intensified by the fact that the sufferer cannot find help or understanding from any human be-ing. He concludes by writing, "Of such are they that in truth go down alive into hell" (purgatory). (See Dark Night H, Ch. VI.) Negative Floating / 671 I do not know whether what I experienced during these years was the same as what is described by Teresa and John. I only know that when I read them now, as in the above passages, I feel I understand exactly what is being reported, because I myself have been through it. Shall it be N or N plus I lamN. I accepted that. I buried deep in my mind My mathematical knowledge Of what N could really be. Not satisfied with status quo But dreading the pain That moving might mean, I embraced N-fixed, safe and therefore undemanding. Memory would not be stifled. Knowledge that N can be expanded Would twist and turn and peek out Coming to the surface unexpectedly And at times unwanted. There is more. Why not N plus one? Expanding toward potential Could hurt, could be dearly bought. Surely, only here is progress, Expansion toward great goals. Why else do I exist? Except to know N is not complete Without Him as plus One. Sister Marjorie Sweeney, S.S.J. St. Joseph Convent 734 Willow Street Lebanon, PA 17042 Spiritual Dryness: Some Practical Guidelines Eamon Tobin Father Eamon Tobin, having completed the Master's degree in Formative Spiritual-ity at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, is currently pastor of a parish in Cocoa Beach, Florida. His address is Church of Our Savior; 5301 North Atlantic Avenue; Cocoa Beach, Florida 32931. The Lord, your God, will circumcise your hearts., that you may love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and all your soul, and so may live (Dt 30:6). Blessed. is the person who can call the darkness holy, who can desire its purification, who can rest in its presence. Such a person will grow rapidly because the process of purification is facilitated by generosity (Source Unknown). [~'very praying person sooner or later experiences what is called dryness in prayer. In spiritual dryness we have no felt sense of God's presence. We may,even think we have lost our Beloved or feel abandoned by him. In the sch~)ol, of prayer, few things are more important to understand than the nature and role of spiritual dryness, I intend to deal with this impor-tant dimension of the spiritual life by responding to five important ques-tions that one can ask about prayer in the desert. Question 1: What is it that praying people experience during the desert periods of the spiritual"jou~rney? The actual desert experience of praying persons will vary depending on the level of faith and spiritual maturity. For example, for the beginner in prayer spiritual dryness fre-quently means not just the absence of a felt sense of the presence of God 672 Spiritual Dryness / 67'3 but also feelings of what Saint Ignatius calls desolation--that is, feel-ings of anxiousness, sadness, or lo.ss of peace flowing from the thought, "I have lost God," or "God has abandoned me." On the other hand, for the person who is more mature in faith and advanced in the ways of prayer, spiritual dryness may not be an experience of desolation. The ex-perience will be one which lacks a felt sense of God's presence but may be accompanied by the conviction: "Even though I can't feel his pres-ence (at least on the external level), I do believe he is close and active in my life. Even though I cannot feel his presence (that is, spiritual dry-ness), I don't feel anxious, sad, or abandoned (that is, desolation). In fact, I feel peaceful." ~ To believe that God is present and active despite his apparent absence can be considered one of the greatest blessings of the spiritual life. For most of us, particularly in the early years of prayer, spiritual dryness usually includes the experience of desolation ("I have lost God; God has abandoned me"). Usually it is a time of spiritual suf-fering. We think we are getting the "silent treatment" from God. We "call out to him all day long, but he never answers" (Ps 22:3).2 Spiri-tual dryness is like journeying in the desert with no water in sight. Prayer is no longer exciting; rather, it is a weary struggle. Spiritual exercises that once nourished us now are empty, and we have little or no desire .to do them. Another dimension of the desert experience may be a feeling of dis-couragement as we become keenly aware of our own sinfulness. (We may not yet know that one of the surest signs of growth in the interior life is a growing awareness of our own sinfulness.) We may begin to think we are regressing rather than progressing. We may begin to expe-rience one of the great paradoxes of the spiritual life: the closer we come to God the further it seems to us that we are away from him. As we get closer to the all-piercing Light of God, the more our own darkness will show itself. Our lives will appear to be hollow and mediocre. The Scot-tish priest, the late Father John Dalrymple, writes: "It is as if I were to bring the sleeve of my coat toward the window of the room, and as I move into the light, the dust and dandruff on the sleeve become more obvious. It is not that as I moved the coat got dirtier, but that the light got brighter.''3 All in all, the thing that scares us most and even hurts us is the thought, "I have lost my Beloved; he has abandoned me" (See Song of Songs, Chapter 3). This thought or feeling is the experience of desolation described above. To sum up, we can say that while the actual experience of the desert will be different for different people, for all of us it will mean a felt sense 6"/4 / Review for Religious, September-October 1989 of the absence of God. And for those of us whose faith in God is still fragile, it will frequently involve the experience of desolation (the "I have lost God" feeling). In reading the above description of spiritual dryness, one may think that it is something only experienced by monks, religious, and the ex-ceptional lay person~ Yet spiritual directors tell us that this experience is quite .common in the lives of many average, prayerful people who dis-cover somewhere in the midst of their spiritual journeys that spiritual ex-ercises that once nourished them spiritually now do nothing for them. Question 2: Why is an understanding of this dimension of prayer so important? There are at least three reasons why some understanding of spiritual dryness is important. First, if we do not know the role of the times of dryness, we may think that we have "lost God" and that our prior, positive feelings in prayer were not a gift from God but the crea-tion of our own imaginations. This frequently happens. Many people who have a genuine conversion and get all excited about prayer quit when the well runs dry. This is sad because it is now that God wants to do his real work in such persons. Second, lack of knowledge about the purpose of spiritual dryness may cause us to continue praying in a way that, at this particular stage in our spiritual journey, may be more of an obstacle than a help to our spiritual growth. Many people are unaware that at some stage in the spiritual journey God calls us to become less active in prayer so that he can be more active in our spiritual transfor-mation. Third, the experience of spiritual dryness may be something caused by ourselves or something permitted by God. When it is permit-ted by God, it is meant to purify us and bring us closer to him. Such dry-ness is a gift to be accepted and embraced. When spiritual dryness is our doing, we need to work at removing the causes of such dryness. Lack of knowledge about the nature and role of spiritual dryness may lead us to believe that a particular experience of dryness in prayer is authentic and God-given when in fact it is something brought on by our own infi-delities. So the time of spiritual dryness is a critical time in the spiritual jour-ney. How we respond to it will determine whether we move forward spiri-tually or stagnate. Question 3: Why does God permit us to experience desert peri-ods in the spiritual journey? So I will allure her 1 will lead her into the desert and speak to her heart (Ho 2:16). Spiritual Dryness / 675 God permits us to experience spiritual desert periods in order to pu-rify us of those things that hinder our spiritual transformation and to teach us some important lessons about the spiritual life and how it works. In our answer to this question we will look at some specific purifications that God works in us and lessons that he teaches us in the desert. Purifications of the Desert In the desert God will want to purify us of any excessive attachment we may have to consolation in prayer. If in prayer God blesses us with a lot of consolations (or "spiritual highs" as we often say today), there is a danger that we may seek and love "the consolations of our God more than the God of our consolations" (Saint Teresa of Avila). In time of spiritual consolation it is easy to pray. The challenge is to remain faith-ful to prayer when we experience little or no felt sense of God's pres-ence or action in our lives. During such dry periods God is asking us to love him for himself and not just for the spiritual highs or consolations he offers us in prayer. He is asking us to show that we are not just fair-weather friends but all-weather friends. And he is teaching us the im-portant lesson that he is to be found more deeply in the desert than in the garden of superficial delights. Secondly, in the desert God purifies us of spiritual vanity. John Dal-rymple explains sp!ritual vanity in this way: Someone taking to religion in all zeal, becoming caught upI in a cam-paign of prayer, fasting, spiritual reading, liturgical practice, and retreat weekends might be indulging unawares in one big ego-trip. Conversion of the soul from a worldly life to a spiritual life is at first s, uperficial only. The convert has been given new, spiritual goals; but the conver~- sion is only external. In itself the sofil is as full as it ever was of unre-generate tendencies to vanity, arrogance, acquisitiveness, the only dif-ference being that after conversion these tendencies are now attached to spiritual instead of worldly objects . The zeal of such a person is infectious, but it is, as yet, chiefly the expression of the person's vanity or self-centeredness, dressed up in Christian clothes.4 For God to do his work of spiritual transformation in us, he must pu-rify us of such spiritual vanity. God often brings about this purification in us by bringing to naught our best efforts to change ourselves and eve-rything and everyone around us. As we sit on the ruins of our self-made temples and projects, we are purified of spiritual vanity and arrogance, and we learn the meaning of spiritual poverty, which is realizing our com-plete dependence and need for God to bring about any spiritual growth 676 / Review for Religious, September-October 1989 in others or in ourselves. In the desert, God's intention is not to punish us but to purify us. In the journey of life we consciously or unconsciously become overly-attached to persons or things--so much so that they become idols (that is, more important to us than God). This happened to Israel after she lived in the Promised Land for some time. She became so enamored with the blessings of the land that she forgot the One who gave her the land. To purify her of this idolatry God led Israel into the desert for a second time where she would be free of all her attachments and free to listen anew to the Word of God (See Hosea, Chapter 2). Lessons to Be Learned in the Desert Now let us briefly look at some of the lessons that God wishes to teach us in the desert. When God takes away consolation in prayer (that is, the felt sense of his presence), he wants to teach us the important lesson that he can be encountered at a deeper level than our emotions. He wants to teach us that we are no longer dependent on emotional returns to know we have encountered him. As we grow in our relationship with God, the more we will "learn to be at home in the dark because we are sure, in faith, that the potter is truly shaping the clay, even though the clay sees nothing of what is happening."5 An example about eating food might help to illustrate this point more clearly. Sometimes we may immensely enjoy eating a delicious meal. We may savor every morsel of the food. All in all, it is a delightful ex-perience. On another occasion we may not enjoy at all another type of delicious meal. We may not be feeling well, or the food may not appeal to us. Yet from a nutritious point of view, both meals are equally good. Our lack of enjoyment of the second meal in no way diminishes its nu-tritious value. The same principle is at work when it comes to prayer. Sometimes when we pray we really feel and savor God's presence and love. At other times the prayer is empty and dull. Who are we, though, to say that the latter time is of no benefit to our spiritual growth or is less pleasing in God's sight? A second lesson God teaches us in the desert is that spiritual conso-lation is his p.ure gift to us and not something we can earn by being good or by praying :in a particular way. In prayer God teaches us this impor-tant lesson by "dropping in" on us when we least expect him and by "failing to show" when we very much want to experience his presence. A third lesson that God wishes to teach us in the desert is that spiri- Spiritual Dryness / 677 tual growth is totally dependent on his work in us and not on anything we do. Our task is simply to be flexible and cooperative with the move-ment of his Spirit. In the spiritual life, "working at it" often means "be-ing still," "just being there" and exercising discipline over our doing and achieving self which so often wants to run the show. This is a diffi-cult lesson for us because so much of our training for the outer journey of life has told us to be "take-charge" and self-sufficient persons. It is not easy for us to switch gears in the inner journey. In the spiritual life God is the Chief Actor; we are the acted-upon. Mary, at the Annunciation (Lk 1:26-38), is our perfect model. When God mysteriously breaks into Mary's life and invites her to become the mother of Jesus, she doesn't respond, "Sure, Lord, I'll do it!" Rather, she says, "I am your maidservant; work in and through me as you want." Mary's response was, "Fiat, be it done unto me," not, "I'11 do it." This attitude is one of active receptivity, and it is the secret of Christian spirituality and spiritual growth. Active receptivity is charac-terized by the effort to place our energy, will, and freedom at the dis-posal of God so that he can do with us and in us what he wills, Finally, when God our Father allows our prayer to run dry, he is in-viting us to participate in the cross of Jesus. In times of dryness we are experiencing the thirst of Jesus on the cross. If the cross was Jesus' way to the Father, then surely we, the disciples of Jesus, cannot expect to travel the scenic route free of all pain and hardship. When we experi-ence darkness in prayer or in the marketplace, we are being invited to identify with Jesus in his suffering, in his experience of feeling aban-doned by the Father. Also in the desert we are being invited and chal-lenged to trust that our God will not abandon us but will come to rescue us and redeem us (See Exodus, Chapter 16). Question 4: How can I tell when a particular desert experience is caused by my own infidelity or is something permitted by God to help me to grow in my relationship with him? When dryness occurs in prayer, particularly in the early stages when God is giving alternating periods of dryness and consolation, wemay tend to blame ourselves for dryness. We may wonder what latest infidelity we committed to bring about this dryness. The fact may be that we have done nothing wrong . to occasion the dryness. God may be allowing us to experience the dry-ness bechuse he wants to teach us some lesson and/or purify some as-pect of our relationship with him. On the other hand, we may think the dryness is from God when in fact it is caused by our own laxity and sin-fulness. Therefore, it is important that we be able to discern the true 6711 / Review for Religious, September-October 1989 cause of the dryness because our response to it will differ, depending on whether the dryness is permitted by God or is something brought on by ourselves. Let us now identify several ways that we can bring about our own spiritual desert. ( 1 ) Indifference to a Sinful Pattern of Behavior: If we are indifferent to some sinful pattern of behavior in our lives, then we can expect diffi-culty in prayer. In a human friendship a negative pattern of behavior (for example, a critical or lying spirit), which we make no effort to ,change, will have a destructive effect on the whole relationship. Likewise, if in our relationship with God, we are deliberately ignoring a sinful pattern of behavior (for example, involvement in an illicit relationship, unfor-giveness, unethical business practices), then we can rightfully expect ten-sion in our relationship with God. When we do the above, we are delib-erately excluding the Lord and his influence from some area of our lives. In such a situation we should not be surprised that we do not feel God's presence very much in prayer. Here it is important to note that I am not referring to a sinful pattern of behavior that we are trying to change and that we are bringing before the Lord in prayer. In this case we are rec-ognizing sin and struggling with it. Instead of keeping us from God, our struggle with a particular sin or weakness may be the very means that God will use to allow us to experience his love, mercy and power. (See 2 Co 12:7-10 for Paul's famous example of how his thorn in the flesh became the very means of God's power.) In the former case, we are not even confronting our sin or seeking God's help with it. Instead we are deliberately ignoring its existence or trying to rationalize its O.K. 'hess. In the latter case, our sin grieves us and we are doing what we can to remove it from our lives. (2) Repressed Anger at God: Two highly-respected spiritual direc-tors, Fathers William Connoily and William Barry, write in a co-authored book: "When prayer flattens out, or appears tO be facing an iron wall, the director must always suspect the presence of unexpressed anger."6 To add to this problem, many of us were raised in a culture where appropriate expression of anger was socially unacceptable. "Hence resentments, holding a grudge or subdued rage, when they are present, are all likely to be given other names like indifference and ra-tional analysis."7 When someone hurts us, our relationship with that per-son will diminish, even if we decide to present an affable, friendly front; but in reality we will distance Ourselves emotionally from the person. In a similar way, if we become angry with God about something, we may Spiritual Dryness / 679 continue to be faithful to our prayer time, but on an emotional level we can be fairly sure we have distanced ourselves from him. (It is impor-tant for us to be aware that if life is handing us a raw deal, we may well be unconsciously blaming God, the Source of all things, for our lousy situation.) (3) Separation of Prayer and Life: The spiritual life is all of life and not just one segment of it. The Lord refuses to be a compartmentalized God; he wants to be a part and parcel of our whole life. When we try to keep God in church or in our prayer closet and not allow him to guide all the activities of our day, we can be sure that we are setting ourselves up for dryness in prayer. If we exclude God from the activities of our day, then we should not be surprised if he is missing from our prayer time. Even on a human level, no one likes to be a "tag-along" in some-one else's life. (4) Overwork: When our prayer life dries up, it is good for us to ask if we are pushing ourselves too much on the vital and functional dimen-sions of life. "Am I overworked? Am I over-tired? Am I coming down with the flu? Am I neglecting physical exercise? Do I have a tendency to make leisure time work? Or do I have leisure time--period?" These are important questions to ask. These things affect our prayer life. If we fail to care properly for our bodies, then we are neglecting a dimension of ourselves that we depend on to help us to pray. When we are very tired and overworked, prayer may well be seen as just another duty or thing to do. (5) Lack of Honesty in Prayer: Just as shallow or dishonest sharing dulls human relationships, it also dulls the Divine-human relationship. If our prayer is no more than "sweet talk" to "sweet Jesus," we should not expect Jesu~ to be too interested in our conversation. We must learn to talk to the Lord about the real stuff in our lives. (6) Halfhearted Efforts at Prayer: On a human level two friends may fail to really connect with each other because their conversations are "just words," words that fail to express what they are truly thinking and feeling. The problem may be that deep down they don't want to or are scared to encounter each other in a deep way. When a relationship is char-acterized by this type of communication, then we should expect it to be empty and unfulfiiling. In a similar vein, when our prayer time mainly consists of the rote recitation of certain prayers or of inattentive spiritual reading--if beneath the "saying of prayers" and the acts of piety there is no real desire to encounter God and grow in relationship with him-- then we should expect little or no satisfaction in prayer. In fact, our spiri- Review for Religious, September-October 1989 tual exercises may become a substitute for a real relationship with God. If we discern that we are the cause of our spiritual dryness, we should do all we can to remove the particular obstacle. For example, if the problem or obstacle is that we are holding onto a grudge and doing nothingto let it go, then we may need to pray for forgiveness for that person and/or we may need to have an open chat with the person with whom we are having a problem. If we discern that our experience of spiri-tual dryness is due to our tendency to separate prayer and life (see ob-stacle number three above), then our solution will be to work at allow-ing the Lord to walk with us in all the activities of our day. In short, when we discern that we are the cause of the spiritual dryness, then we ought to do something to remove the obstacle. It is the experience of most, if not all, disciples of the Lord that once they begin to struggle with an obstacle, prayer again becomes alive and they experience a new closeness to God. Finally, it should be noted that in trying to discern the cause of our spiritual dryness we would be well advised to seek the coun- ¯ sel of a good spiritual director. When we experience spiritual dryness most of us have a tendency to think that it is due to some infidelity on our part. The truth may be that God is permitting us to experience the desert so that he can continue his purifying work in us. This brings us to the second part of our response to Question 4: "How might we know that it is God and not us who is calling us into a spiritual desert?" While we can never be absolutely sure--since we live by faith and not by clear vision--when spiritual dryness is being per-mitted by God, we can say that the following are good indicators that the dryness is the purifying work of God: --If during the time of dryness we remain faithful to prayer. --If our prayer is honest and flowing from the real stuff of our lives. --If we are trying to integrate prayer and life. --If we are trying to live a life of charity; if our prayer is helping us to be more loving. --If we are genuinely trying to avoid sin and live our lives accord-ing to God's Word. --If we thirst for God as we walk in the desert. (It is crucial that we, remember that our desire for God is in itself a tangible sign of his pres-ence in our lives. We couldn't even desire God if he didn't place that desire in our hearts.) You will notice that the above signs are pretty much the opposite of the ways that we ourselves bring about our own spiritual desert. Prayer, like so many other things in life, is a series of "arrivals" Spiritual Dryness and "starting points." We arrive at a point where we feel good. We ex-perience the grace of consolation. But that only lasts a little while and then a certain discontent (a kind of desert) sets in--a discontent that may be caused by ourselves or permitted by God. Then we are faced with the challenge of discerning who is causing the discontent: "Is it God or me?" The purpose of the discontent caused by him is to create in us a longing for more, to create in us a desire to move closer to God. In the spiritual journey God brings us to a particular point or state; he lets us rest there and enjoy that plateau for a little while, and then he says, "O.K. Let's move ahead and seek for more" (see Ex 40:36-37). Of course, it is not easy to move when we are not sure where he is leading us. All he says is, "Move and trust that I'll take you to a new and bet-ter place." Finally, if we are in doubt about the cause ofour discontent or dry-ness, then we should talk to a spiritual guide or, if that is not possible, simply say a prayer like this: "Lord, if this dryness I am experiencing is due to some failing of mine, please reveal it to me. Until you do I am going to assume that I am not the cause of the dryness." Question 5: What are some resources available to us to sustain us in the desert? Four resources that will sustain us in the desert are: --a wise spiritual director; --a strong faith; --fidelity to prayer; --the support of fellow pilgrims. Our first help is a wise spiritual director. By wise I mean one who understands the role of the desert in the spiritual life and hopefully one who has experienced and grown through the desert in his or her own spiri-tual journey. Many people whom God led into the desert for purifica-tion have suffered much at the hands of well-intentioned but misinformed spiritual guides. Saint John of the Cross reserves some of his harshest words for such misinformed guides.8 For example, a misinformed guide may insist that a directee continue to meditate and do a lot of spiritual reading when God is calling her to the prayer of contemplation. In the desert a good spiritual director will be a source of guidance, encourage-ment and inspiration. When we are in a spiritual desert, it is important that we learn to place our trust in a good spiritual director. But, as most of us know, wise spiritual directors are nearly as scarce as palm trees in the northern states of America. The truth is that the road to authenticity is dangerous, hard, and narrow, and few decide to travel it. In the ab-sence of a wise spiritual director (and there is really no substitute for such Review for Religious, .September-October 1989 a person), one may receive some guidance from books that are written or recommended by people who are recognized guides of the inner jour-ney. A second important resource is a strong faith--a faith that enables US" --to believe that God knows what he is doing when he allows us to ex-perience the desert (Rm 11:33-36); --to believe that in the desert God is not punishing us but is purifying us (Dt 30:6); --to believe that God grows his best flowers (virtues) in the desert (Ho 2); --to believe that God works in us while we rest in him (Mk 4:26-29); --to believe that in the struggles of life God is on our side fighting our battles (Ex 14:13-14 and Dt 1:30-33); --to believe that in the desert God's seeming absence is just a different type of presence, one that we may not as yet have recognized (Ex 16); --to be secure with insecurity (Rm 8:28); --above all, to generously abandon ourselves to the purifying work of God (Lk 23:46). A third important resource as we struggle in the desert is fidelity to prayer. In the desert, prayer is usually dry and therefore all the more dif-ficult to remain faithful to. When it comes to praying in the desert, spiri-tual guides counsel us to avoid two extremes or temptations. The first temptation is to quit prayer, thinking that our best efforts are leading us nowhere. The second temptation is to "junk up" our prayer time with extra prayers, rosaries, Scripture reading, and so forth, thinking that if we only try harder maybe we will feel the presence of God. This second temptation needs to be resisted not only because it blocks what God is about in the desert but also because it is (usually unconsciously) our at-tempt to stay in or get back into the driver's seat. In general, prayer in the desert will become much less active, more passive--less us, more God. The challenge will be to learn to sit quietly in the presence of God, trusting that he is at work in us while we rest in him. Le~.rning to "waste time doi.ng nothing" in prayer is, without a doubt, one of the most difficult lessons we have to learn in the school of prayer. Unfortunately, most of us never learn to waste time gracefully in the presence of God. Such a practice goes completely against our west-ern, work-ethic nature that is usually driven to do, to achieve, and to pro-duce-- that likes to see tangible results for its efforts. Because of this need in us, most of us fill the vacuum that we feel in the desert with read- Spiritual Dryness ing or prayers of some sort. For those of us who are willing to try and do less (that is, to be less active) in prayer so that God may do more in us, the following suggestions might be helpful. -Spend some time just "being there" with the Lord, aware that as "we rest in him he is at work in us." We put aside all effort to achieve because now we are learning that achievement (growth) is God's work. By periodically spending some time "doing nothing" in the presence of the Lord, we are expressing our faith in an important spiritual dictum: "God's activity in prayer is more important than my activity." -Spend some time slowly repeating prayers like: "Incline my heart to your will, O Lord." "Make me want you, O Lord, more than anyone/ thing in my life." -Take a phrase of Scripture like "You are my beloved Son" and dwell on it. -Simply take one word like "Jesus" or "love" and repeat it gent-ly and slowly, letting God work in us, leading us beyond conceptual thoughts, images, or feelings to wordless depths. -Image and be present to Mary in the Temple after she lost Jesus (Lk 2:41-50) and at the foot of the cross (Jn 19:25-27) which must have been a real dark night of the spirit for her. Ask Mary to intercede for you so that you may have something of the faith which she had when she thought she had lost Jesus. -Finally, you may want to read something on spiritual dryness. By simply reading and rereading portions of a book like When the Well Runs Dry, I am encouraged to persevere in the desert. Personally, I need to hear over and over again the teaching and encouragement that a book like Father Green's offers. In prayer our role is to be faithful in coming aside, to be at God's disposal. What actually happens in prayer is God's business. For me this piece of wisdom has always been very consoling. It helped to free me from thinking that it was up to me to make things happen in prayer. Now I am more relaxed, knowing that my role is to be faithful in coming aside, to do what I can to eliminate distractions from within and with-out, and to pray as I feel led. ("Pray as you can, not as you can't.") The rest is in God's hands. If he chooses to bless me with a deep sense of his presence, I am indeed very grateful. If he chooses to bless me with his seeming absence (God is always only seemingly absent), then I try to be grateful for that, also believing that God knows what will best help me to grow. "Our prayer is good when our hearts are fixed on God, even if it is filled with boring aridity or passionate turmoil.' ,9 Review for Religious, September-October 1989 A fourth resource in the desert is the prayer and personal support of fellow pilgrims. While each person's inner journey is very personal and unique, still we can learn much from the journeys of co-pilgrims. Only the foolish try to travel the inner jou~rney alone. In the desert we are all beggars sharing morsels of bread with each other. Also, if we are blessed enough to be a part of a small, faith---sharing group, then we have avail-able to us an excellent resourc_~e for the dry times. In the dry times the prayers of'fellow pilgrims are usually a big help. I wbuld like to conclude our discussion on spiritual dryness with a prayer that I have found to be a source of great encouragement during times of spiritual desolation. Dear Lord, in the midst of much inner turmoil and restlessness, there is a consoling thought: maybe you are working in me in a way I cannot yet feel, experience, or understand. My mind is not able to concentrate on you, my heart is not able to remain centered, and it seems as if you are absent and have left me alone. But in faith I cling to you. I believe that your Spirit reaches deeper and further than my mind or heart, and that profound movements are not the first to be noticed. Therefore, Lord, I promise I will not run away, not give up, not stop praying, even when it all seems useless, pointless, and a waste of time and effort. I want to let you know that I love you even though | do not feel loved by you, and that I hope in you even though I often experi-ence despair. Let this be a little dying I can do with you and for you as a way of experiencing some solidarity with the millions in this world who suffer far more than I do. Amen.~° NOTES ~ See Thomas H. Green, S. J., Weeds Among the Wheat (Notre Dame, Indiana, 1984), Chapters 6 and 7. Also see Thomas H. Green, S.J., When the Well Runs Dry (Notre Dame, Indiana, 1979), p. 92. 2 Some other Psalms that reflect darkness in the prayer of the psalmist are Psalms 60, 69, 74, and 88. 3 Father John Dalrymple, Simple Prayer (Wilmington, Delaware, 1984), p. 69. '~ lbid, p. 93. 5 Thomas H. Green, S.J., When the Well Runs Dry (Notre Dame, Indiana, 1979), p. 119. 6 Fathers William Barry. and William Connolly, The Practice of Spiritual Direction (New York, 1982), p. 73. 7 Ibid. 8 Saint John of the Cross, The Collected Works of John of the Cross, translated by Kieran Kavanaugh, O.C.D. and Otilio Rodriguez, O.C.D. (Washington, D.C., 1979), pp. 620-634. 9 Father John Dalrymple, Simple Prayer, (Wilmington, Delaware, 1984), p. 66. ~0 Henri J. M. Nouwen, A Cry for Mercy: Prayers from the Genesee (Garden City, New York, 1983), p. 102. That God Might Be Father .Laurel M. O'Neal Sister Laurel O'Neal, a solitary (hermit), is familiar to our readers. Her address is Stillsong Hermitage; 80 Lafayette Circle; Lafayette, California 94549. Perhaps the only question more problematic than that of the possibility of prayer is the question of its, genuine significance and necessity. Sur-prisingly, however, this is also a question we generally fail to consider explicitly or face squarely. More typically, the meaningfulness and re-quisiteness of our prayer are matters we tend to take for granted, even though the notion of prayer may lie at the heart of important or even fun-damental expressi6ns of self-understanding and definition. But the ques-tion is an important one, and one we cannot easily afford to avoid or care-lessly dismiss, if we intend to take prayer seriously or maintain a proper sense of its place and role in our daily lives. After all, why really are we called to pray? What, if anything, is truly and uniquely at stake in our prayer? Is there any reason to regard our own personal prayer as a matter of compelling urgency and real ne-cessity, or is the matter really more nugatory? Clearly, as Christians we are called to believe that our prayer is a meaningful, even indispensable activity, vital to the transformation and healing of all we know, and the realization of all we are made and hope for. But how do we justify such a belief? What is it about prayer that makes such claims credible? The answers to all of these questions are based in our recognition that in prayer something deeper and even more fundamental is at stake, some-thing in which all healing and human growth in wisdom and sanctity are rooted, and upon which all our hope depends. Like Christianity in general, and like God himself, prayer is pro-foundly paradoxical, and this is particularly true of the question at hand. 685 Review for Religious, September-October 1989 Although we must acknowledge that prayer is the gift and activity of God attended to by sinners (that is, by persons whose lives are fundamentally marked and marred by fragmentation and alienation), we must also af-firm that the deeper truth is the paradox that prayer is primarily some-thing we undertake on God's own behalf, insofar as prayer is the experi-ence of God as the One he wishes to be for us. Quite simply, what is truly and uniquely at stake in our prayer, at each and every moment we pray, is nothing less than the life and destiny of God himself. As Chris-tians, as persons who pray--that is, as persons who share as heirs of God in the obedient Sonship of Jesus Christ, we do so primarily that God might truly be the Father he has willed to be from the beginning. This insight is easy to lose sight of, something that occurs particu-larly whenever God's paradoxical nature is obscured or forgotten, and an immutable or even (as commonly misunderstood) "triune" God is substituted for a Living One. Most of us are well aware that on the one hand, our God is the "High and Holy One," the one who reveals him-self in sovereignty and self-sufficiency. Indeed he is Yahweh, "the one who will be who (he) will be," ~ in absolute authority and awesome auton-omy. But this dominant Old Testament image is just one side of the para-dox whom we Christians know as God; and if on the one hand he is the High and Holy One who is absolutely self-sufficient, he is also the one who has determined not to remain so, but rather has resolved to make his own destiny subject to the responsiveness of his creation. Our God is on the one hand without beginning or end, absolutely self-sufficient, in need of no one and no thing. Yet on the other hand he has willed from all eternity not to remain alone but to turn to another--a person who will be his counterpart. He is the eternal decision to speak to this other and to hearken to the word which this other speaks. He is the eternal deci-sion to love this other and to accept this other's love. [The God of the New Testament] who is eternally self-sufficient wills not to be; God who is eternally of and for himself wills to be for another.2 This means quite simply that God has determined to be for us as well as dependent upon us. We must allow this determination to be realized, and let God be who he wills to be for us. This is indeed the most human thing we can do, just as it is the most loving. Those who truly appreci-ate that our own destiny is dependent upon the proper exercise of human freedom should not be surprised that God too is dependent upon it. In fact, we should be aware that the Christ event reveals that it is human freedom which is the true counterpart to divine omnipotence. For many, this will be an astounding assertion. However, if we reflect on precisely That God Might Be Father / 687 what occurred in the Christ event, perhaps this critical point will become more acceptable to most people. Certainly such reflection is necessary if we are to truly appreciate the importance and urgency of our prayer. It is true that in the Christ event--in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus--God drew near to every moment and mood of his creation. This is truth but the truth cuts far more deeply than even this awesome reality. In the Christ event something absolutely s'ingular and unsurpassable occurred. For the first time in human history someone, in this case Jesus of Nazareth, in living a life wholly responsive to the God who would be Father, accomplished two things. In the first place, he lived the first genuinely human existence ever known in the history of humankind, and secondly, in his proper exercise of true human freedom he allowed God to become the Father he had willed to be from the be-ginhing. In the dialogue which existed between Father and Son, both hu-man and divine life reached a fullness for which they had yearned and groaned through time and eternity, the realization of human and divine destinies were forever linked, and divine omnipotence and human free-dom were inextricably wed as counterparts of one another. Nor is this all. In Jesus' resurrection from the dead, this abundant life was made a continuing and unconquerable reality in our world. It is in prayer that we enter most deeply into participation into this abundant life, and in prayer that Jesus' Sonship becomes our own and the Fatherhood of God is further realize~t. Through our participation in the Sonship of Jesus, we come to know genuine human life, and we become aware that it is a life characterized and constituted by an ongoing and all-consuming dialogue with the Fa-ther, who is in turn constituted as Father in this dialogue. In the Christ event Jesus responded to God as Son. He allowed God to be the author of his life, and he allowed God to be authored as Father in the process. Truly human existence is nothing less and nothing other than daughter-ship or sonship to the Living God whose own inner truth and dynamism is realized in Fatherhood. Prayer is simply and always the mutual out-working of these inextricably linked divine and human destinies. God is Father neither before, nor apart from, the response of Jesus as Son; neither is he our Father apart from our participation in that de-finitive Sonship which we call prayer. (Note well, in all of this it is im-portant that, according to the prologue to John's gospel, we are very clear that it is not the Logos that is Son; rather it is Jesus as Son in whom the Logos is incarnate. The two realities are quite different, and are often tragically confused. As the term is commonly but perhaps naively used, Review for Religious, September-October 1989 the Logos is "preexistent"; the Son is not, and whenever this confu-sion occurs, it becomes impossible to appreciate the true significance of the obedient Sonship of Jesus or of our own prayer.) Although he is the one "who will be who (he) will be," the God of the New Testament turns to the world as the one who would be Father, that is, as one who would find his counterpart and true completion in those who would turn in response as daughters and sons (that is, as those who are of him and from him) and, as one whose deepest identity would remain unrealized and unrealizable apart from this response. What are the implications of all this for our prayer? In the first place, we must concede that our prayer has real meaning and urgency, not only and not even primarily because we are saved through God's activity in our lives, but because in our prayer we concern ourselves with the very life of God. Whether or not prayer is a profound experience for Is, it is a significant experience for God since it is in prayer that he is allowed to achieve Fatherhood and truly realize himself. Whatever we perceive happening or not happening in our prayer, we must not lose sight of the fact of what does occur there. In prayer God is given the chance to love fully, and thus to fully be. It is not simply the'case that God is love; it is also true that in loving, God is (and it is this fact which allows us to speak of prayer in terms of the glorification or magnification of God). Prayer is possible only to the extent that our God has willed not to remain remote, that is, only to the extent that he has drawn near. But prayer is meaningful and necessary for the most part because the God who has refused to remain remote has also willed not to remain self-sufficient and has, in a very real way put his own destinyinto the hand of those to whom he would be Father, and whom he has thus willed re-spond to him as daughters and sons. Without our prayer, God remains the High and Holy One who has drawn near to us in all of life's moments and moods, but who remains deprived of real presence, and thus whose deepest will and identity remains unrealized and frustrated in our regard. It is particularly telling that the first word and entire Lord's Prayer is contained in the invocation "Father." Jesus' whole life and prayer, which were essentially synonymous, were devoted to allowing God's will to Fatherhood to be accomplished. Claiming this realization of the Fatherhood of God is the heart of all prayer. Allowing him to love us in the way he wills is the heart of all truly human activity. It is impor-tant that our prayer remain the God-centered activity it is meant to be. This is the reason Jesus gave his life and his way of praying as a "para-digm of perspective," and in fact, in what is most essentially and pro- That God Might Be Father 689 foundly the lesson of the New Testament, taught his followers to pray. We lose proper perspective if we forget that God has drawn near, but it is at least as tragic to forget that prayer is the way nearness is transformed into real presence. We said in an earlier essay3 that prayer begins, ends, and is sustained by our concern for and commitment to the life of God. Let us remember why we are present to him and what our appreciation of his nearness means for him, and may this knowledge sustain us in even the driest of moments. NOTES t The usual translation of "Yahweh" in Exodus 3:14 as "I am who am," or even the more cryptic "'I am" is inadequate insofar as it disregards the dynamic element, and promise of active and effective presence also contained in the Hebrew (see Ex 3:12). A better translation is "I will be who I will be". 2 Dwyer, John C., Son of Man attd Son of God, A New Language For Faith, (New York: Paulist Press, 1983). 3 O'Neal, Laurel M., "Prayer, Maintaining a Human Experience": R~.vl~.w R~.~.~¢~ous; Nov/Dec 1987, p. 883. Musing Fragile as a crisp autumn leaf, Hard as flint on flint, Soft as nestling down, Resilient as blue tempered steel-- You and I--this planet ours-- Cradled in God's tender arms Of Grace. Walter Bunofsky, S.V.D. 1446 E. Warne Avenue St. Louis, Missouri 63107 Mary of Bethany-- The Silent Contemplative Carlos M. de Melo, S.J. Father Carlos de Melo, S.J. is professor emeritus of Canon Law and Spiritual The-ology at the Pontfical Athenaeum of Pune, India. His address is Papal Seminary; Nagar Road; Ramwadi; Pune 411 014 India. Teresa of Avila, that incomparable mistress of the spiritual life--"Mater spiritualium" as she is called in the inscription at the foot of her statue at St. Peter's, Rome--was never tired of repeating to her daughters of the Reformed Carmel that prayer is not so much a matter of much think-ing as of loving much.~ The soul of prayer is faith and love. Going through the gospels ! found this basic truth or principle beautifully illus-trated in the attitudes of Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, vis-~t-vis our Lord. Bethany is a small hamlet about three kilometers southeast of Jerusa-lem, separated from the capital by the Mount of Olives. Mary of Bethany appears in five places in the gospel narratives: I) Luke 10:38-42; 2) John 11 : 1-53; 3) John ! 2: i - l l ; 4) Mark 14:3-9; and 5) Matthew 26:6-13. The last three references cover one and the same episode, that of the supper at Bethany, in the house of Simon, the "leper." True, the material is not over abundant, yet it is sufficient enough to give us a fair idea of the personality, the mind and heart, the ways and attitudes, the character of this well-known biblical figure. However, I wish to bring out in this es-say one particular trait that distinguishes her, and that is her contempla-tive attitude of life, as it comes across to us in a striking manner in two of those passages--Luke i0 and Matthew 26 (see Jn 12; Mk 14). Symbol of Contemplative . Indeed, in these passages, Mary stands out before us as a symbol and 690 Mary of Bethany / 69"1 teacher of the contemplative life particularly inspiring and helpful to per-sons "consecrated to God," whether they live in convents and monas-teries or elsewhere in the world. She thus becomes our guide, silent yet sure, to a simple, intimate relationship with our divine Master, such as will not only bring us true fulfillment but can even radically transform our life. For, as the saying goes, tell me with whom you walk and I shall tell you what sort of a person you are. When did Mary first meet Jesus? In Luke 10 the new Rabbi figures as an already familiar guest in the house of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, one whom they all highly esteemed, loved and revered, a dear friend whose visits were eagerly looked forward to and whom they welcomed with undisguised joy and profound satisfaction, as though they could never have enough of him. From him they held no secrets; they could share with him their every thought or sentiment, every joy or sorrow, and in him they were always sure to meet, in any life situation, under-standing, sympathy, guidance. First Meeting Decisive True, the gospels do not tell us when it was that Mary first met Je-sus. One thing, however, seems to be certain. Whatever might have been the time, place or occasion, that first meeiing was decisive in Mary's life; it made a lasting and ineffaceable impression on her youthful, sensitive nature. It reminds us of another such decisive encounter narrated in an-other gospel--that of the Master with the beloved disciple (Jn 1:35-39)-- one of those unforgettable events that make an impact for good and give a new turn to life. Like that of John, Mary's life, too, was deeply touched by her meeting with Jesus, for, from then on, that mysterious guest became as it were everything for her, the center of her thoughts, sentiments, deeds. It was as though interiorly taught from on high, Mary sensed in Jesus of Nazareth not only a new rabbi, or a great religious leader who taught as one having authority (Mt 7:29), who spoke as no man ever did (Jn 7:4-6), or even a worthy prophet like Moses, Isaias or Jeremias of old, but--in a way she herself was not able fully to under-stand or explain--the very incarnation of the Father of Israel, of Yah-weh himself, and at the same time, her own personal friend and guide-- her 'guruji' we might say, with all this term, and the reality it represents, means in Indian life and tradition. This explains Mary's unconditional surrender to him, her loving contemplation of him, her total openness and docility to his word, her silent "adoration"--attitudes proper to a creature before its God, its divine Lover. 692 / Review for Religious, September-October 1989 Lovable Character Mary is a lovable character--lovable because she is so

Issue 36.6 of the Review for Religious, 1977. ; REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS IS edited by faculty members of St Louis UmversLty, the editorial offices being located at 612 Humboldt Building, 539 North Grand Boule-vard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. It is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute; St. Louis, Missouri. Published bimonthly and copyright © 1977 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Composed, printed, and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. Single copies: $2.00. Subscription U.S.A. and Canada: $7.00 a year; $13.00 for two years; other dountries, $8.00 a year, $15.00 for two years. Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be accompanied by check or money order payable to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS in U.S.A. currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Change of address requests should include former address. Dattiel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Robert Williams, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor November 1977 Volume 36 Number 6 Renewals, new subscriptions, and changes of address should be sent to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, Minnesota 55802. Correspondence with the editor and the associate editor together with manuscripts and books for review should be sent to REWZW FOa REL~CIOUS; 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boule-yard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. (;allen, S.J.; St. Joseph's College; City Avenue at 54th Street; Philadelphia, Pennsyl-vania 19131. My Son's "Hour" by Virginia Ann Gardner, S.S.J.1 who shares via dramatic mono!ogue memories ---of others' contemplations and her own-- in an interview with Mary about 1Sister Virginia Ann resides at 517 East 26th Sty; Erie, PA 16504. I. The Marriage Feast at Cana Now that I think about it, my Son's hour had a special kind of beginning at Cana. Chesterton once said, "There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when he walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied--it was his mirth." That is so true it makes me smile. You would have to admit the gospels show little if any of the Alleluia that Augustine said a Christian should be from head to foot. But the evangelists had so much to tell--and, besides, when they were writing, trying to catch the memory of Jesus in words, they knew little mirth themselves. They knew only urgency as they watched Christians pay the price of Love. Little won-der they record no mirth, no laughter, no sign of human joy. Yet, from the beginning, marriage feasts have been symbols of celebra-tion. One finds few somber wedding guests--ever. And so it was at Cana! We had gone to Cana together--Jesus and his new friends, strong, simple men full of the love of life. Cana was filled with mirth and laughter and the warmness of love shared. 817 I~11~ / Revie,w for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 Then, strange that I should have noticed, I read the concern on servant faces: all jugs of wine were empty. It struck a sympathetic chord and I turned to Jesus: "They have no wine," I said. It was just a simple remark--nothing more; the observation of some-thing that would bring embarrassment. It was the way anyone would say, "What a pity!"; or, "Isn't that a shame!"---and wish that you could help. You know, if I were to orchestrate a symphony, I'd compose the Marriage Feast of Cana in a major key of sheer joy--until we knew "there was no wine." But when my son responded, "Woman, what is that to you and to me, my hour is not yet come?"--then, I'd have tympanums clap and cymbals clang; I'd deafen ears with the roar of drums. It would be a haunt-ing interlude--repeated often during the symphony to record in sound the history of an hour that began at Cana. Jesus called me Woman. Strange. Did he mean it as a call to sacrifice --a call to live what women through the years have lived? "She is such a woman," we say--and mean there is nothing small about her; she does not stoop to smallness; she endures. Still, it startled me, much as Gabriel had some thirty years before, with--"Rejoice, O highly favored daughter!" Then Jesus spoke again, "What is that to you and to me?" Was he calling me to translate and respond? Translation revealed everything: He meant: were he to act, the act would be but a first on the way to his hour. "My hour has not yet come," he had said. Someone has called its dis-cernment~ etermining the will of God. At Nazareth I had "wondered and was troubled," I even questioned Gabriel. I did not unders.tand. At Cana there was no wonder, no question. I knew! And I said to the servants: "Do whatever he tells you." Yes, I answered~knowing full well "what it meant to Jesus and to me." We would be parted. I would be alone --and where Jesus was, what he would be doing, I would not know. You see, at Cana we shared discernment: His Father willed that his hour should begin. A mother, someone has said, is a lover--a lover who gives of herself and then pushes the loved .one away, both the child and herself enriched. I loved my son; I had given him myself; I had taught him human ways of talking, walking, laughing. At Cana I pushed that loved one away so that he could tell others what to do. The pushing hurt. But long ago I had vowed: "Be it done unto me according to Thy will." Corita says, "To celebrate is to tell who we are and to say yea cere-moniously." That is what my son and I did together at Cana. I spoke my last recorded words: "Do whatever he tells you." My last recorded words! They began my son's hour. John tells it in his Gospel. You'll read it all in John, and only there. Yes, we had looked forward to Cana. We had not known what the Father would ask. He asked me to be woman; He asked for an hour to be-gin; and on that day my son and I, together, shared a fiat. My Son's "Hour" / 8"19 II. Good Friday Evening Now I knew. Now I understood. Scripture had unfolded. It was like hearing that symphony played--one I had studied the score for but had never heard. "Oh, so that's how it goes! It's lovely and aweful." John had come for me--telling me Jesus' hour had come. I knew it of course. I'd known it since that day in Cana. Lovers aren't aware of time. Days, months, years telescoped. I had said my fiat to this hour thirty-three years ago, but thenwI did not understand. It's like writing something or clinging to an idea you don't understand until later. The unknown is diffi-cult, but it's good for you too. How hard it would have been to live those thirty-three years with what I know now! But at Cana the hour moved both Jesus and me at once. We knew. I did not need to speak for him to hear me, because we were both hearing with our hearts then; and we had both said yes. With Jesus it was always yes. I guess it was with me too---because the Father helped me, the Spirit moved within me--and I said yes ceremoniously to the God of my life. I think the Father saw "that it was good." Since then, since Cana, time has dragged and sped. I've heard so many things about my son. Sometimes what I've heard pierced--and I'd remem-ber Simeon. Sometimes, though, my heart quickened. People would tell me of his life, his compassion--and I'd go back to our Nazareth days, days shared with Joseph. But John came--a humbled "son of thunder." I understood. I loved him for it, and.I went with him. Jesus came stumbling up the road---carry-ing that cross. My heart broke; it broke. But even then I understood. You don't live trusting all those years without the courage to be strong. Then Jesus saw me. I extended no veil. I did not weep. I gave him all I could. His Father, my Father, erased from my eyes all pain. Once again, I did not have to speak for him to hear me: "It's all right, Jesus; no, don't worry about me. Your hour has come. I understand." His glance meeting mine spoke too. It was almost as though he tried to smile, and console me, saying, "It's not bad, not bad at all. Don't worry, Mother." Role pl~ying? You call that role playing? Putting on a masque? No, not at all. Me? I call it gift--my last gift to him. My son, who had emptied himself to take on the masque of humanity, would understand. Emptied him-self. I'm told that is the way Paul wrote it. I like the way another has put it: "Poured himself out." That is how I see his hour that started at Cana and became a free accepted death-act on Calvary. Hearing iron strike iron was such a familiar sound to me! My husband was a carpenter and he'd taught my Son. Part of the price of that hour was the giving up of sounds, sounds that brought back "homey" memories. Strength was God's gift to me; but because he is all knowing, and because he is everything my Son had revealed, I knew he'd understand that ever since that hour, I've been very sensitive to iron striking iron. ~i20 Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 Three hours is not so long a time. It took us longer to get to Bethlehem --and much longer to Egypt---but no time was longer in all my life than those three Friday-hours. His hour was never so long in coming. My heart still shares that pain as I watch loved ones die--loved ones am(~ng my chil-dren now on earth. My children? Yes, my children. During my son's hour he gave me as Mother to all children of all time and all places. Strange! I had given birth to Jesus for one reason: so that he might be shared with all people of all time and all places. In the greatest hour of that sharing, he too shared me-- with John, and in John, you. At Cana, I spoke my last recorded words, "Do whatever he tells you." In one of my Son's last words, he tells you to take me as your Mother. His hour had come and he gave up~no---he didn't give up, he poured out his Spirit. It was that Spirit that had filled me years ago--and once again--this time eternally, I prayed my fiat and you became my Spirit-child. Now share your Brother's hour caught eternally in time. His hour is here! With him, pour yoursel[ out. III. Holy Saturday "Great will be his dignity." I had pondered those words in my heart for thirty-three years: while arranging the straw in the stable-manager; while fleeing in fear to Egypt; as I stood before the prophet Simeon. They came back with new poignancy during the donkey-pageantry in Jerusalem--and five days later when I saw Jesus' bloodied eyes neath his thorned-crown. Then, as I prepared his bruised body for burial, as I washed his wounds, and Joseph (how good his name was Joseph!) helped me with the linen shroud, I thought of them again. It would have been easy to be cynical but I had watched my son die; and I heard him forgive his crucifiers. Yes, I had heard him cry, "Father, forgive." And I heard him call me Woman. Could the dignity he called me to in that name ever match the dignity of his forgiving love? My sagging shoulders had straightened and John had helped me back to the Upper Room. On our way, John and I said the first Stations--back-wards. I made John show me the Praetorium and take me to Gethesmane. John cried, remembering his sleep. And he told me all my Son had said and done in the upper chamber. It was not the time to speak to him of symphony, but I tried to comfort John; he was young and the day had been agony for him, I knew. Then I withdrew. I cried my tears alone. The Father watched and con-soled me. Jesus had wept at Lazarus' tomb; and Jesus had said just a few hours earlier: "Who sees me, sees the Father." Tears, I knew, were some-thing the Father understood. I let them come. What had happened to my mother-hope? "Great would be his dignity. He will be called Son of the Most High. He will rule forever in a reign My Son's "Hour" / 821 without end." Gabriel had told me that. It was a message from the Father. Let me tell you--that night there was within me a whisper of despair, Was it, I wondered, a whisper my son knew too when I heard him call: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Faith is not faith, we're told, until it has been tested. That night, my faith knew its greatest test. And yet something still stirred within me--and I endured. I waited through that long, long vigil--clinging hard to mother-hope and to the patience I had learned from waiting for his hour. I knew--no, I did not know; I hoped that his hour had not ended. I fell asleep saying, "Lord, I believe; help . . . help thou my unbelief." IV. Resurrection If "appearing" means "closeness," there was no need for my Risen Son to come to me. Together or apart-~I live in him and know his closeness. The time after Cana had taught me that. Then, I had thought Jesus' mission would ask for separation--a typical human fear, I know---but the Father was good. Just as the Incarnation had never separated Son from Father, so Jesus' leaving home kept us still united. With him, I was doing the Father's will, and the Father asked that I share him with the world. I shared, and lost nothing. Jesus had said the one who best does the will of his Father--is his mother and father and sister and brother. People pitied me when he said that. They needn't. He was really saying I was more than mother to Jesus. His Father willed it so and I accepted that will. Thomas Merton, in writing about me, once explained how I felt, "I was glad because He was glad and for no other reason." I say all this so you'll understand: it was not necessary for my Risen Son to appear to me. All that mattered was that I believed and he knew I did. Ignatius Loyola had loved me, so he insisted that Jesus appeared to me first. I never admitted that--even to Ignatius; nor shall I admit it to you. Yes, you like the poem that tells I had gathered herbs and had them ready for Jesus' Easter breakfast. You like to think that, while apostles hud-dled in fear, while women wondered "who will roll back the stone," and Magdalen searched the garden--I was calmly fixing those herbs. I'm sorry. That is like a little jewel---a pretty thought. I cannot say it's more. John, whom Jesus had given me as son, was exhausted when he'd finished his memories of Jesus. '"There are still many other things that Jesus did," he wrote, admitting the world would not have books enough to record them. Some things must wait 'til heaven-~else why have faith? I say, then, to you--perhaps I saw my risen son on Easter; perhaps, as it will be for you, that vision came only ~at death. It matters not. The important thing is Christ had died; Christ is risen. I believed and, so, my child, must you. I promise though, that sometime when we meet in heaven, we'll talk about this if you want. But then I doubt if it will matter. You'll Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 understand when your believing is no longer necessary, for Christ will come again. Wo Dialogue with Mary at 55-~ I was not so old the day Christ died So young I was the night I gave him birth. But when they pulled that spear from out his side No one was quite so old on all this earth. You remember that poem, do you? It's true--I was older at 55. Mothers share the lives of their children and my Child had become sin. I think I can say he had become the sin of all my children; he had taken on himself your sin--with that of all the others. Sin ages one. Faith on Good Friday didn't save me from feeling the weight of all those sins. And with Jesus, I forgave all those engaged in sin's tragedy until the end of time. I forgave y6u--and loved you in my Son. But all this took its toll. Yes, I was older at 55. The death-resurrection act was almost ten years old then. John and I shared a home and much more besides. He had begun his Gospel and he'd leave parts with me when he. went on his journeys. I would read them in the quiet evenings pondering each word in my heart; it would take me weeks to read my son's "last discourse." All the apostles would come to see me--come home, tired, from their journeys. Luke came too--our cousin, constantly asking questions about the early life of Jesus. I loved to share my memories. They had become very precious to me---forming a tapestry now--and even Golgotha brought peace. I had lived my own "healing of memories." Things were different after Pentecost. The Holy Spirit that had come upon me long years ago came to all the apostles--filling them with the Love that had given me the courage of my years. All minutes were precious to me but when one of the apostles would return, and I'd send word to the neighbors, and we'd break bread together, keeping my son's new Covenant --then, I find it hard to tell you what I knew. I don't mean that I didn't feel his Spirit with me always. It was just that I'd experience my pre-Bethlehem days again. Jesus was within me--no longer an unborn infant, but my mature son--and we'd share together all we once did not understand. That knowledge and that wisdom were caught in heartbeats of Love. Then I'd be ready to go to the well again and listen to the gossip of the women. Christians, they would say, "are changing the face of the earth." 2The author herselt' is 55. My Son's'",Hour" / 823 Some were not eager for that change. It exacted a heavy toll, I know. But filled with the Spirit the Father sent me one spring evening--and my risen son sent to the whole world--I could look at each woman with such love that she too could respond with openness to that Spirit. You would have liked my life at 55. Did I long for heaven? I longed, my child, only to do God's will. If ever the Father had been very fond of anyone, he'd been fond of me. I wanted to return that fondness--without anxiety. The Trinity lived within me. I was content to do the Father's will. I don't mean that I didn't feel the cross of separation. I was human-- very human, and I longed for reunion with my parents, with Elizabeth, with Joseph. But it was comforting to know they were all with God. We'd be together again--all of us in his good time and that would mean for eternity. And I said once more to the Father; Behold the handmaid of the Lord Be it done unto me according to your will. Amen! .O Till I Begin I did not understand till I had begun to know. I did not find You, You found me; a small and melancholy st6ne to be carried in Your pocket, till I begin to wear, to shine, till I am brushed to a smooth and faultless final core. Stephanie E. WeIler 1030 East Washington St. Iowa City, lowa 52240 Dread (the Dark Night) and Christian Transformation Leslie Lund Miss Lund is presently working on her thesis to complete her work towards an M.A. degree in Religious Studies at Gonzaga University in Washington; her interest is in spirituality. She resides at E. 945 Nora, 4~4; Spokane, WA 99207. It is difficult to be living an authentic, deep Christian life without shortly running up against the cross, the "dark night" (St. John of the Cross), the "cloud of unknowing" (14th-century anonymous Christian mystic), or "diminishment" (Teilhard de Chardin). I will lump all such terms, and the experience they attempt to express, under the catch-all word, dread. These elements of suffering and diminishment (dread, as we may now call it) are not peculiar to Christianity, and neither is mystical experience itself. Such experiences are not in themselves a good. Dread is not to be sought for its own sake. We are not stoics or modern existentialists or Buddhists --but Christians--and this article cannot be read outside the total Christian perspective. Christians may not affirm or emphasize the negative aspects of spiritual growth to the exclusion of ultimate Christian hope, fulfillment, the restoration of all things in Christ. It is my hope, lest distortion arise, that this focus will be kept clearly in mind throughout the article until its final elaboration in the concluding pages. The Paschal Mystery is diminishment, yes, but it is transfiguration. It is the cloud, but it is truth and light. It is the dark night of the soul, but it is union. It is the cross, but it is, ultimately, the resurrection. Though there may be a number of different levels or nuances to dread, in this paper I will be dealing with a very specific understanding of it. The focus will be on religious dread, though to accentuate its particular qualities 824 Dread and Christian Transformation I Will at first show religious dread in counterdistinction to an existentialist conception of dread. There are a variety of states of dread, even within the religious context, so to further narrow the topic, this article will concern itself with the religious dread experienced in serious prayer (desert prayer or contemplative prayer-~-the "dark night of the soul" in John of the Cross). For a representative understanding of this state of dread I will use the l~anguage and thought of a "classical" contemplative, the author of The Cloud of Unknowing, and also of a modern contemplative, Thomas Merton (from his book, Contemplative Prayer, in which the topic of dread is dis-cussed in some depth). Dread Dread is a basic, and common, human experience, and as such, it is a theme that recurs in literature, psychology, philosophy and theology. For the philosopher Kierkegaard, dread could also be set within a religious context. But even so, generically it can be described as a condition or state of being that comes before and precipitates a choice (leap) from one period of life to another. Dread, then, involves the awful possibility of freedom, for it forces the choice for or against new realities or potentialities. This state of freedom and new choices is recognized as very painful by existentialist philosophers, but Kierkegaard believed one could be delivered from it by making a leap, a commitment to the "objective uncertainty." The leap is the leap of faith.1 The choice is painful because it is made in regard to the unknown and undeterminable, and hence to what is both attractive and fascinating, but revolting and frightening. It is a very uncomfortable sit-uation, marking the end of self-complacency and the beginning of some-thing new. Let us further define dread. Christians, along with existentialists, can describe it as a state of anguish, alienation, and insecurity. It also includes a recognition of the limits of reason (the experience of "absurdity" for the existentialist), though for the Christian this does not therefore imply that what is is meaningless, but rather, that the meaning escapes the power of haman reason, and lies beyond the self in the.transcendent mystery of God. However, religious dread includes attributes or nuances beyond "sec-ular" dread. It includes for the Christian also the awareness of sinfulness, wandering, exile, Iostness (Exodus themes). This state Merton describes as ". death--a kind of descent into our own nothingness, a recognition of helplessness, frustration, infidelity, confusion, ignorance.''~ The person can experience an acute, sense of his own uselessness and worthlessness. This experience and awareness of the self is particularly painful, though for tThe similarity of this secular view of dread with our religious dread, and what it means in a Christian context will come Clear, hopefully, a little later. 2Thomas Merton, Contemplative Prayer (Garden City: Doubleday, 1969), p. 34. ~196 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 the Christian this pain does not drive him to self-sufficiency in setting up the self as the center of its universe, but on the contrary, pushes him towards God as the center and meaning of his being. The author of The Cloud of Unknowing makes this statement about the experience of nothingness, self and sinfulness: Then will come a time when he recognizes in that nothingness no particular s'in but only the lump of sin itself which, though but a formless mass, is none other than himself; he sees that in himself it is the root and pain of original sin.a ; Rephrased for 6ur own time we might call this an understanding of the experience of self-worship, with the accompanying experience of this false self as the root of sin, darkness, emptiness and alienation. Our anonymous author also wrote that to feel one's own existence, which is'the content of our modern word "dread," is the greatest suffering possible. ". he alone understands the deep universal reason for sorrow who ex.periences that he is."4 It is more terrible than any other type or level Of experienced isolation and separation. Within the experience itself often comes the realization that this must be what hell is like. And with it also comes the temptation to despair at ever being healed or delivered from it and froha the burden of self. That we are as we are (separated existence) is the source of our deep anguish. The illusion that brings the agony is the failure to experience God in one's own being. Instead, one experiences his .being apart from God. For as often as he would have a true knowing and feeling of God in purity of spirit ¯. and then feels that he cannot--for he constantly finds his knowing and feeling as it were occupied and filled with h foul, stinking lump of himself., he almost despairs for the sorrow that he feels, weeping, lamenting, writhing, and blaming himself. In a word, he feels the burden of himself so tragically that he no longer cares about himself if only he can love God? This is the fundamental cause of this type of dread, though there are other corollaries and ramifications. The alienation that causes the anguish is more than a sense of being a useless, unnecessary, ephemeral being, and includes a profound experience of being separated from God, all men, and even from the self. This gives rise to acute feelings of insecurity, for not only can we not control God, we are even powerless to control or to be reconciled to ourselves. We discover we have nothing and are nothing by ourselves. This period of dread is a time when faith is seriously challenged (as is everything that has ultimate value and meaning in the Christian's life). The fear is great that faith will be lost or abandoned, and that the see,rningly absurd and meaningless, or even despair, will be embraced instead. The aThe Cloud of Unknowing and the Book of Privy Counseling, ed. by William Johnston (Garden City: Doubleday, 1973), p. 137. 41bid., p. 103. 5lbid., p. 104. Dread and Christian Transformation entire process of dread is a crucible of honesty, where truth is almost experienced as the enemy because of the pain it causes. One sees too clearly his own unfaithfulness and dishonesty in regard to Truth, especially as it involves the truth of his own life. The existentialists coined the phrase "bad faith" which is descriptive of the awareness that one is capable of, or has been living his life untruthfully, that one has not been true to God, to his fellow man or even to himself. One perceives that he may have been living contrary to the truth of his own call or condition. Indeed, truth itself is questioned. Old ideals and values lose their certainty. There is the suspicion that one may have set himself up as the standard of truth, or there is the temptation to do so if truth is not so certain for him. Deep down, far back in the mind there are demands or calls or possi-bilities that are only dimly and faintly recognized. Failure to respond to, or even examine them, haunts and produces a sense of failure and guilt. Somewhere there is a stubborn, defiant refusal to be all one can be. Every-thing feels illusory and slippery, and out of control, and this gives rise to panic. We "want out," we want to escape the condition, but we do not know what we want instead or where to go. The experience of rebellion and anger are overwhelming at times. We experience, too, a deep hatred for God and for ourselves. God is like a "monkey on our back"--an ever constant and annoying affliction that we cannot get rid of, Like Jeremiah we feel angry at being tricked and duped (20:7). This kind of relatedness to God is not at all what we expected. The spiritual understandings and com-forts of the past have vanished. We are comfortless. To pray is nearly impossible, if not impossible. Gone will be your new fervor, but gone, too, your ability to meditate as you had long done before. What then? You will feel as if you had fallen somewhere between the two ways having neither, yet grappling'for both.6 Not prayer, or mass, or confession, or any fulfillment of the "law" can take the dread away, or bridge the gap between God and the false self. The schism between this self and all that is seems infinite. The self is seen as bankrupt and barren, and the ha~-dness of heart, selfishness, and self-cen-teredness make us recoil in disgust and near despair. "I am gall, I am heartburn, God's most deep decree. Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me.''7 But still there is the clinging to the illusory false self for fear that if we let go of even that miserable possession we will have nothing and be nothing. God could not be so audacious as to demand that from us! Even though it is seen that this clinging to the false self causes our spiritual 6lbid., p. 143. 7Gerard Manley Hopkins, Poems and Prose of Gerard Manley Hopkins (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1963), p. 62. 1~21~ / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 "sickness" and estrangement between God and self, still the all important, confused "I" remains th~ center of worship, and without the grace of God it can never be otherwise. The alienation is truly terrible, for it is not estrangement from the abstract, transcendent God of the philosophers, but is estrangement with the All and the ground of our own being. This point being re~iched in the ¯ dread of contemplative prayer, nothing is more terrible than the suffering of emptiness at the prospect of living without God, though the ambivalence of attraction and fear is again experienced--the proverbial "I can't live with him, and I can't live without him." At this point comes the temptation to believe that not even God can be what is needed, that not even he can fill the void, indeed, that he could not be the revelation of love of Jesus, but is instead, uncaring and disfant. "Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend, how wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost?.-8 But there is a worse temptation. Maybe He does not exist at all;. and everything is meaningless. Though at first the struggle may be fierce and intense, strug-gling to fight back the chaos, finally one ". loses even the power to struggle._ _He feels himself ready to sink and drown in doubt and despair."9 Transformation While a description of dread needed to be set fo~-th, let us be reminded that this diminishment and apparently disintegrative condition is not the total picture, Much more is happening simultaneously. Does this most horrible of human experiences have a positive value for Christians? What is th,.e. "much more" that is happening? At bottom, it is all the mystery of the transforming cross, and since Christians are used to paradox, it should not be surprising that those who have come through dread speak of it as a "blessed gift." "God in his mercy protects the contemplative in this way, though some foolish neophytes will think he has turned enemy to them.''1° There are several approaches that can be taken in response to the process of dread. One can insulate himself from it by retreating into illu-sions of the world,, getting involved in society's concerns and structures, or in general, by just keeping busy and blocking out any interiority. Or, as many are saying today, one can escape it by "going through it." Thomas Merton wrote that the "chief service of the monk was not only silence, listening, and questioning, but was also b~ing open and exposed to dread."~ Those who are serious about their prayer and faith life, and gradual transformation into Christ, face, and even embrace, the crucible of dread, Slbid., p. 67. 9Merton, op. cit., p. 99. ~°The Cloud of Unknowing, p. 145. ~Merton, op. cit., p. 25. Dread and Christian Transformation / 829 and allow themselves to experience it totally. This is not done stoically. It is not done lightly. There is resistance, for Christians are not masochists; they always struggle against evil. It is the "If it is possible let this cup pass--not my will, but Yours" prayer of Jesus. Even the decision to go through this process is a mystery, and is often not even articulated at the conscious level. There is the sense of continually "letting go" and sub-mitring to the process and moving in the darkness and uncertainty, but if the question were put, "Why are you doing this?" probably no satisfactory answer could be given. This should not be a worry, and can be taken as a sign that it is an authentic transforming process, for it is not something we do to ourselves, rather it is something done to us with which we cooperate. It is the desert experience of the young Israel. Nothing is certain. Help, if it comes at all, comes only at the eleventh hour, barely in the nick of time. It is a period of trials and collapses. But it is the fruitful time of formation (as it was for Israel) and, it was, as it still is, the movement towards the Promised Land. There does not seem to be much of a choice once the process has started. It appears that God has forced us into a radical decision. (In The Book of Revelation he spits out the lukewarm.) We must make a choice. We are forced (as our existentialist writer, Kierkegaard, observed we would be). This makes us angry. We want to sit in the middle, but must choose the dread with its seemingly horrible emptiness and darkness (though we somehow s.uspect: accompanying growth and maturity) or withdraw and drop out of the process, letting ourselves become trapped in our own illusions and immaturity. Our Catholic tradition has always placed a value on suffering (more often than not a distorted value) and somewhere along the way we have all heard that this diminishment is a necessary factor in spiritual growth. If it is the authentic process, and not a pseudo one that we bring or put on ourselves, this can be so, and our faith can be deepened. Merton must be read in context, but he also puts it this way, ". full maturity of the spiritual life cannot be reached unless we first pass through the dread, anguish, trouble, and fear that accompany the inner crisis of spiritual death, where we abandon attachment to our exterior self and surrender completely to Christ.''12 Attributes of Transformation It is time to take up a description of the attributes that the transformation process of dread can accomplish. It brings about many spiritual benefits and new dispositions. Since it threatens faith, it also changes it and deepens it. The doubt and despair serve to purify faith and destroy some of the more human elements of it (i.e., the need for certainty, and a correspondence to t2lbid., p.110. Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 one's way of looking at reality, etc.). It is not what it was before. It takes on new dimensions and powers. We can finally experience the very "dearest freshness deep down" of things that Hopkins wrote of in his poem "God's Grandeur." Some time during the process of dread we become more comfortable with it, i.e., with the uncertainty, darkness and emptiness. The dread has moved us mysteriously beyond the need for consolations or gratification of immediate desires, or need to control what is. The process has the power to radically alter attitudes, and once the person has been emptied and humbled through this process that is beyond his control, he can be filled with Christ-like attitudes. His stance before God can include such attributes as opennes, s, pliableness, purity of heart, dependence, defenselessness, emptiness, hopefulness, truthfulness and gratitude. One becomes receptive to the fullness of God through the process. As was mentioned earlier, it is definitely not a time to be trying to regain self-possession, nor is it a time to be making new resolutions. However, it is a time of surrender and a time of letting go of the control and direction of one's life, and of giving it trustingly into the hands of the Lord who has been in charge of the process all ~along. It is the moment to depend only on him and his grace. Again, the experience of dread forces honesty.'It makes us evaluate our commitments and motives and beliefs at a much deeper level. It surfaces questions to ask ourselves that we could not have asked before. It is a blessed time when we come to encounter our real selves, to get to know that person we truly are. It also destroys false conceptions of God, and reveals him as he is in himself. The authentic process reveals sham and posturing. It gets us down to rock bottom. It does not allow hypocrisy, and false religiosity. It makes clear our illusions, idolatries and addictions. It is the experience of being the broken clay pot, for it takes awhy our sense of self-possession or assurance. And though we can often be worried that the dread takes us only more deeply into ourselves, or gets us caught up in the trap of constantly taking our own emotional and spiritual pulses, in the end, the process takes us out of ourselves. The experience, in dread, of alienation becomes trans-formed into a great recognition, need and desire for reconciliation and union with God and our fellow man. It is said that God tests those he loves. This is scarcely of any comfort in the darkest hours of dread, and it is in no way adequate for describing the mystery of the process, but there is some truth to it. The process is a gift of God's enigmatic mercy, and it is God's work, not ours. (In the more traditional vocabulary it is known as passive purification.) Only the false self is destroyed and emptied, but to make room for the Christ-self. Re-men~ ber, we are not masochists or stoics or manicheans--but Christians, for whom each individual, including the self, is precious, not evil. But the true Christ-self cannot be happy or full apart from God, and it is the process Dread and Christian Transformation of dread that intensifies and deepens this realization. The Paschal Mystery is the dialectic that accomplishes this. Thomas Merton writes, This alternation of darkness and light can constitute a kind of dialogue between the Christian and God, a dialectic that brings us deeper and deeper to the conviction that God is our all. By such alternations we grow in detachment and in hope.~3 Our anonymous writer of The Cloud of Unknowing teaches that this is God's way of preparing, educating, and forming us through the alternation of hiS presence and absence. "As often as he goes, he will come back. And if you will suffer itall with gentle love, ea+h coming will be more marvelous and more joyful than the last.''14 In the process, doubt becomes faith. Despair becomes hope. The chaos and confusion become liberating and freeing. Hatred and anger mellow to gratitude and love. Rebellion becomes surrender. Peace comes in the com-mitment of the self to the loving will of God, and in the death of the false self comes the resurrection of the new Christ-self. The language and purpose of contemplative ~lread has a Pauline cast to it. The dread becomes the process in which the incomplete, false self dies so that the true self can come to be. It is "terrible" as the author of The Cloud of Unknowing calls it, but it is the work of love, nonetheless. The false old self dies, but this can be a joyous death for the Christian, for it is really the fulness of being. Therefusal to participate in this "work of love" results in a self that remains separated and isolated from the ground of its be!ng, God. To choose the destruction of the false self is necessary for the life of the true, resurrected self. It is to reject the illusions of the idolatry of the self. It is to truly believe at last that one is only himself when he is in union with God. "This simple awareness of my being is all I desire, even though it must bring with it the painful burden of self and make my heart break with weeping because I experience only self and not God. I prefer it with its pain., for this suffering will set me on fire with the loving desire to experience God as he really is.''15 Thus the author of The Cloud of Unknowing realizes that the suffering he.endures is really not hell at all "but his purgatory,.''16 He instructs the reader to not be troubled if his emotions or imagination tempt him to give up, for the prize is near. He asks simpl3i that a gift of the self be made as it is, to God as he is. Further, he counseis that there is no need, no matter ho.w it seems, for fear or panic or discoiaragement. His understanding is that it is a time to suffer humbly, waiting patiently in trust. For we do not know what is best for ourselves, but God, in his love and mercy, uses dread to bring us to his fuiness. God is audacious for us, and the process is nothing less than a total metamorphosis. "Now you are on what I might call a sort ~albid., p. 35. t4The Cloud of Unknowing, p. 184. 151bid., p. 174. ~lbid., p. 137. ~132 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 of spiritual ocean, in voyage from the rife of the flesh to the life in the spirit."~7 Though the author of The Cloud of Unknowing refers to this dread as a "hell of purgatory," a twelfth-century Cistercian monk, Isaac of Stella, refers .to it as a "hell of mercy." This is an even more powerful and rich notion. Here I quote the passage surrounding the idea of the "hell of mercy," for it very much embodies the reason and purpose of dread, that is, to destroy the false self, so that the Christ-self can be resurrected, and receive God himself. It also makes clear the concept of purification, not as punishment, but as a gift and work of Love. This passage must be read in the context of the total Christian dimension of diminishment and restora-tion, of cross but resurrection. It is too powerful and beautiful to para-phrase, so I leave it as it was written: "So let us be cruel and harsh for ourselves. I mean for the exterior man, so that we not offend the judge of both the interior and exterior man. If we accuse ourselves in all truth; if we judge ourselves with severity; if we condemn ourselves in harshness, we will not have to fear another accuser; nor will we have to be afraid to meet or confront another judge, or to have to endure or submit ourselves to another chastiser. What do we look for--pleasure or rest? We are on the cross. Or rather, we were in the world; we are in hell-- but a hell of mercy, not of wrath; we shall be in heaven. In the world, we sinned; here, we make atonement; there, we shall rest. There, we were in pleasures; here, in pain and tribulation; there, we will be in glory. There, we were in the dirt; here, we are in purification; there, we shall be in peace. "So let the Father be the Father of our souls and the chastiser of our bodies. Be he the Father of the Son of God in us. Be he the one who feeds and nourishes, the pedagogue and teacher, as long as childhood lasts, for him who i~ the future heir, and who as son, will dwell in his house forever. Be he for the son of man (man) theone who bruises and who humiliates, the one who betrays and seduces, the one who takes everything away, the one who crucifies and buries. If he neglects to act this way towards us, let us be ourselves the murderers of the son of man (man), but feeders and nurturers of the Son of God within us, so that he grow and become un-surpassed, or, as the apostle says, until Christ is formed in us, and we attain the perfect man in the fullness of Christ, who with the Father and Spirit reigns forever.''~8 In this same vein, though.from a different age and manner of expression, Thomas Merton also sums up the real value of dread, "The purpose of the dark night., is not simply to punish and afflict the heart of man, but to liberate, to purify and to eialighten in perfect love. The way that leads through dread goes not to despair but to perfect joy, not to hell but to heaven."19 171bid., p. 184. 181saac de L'Etoile, Sermons (Paris, 1974). pp. 148, 150, 152. ~aMerton, op. cit., p. 110. Celibate Friendship: Illusion and Reality Thomas Dubay, S.M. Father Dubay, well known to our readers, presently devotes his time to lectures, retreats and chapter consultations for religious and priests. He resides at the Marist Administration Center; 4408 8th St., N.E.; Washington, DC 20017. No finite reality is adequately understood except in terms of its context. Even the God of revelation presents himself in Scripture in the context of a created world. The individual person is understood against the back-ground of his family, and social problems are evaluated in terms of the milieu in which they occur. A sentence is grasped only within its paragraph and the paragraph within the entire article. The classical example of this truth is the biblical statement, "there is no God." This is understood only with the words that precede it: "the fool says in his heart that . " Celibate friendship can be understood only in terms of a complete pic-ture of the raison d'6tre of celibate dedication. To discuss this way of life without a previous consideration of its primary orientation (which can be known only from Revelation) is to present a truncated account, almost necessarily an illusory account. The Usual Explanation The popular explanation of friendship in religious life is likely to begin with our modern and improved understanding of human sexuality. It goes on to say that while there was in bygone days an undue repression both of the reality and its open discussion, we now see a positive worth beyond that of procreation and we freely share our views about the matter. This may be followed by the basically favorable view of sex that we find in the Bi-ble-- even though anything approaching an adequate discussion of virginity 1~34 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 in the New Testament is omitted. At this point we arb likely to meet a disapproving look into the patristic and medieval literatures. Next the writer or speaker may direct attention to contemporary theories of sexuality as they may be applied to the celibate condition. Little or no attention is given to the revealed context of consecrated virginity. Instead we may find a mixture of undoubted truths ("the two sexes are complementary") with less secure statements (physical signs of affection [no limits mentioned] are normal between celibates) and even clearly .false ones ("there is no vocation to celibacy, only that to Christian life"). The legitimacy of celibate friendship is then supported and illustrated by the classical examples of Jordan and Diana, Catherine and Raymond, Jane and Francis. In this usual explanation there will be words of caution, for not anything at all is acceptable behavior. Yet the limits are not clear and some people carry away from the discussion the impression that occasional serious sin ought not to disturb the two friendsunduly, that such is the price of an enriching relationship. Celibate men and women need to mature in their relationships so that they can "handle" their emotional reactions. Religious and priests differ, of course, intheir evaluations of this typical discussion of celibate friendships. Some are highly critical, others are favorably impressed. My own reactions are mixed. Ican identify with some of the ideas in these presentations, but I also find serious shortcomings. There is often a lack of theological accuracy and of a realistic assessment of the human situation. There may be insufficient contact with the biblical word and, especially, there is no adequate context. Celibate friendships are seen as though celibacy itself were chiefly a matter of interhuman rela-tionships and apostolic freedom. Here, as elsewhere in human life, faulty premises yield faulty conclusions. The Celibate Context As a dedicated ~vay of life, a permanent ideal embraced for the King-dom, consecrated virginity/celibacy~ appears for the first time.on the face of the earth in the persons of Mary and her Son. It is a 'theological ~eality in the etymological sense of that word: its meaning is found only in God and it can be known only from his lips. Although they may be helpful in an ancillary way, psychology and sociology of themselves know nothing of consecrated celibacy. The celibate is grasped by the Lord God in a manner so radically new that his whole life undergoes a basic reorientation. All men and women are to be oriented toward God as their raison d'etre, but most reach him q shall use the two terms interchangeably even though strictly speaking they do differ. In every case the adjective, consecrated or dedicated, is supposed. Virginity is the preferred biblical term, while celibacy enjoys common modern usage. Celibate Friendship: Illusion and Reality through the intimate and human sharing called marriage. The celibate on the other hand omits this sharing in order to respond to another more deeply intimate and divine sharing. Even one who may not be able to see the ¯ significance of these profoundly mysterious words can readily perceive their fundamental radicality. It is this fundamental radicality that must be grasped before we can understand what friendship should and should not be between celibate persons of the same or diverse sexes. Until we know how these persons relate to God we do not grasp how they relate to one another. Without this context, discussions of friendship are not likely to be on a much more elevated level than those of the syndicated advice columns found in the daily newspaper. Virginity, a Privileged Sphere of the Sacred Virginity is a vocation, a new vocation, a privileged vocation. To ap-preciate this fact we must refresh out understanding of the biblical concept ofqadosh, the holy, the sacred. We moderns tend to equate the word, holy, with virtuous. For us the holy person is the morally good person: patient, chaste, gentle, honest. For the ancient Hebrew, ttie "holy" is the set-apart person or thing. One was consecrated, holy, not primarily because he was virtuous (though that would be supposed), but because he was reserved for the service of the Lord God. All holiness derives from the utterly holy One. God is totally trans-cendent, totally other, even though entirely immanent in his creation. One becomes holy in this sense when he approaches the burning otherness of the Lord, when he is therefore set apart from the ordinary, the everyday, the merely finite. God's people, for example, are a holy people because they are selected from all the nations of the earth and set apart for him. This is the sense of 1 P 2:9: "You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a consecrated nation, a people set apart to sing the praises of God who called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light." Continence was practiced in the old dispensation before a priest par-ticipated in the temple liturgy or soldiers went off to the holy war (which shared something of a liturgical enterprise), not because sexual relations in marriage were bad, but because they were of the humdrum, ordinary life. Sexual intercourse was avoided at these times because it was of t, his world, whereas the priest or soldier was to enter the sacred sphere of Yahweh. He was to engage in something qadosh, holy,set apart, and thus he prepared himself by removing himself from the everyday occupations of marriage and daily life. When ther(fore, St. Paul speaks of the virgin as being holy in body and spirit he is not talking first of all of her moral goodness, though that is not excluded. He is saying that she, unlike the married woman or man, is set apart for the sacred sphere of the Lord God. As a virgin she need not be concerned with the dozens of duties that are the normal round for a wife 836 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 who cares for husband, children, household. She can give "undivided attention to the Lord" insofar as she is not burdened with the concern for this world that is necessarily entailed in familial duties and sexual relations. By calling the virgin holy, qadosh, St. Paul is not saying that she is virtuous while the married woman is not. Both are to be morally good. The dif-ference is that, as married, the one lives in the sphere of this world, while the other lives in the sphere of the Lord. This language and thought pattern are expressed by Jesus himself in his priestly prayer at the Last Supper. He says that neither he nor his select disciples are of this world (Jn 17:14, 16). He "consecrates" himself, makes himself holy, set apart, so that they too may be set apart in the truth (Jn 17:19). Jesus belongs to the privileged sphere of the Father in a preeminent way. He is reserved for the Father alone and so he declined an earthly marriage. His food was to do the will of the Father and nothing else (Jn 4:34). He could not have given the attention to this world that marriage requires. The celibate is celibate precisely as Jesus was and for the same reasons. The celibate, the virgin is a man or woman who, while living on planet earth and involved with its joys and sorrows, its hopes and burdens, is none-theless a person set apart. He belongs to the sphere of the transcendent, which is the sphere of the infinite, the other, the Lord God. This is one reason magisterial documents indicate that the primary orientation of re-ligious life is not engagement in an external apostolate but rather prayer, penance, gospel example.2 The religious vows afford a freedom for uni-versal love and apostolic involvement, yes, but that freedom is second to a prior freedom for a direct love-prayer relationship to God himself. The first commandment remains first, and the second remains second. Celibacy, an Excluding Fullness3 Celibacy for the kingdom (the only type we envision here) is not first of all non-marriage. It is a fullness in its own right. In a similar manner the earthly marriage of Susan to Philip is not first of all a non-marriage to Robert or William. A religious or priest does not see his consecration at all ade-quately until it appears as a positive fullness in its own right. The person with the celibate charism has been grasped by the Lord for a special, direct relationship. God takes the initiative and so orientates this person that he (she) "cannot" give a marital attention to another human being. The authentically married person experiences a similar "cannot" in relation to others than his spouse. The married man could physically attempt marriage to another woman than his wife but it would do violence to his being. The ~See Christus Dominus #33 and Renovationis causam, 4~2. aA more complete treatment of this section may be found in my article, "Celibacy As Full-ness," REWEW VOR REL~C~Ot~S, January, 1975, pp. 88-100. Celibate Friendship: Illusion and Reality / 83? celibate could likewise attempt marriage but it would do violence to his person. God so captures the genuine virgin that she cannot but focus her being on the Lord's affairs and give him her undivided attention. In spiritual direction of religious one sees instances where this cannot is completely obvious. Virginity/celibacy is an exclusive God-orientation, a focusing on "the one thing," a fullness in its own right. From this positive reality flows the negative, the non-marriage. The healthy celibate appreciates and values the beauty, attractiveness, goodnesses of the opposite sex, but he appreciates and values even more the immeasurably greater beauty, attractiveness and goodness of God himself. The virginal heart is a large heart, a heart so large that earthly marriage cannot fill it. Erroneous Premises Many, perhaps most, significant differences among religious in recent years are fundamentally due to widely different presuppositions. An ob-vious example is one's ecclesiology. If one person wholly embraces the ecclesiology of Vatican Council II and another that of liberal Protestantism, ¯ it can hardly be surprising that they entertain basically different notions of what religious life is. Whatever one thinks about celibate friendships, it is quite certain that his thoughts stem from underlying premises. We may be aware or unaware of the explicit forms of those premises, but there is no doubt that we have them. A good tree produces good fruit and a bad tree produces bad fruit (Mt 7:17). Sound premises, roots, produce sound conclusions (provided the rest of the reasoning process is correct) and faulty premises produce faulty conclusions. Some of our problems in the area of celibate friendships are the presuppositions. It is no doubt worthy of note that not a few of these presuppositions are departures from Catholic teaching. I shall mention here several of these erroneous premises. This is not the place to develop my observations at length. Anyone moderately versed in theology will recognize that with some of them we are dealing with re-jections of the teachings of the Church. After we have cleared the air we shall sketch positively what a beautiful celibate friendship is like. First, the faulty premises. 1 .) "Close celibate relationships have no significant connection with the quality of prayer life." If a connection is supposed, little is made of it. The writer or speaker seems quite unaware of the primary orientation of vir-ginity to prayer, and he makes little of the tie-up between depth of prayer and the reality of friendship. The latter he seems to think ¯is simply a psychological matter which is quite accessible to human reason. 2.) "Genuine love between the sexes is common and easy to come by." We may note about this premise that psychologists themselves point out on purely natural grounds that a capacity for genuine love between the sexes is rare. Even more to our purposes is the teaching of the New Testament 1~31~ / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 that the new Christic love is naturally impossible, not simply rare. Only if we have been emptied of our maze of selfishnesses and converted by the eternal Word of God and born into his new life can we love others sincerely (1 P 1:22-23). Popular discussions of celibate sexuality seem not to know this. This is a fatal error. 3.) "The religious vocation may be temporary, and hence dating may rightly lead to marriage." I have not seen one sound psychological or theological argument among the many produced in recent years to support the theory of temporary vocation. This is not the place to trace out the solid case for permanent vocation. It may suffice for our purposes simply to state that the Catholic Church all through her history has held that the vocation to the counsels is permanent. 4.) "Genital sexual activity in celibate life is not nece.ssarily repre-hensible." Hence, those who hold this premise feel masturbation, intimate touches between friends, perhaps even sexual intercourse are not always wrong. It may be sufficient to note about this position that most people find it shocking, and that it entails a rejection of a large portion of Catholic sexual morality. One wonders what founders and foundresses would have said about these thoughts of their spiritual children. 5.) "Marriage and celibacy are of equal effectiveness in freeing for the kingdom." This premise is a rejection of Jesus' and Paul's teaching (Lk 18:29-30; 1 Co 7:32-38), as exegetes who have no axe to grind readily point out. The premise is of course also a rejection of the teaching of the Council of Trent and that of Vatican Council II. 6.) "The religious woman should display her femininity, or, as one writer put it, she should look 'sexy' " (in some sense he did not define). Only one who is innocent of real life (what, for example, many men are likely to think and say of this type of "virgin"), would make this sort of statement. One may wonder here, too, what our best examples of deepest feminine beauty would think of this idea: Agnes, Agatha~ Catherine of Siena. Teresa of Avila, Maria Goretti and a host of others. 7.) ,"Almost any friendship between a celibate man and woman is to be viewed as similar to those between saints." Merely to advert to the sen-tence is to see how untrue it is. No comment is needed. Signs of Genuine Friendship Even the most uncommitted scholar, well informed in the area of saints and canonization processes, will agree that the Church does not place her seal of approval on any celibate friendship. This undebatable fact suggests that there are significant differences between the holy and the unholy re-lationship. One may, if he wishes, introduce a third category, the "spiri-tually neutral" friendship, i.e., one in which there is no obviously sinful activity and yet in it no one would be inclined to consider either party especially saintly. It may be doubted in at least many cases whether such a "neutral friendship" would long remain merely neutral. It is likely that it Celibate Friendship: Illusion and Reality will either slowly dissolve or become more or less unholy. We humans are like that. I shall consider here the signs of the genuine friendship. If some readers are inclined to question these signs, I ask only one favor: read the lives of the saints and then judge whose position reflects their attitudes and prac-tice. All of us ordinary people are subject to error. In matters like this we are inclined either to exaggerate the gospel or to dilute it. And being sinners, ,most of us are far, more likely to dilute than to exaggerate. I trust that no one of us is so arrogant as to suppose that he knows better than the saints how the gospel is to be lived in concrete life. Their lives have the authentic seal of the Church upon them and ours do not. This is no slight difference. We may take it as a general norm that a genuine friendship is immersed in God, honestly immersed in him. It is a living of the universal Pauline principle that whatever we do, eating, drinking or anything else, we do to the glory of God (1 Co 10:31). This is easy to say in the morning offering but it is"not easy to live. Nevertheless I am supposing here that celibate friend-ship is a love of the Holy Spirit and as such is immersed in Jesus' love for all men and women. In a sense it is a participation in that love: "Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus" (Jn 11:5). Every celibate is to love as he loved. In that way and in no other. Honesty here is not easy. The first sign of this honest authenticity is that God not only was, but remains the first concern of each party to the friendship. It is not siinply that God was once upon a time their prime concern when they engaged in spiritual direction ora common apostolic enterprise. Right now he is their chief love. They would do nothing, absolutely nothing to displease him or to divide their hearts. This implies that each person is a man or woman of deep prayer. They take contemplative prayer seriously and are at least growing in it. They are not content with vocal prayer alone, even the excellent vocal prayer of the Liturgy, of the Hours. We can see why this sign is crucial when we recall the context of celibacy we considered above. Religious and priests who do not really understand their vocation and love it deeply are hardly capable of celibate friendship. This may be a funda-mental reason why some of the writing and speaking on this subject is so defective: it lacks roots and orientation. The second sign is a growing commitment to the celibate gift. God is a God of fidelity and he expects fidelity in us. The celibate charism is given permanently, not for a few years. Both the charism and a genuine friendship are gifts of the one Holy Spirit. He does not contradict himself. He who gives the permanent gift of celibacy does not then turn around0and chip away at it in a relationship between possessors of the gift. Hence if a priest and/or religious begin seriously to consider a dispensation from vows and possible marriage, the love is no longer a love of the Holy Spirit. The spiritual life is one integrated whole. It hangs together. A beautiful friend-ship strengthens chastity, perfect chastity. It prompts each party to want the celibate dedication more strongly and to be entirely faithful to it. 840 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 The third sign is non-exclusiveness, non-possessiveness. It is true that the universal love of the virgin does not mean that she (he) does not love individual persons. No one is to love others only as a kind of global mass. Like all others the celibate is to love unique individuals, but unlike the married he loves without exclusiveness. Marital love is possessive, but celibate love is not. Marital love as marital centers on one person and one alone, even though the married are to love others with a general love. Celibate love as celibate is universal, and a deep friendship with one in-dividual does not erase celibate universality. This is why a Teresa of Avila would be happy to know that Jerome Gratian has another deep, close friend. She does not love him possessively, exclusively. A religious or priest who resents another close friend lacks something of the love of the Holy Spirit. Our next sign is closely allied to the previous one. Genuine friendship promotes universal warmth. Not only is there no exclusivity or posses-siveness, but each party finds that he goes out more warmly to all people. Cordiality, warmth, helpfulness is not reserved to one's friend. This person lives the Pauline admonition to the Romans, "treat everyone with equal kindness" (Rm 12:16). Friends ought not to assume easily that they are living this admonition. It takes a great deal of detachment, self-emptying, to go out as warmly to others as to a special friend. We may recall that 1 P 1:22-23 taught that authentic love in community requires a conversion. And we ought not too easily suppose we have been thoroughly converted. Afinal sign is that in authentic celibate friendship the frequency and length of visits are limited. I shall not cite quantitative limits, but I may say that a man or woman of prayer knows instinctively what is too much in the area of time spent together and what is too much in the area of signs of affection. Again one need only think of the saints. Normal men and women who spend too much time together or are too demonstrative in their af-fection soon have a chastity problem. The Need-Relationship Experience indicates that when many young religious find themselves close to another person they quite automatically consider the closeness to be love. This is especially true of young women. When before too many months or years pass the closeness slowly vanishes, they are not only surprised, but sometimes crushed. Many of these relationships are nothing more than need relationships. One individual finds another to be attractive, interested, concerned. And perhaps the other finds the first to be such also. Then one or both find that the other answers real needs for attention, security, warmth, sharing of problems, pains, aspirations. They are close ¯ because needs are being met. This need-relationship is not necessarily bad. But it is not yet love. Love does not dissipate in time. A mere need-friendship does dissipate when the need disappears or is met by another person. Celibate Friendship: Illusion and Reality / We annot emphasize too strongly what we noted above as the opinion of psychologists, namely, that a capacity for genuine love between the sexes is rare. Need-closeness is not rare. Love is. Real love demands I. conversion, being born of the word of the everlasting God. This is why ¯ genmne celibate friendship happens only when deepening prayer happens. This islanother reason, too, why some recent writings on celibate sexuality are so superficial and consequently misleading. / Implications //We are now prepared to suggest implications that flow from our dis-cUssion. of context, premises and signs. Some religious may well be sur- Jprised that I feel it necessary to indicate these implications so plainly. While others who are well aware of our situation may be saddened, they will not be surprised. Our first consequence is that there is no such thing as a valid "third way," namely some sort of combination of celibacy and marriage, that is, physical closeness and intimacy without marital commitment. It should be said, of course, that what has been meant by the third way is itself a fuzzy spectrum of relationships all the way from dubious friendships to uncom-mitted sexual intercourse. And, it may be noted, this spectrum of rela-tionships has itg defenders from one end of it to the other. Why do I say that there is no such thing as a third way? There are two clear vocations on this score, marriage and celibacy/virginity. A third, marital-virginity, is an illusion. The whole twenty-century history of Christian virginity has seen deep friendships and profound love, but the Church has never set her stamp of approval on a third way. A least acquaintance with the saints makes this clear. Further, one need only review all that has been said thus far in this article. None of it remotely suggests a third way. Our second implication concerns dating. I have found that a religious and a priest who go out to dinner socially together (or share some other recreation) are likely to object to calling the engagement a date. I am not at this point overly concerned about the semantics of the matter, but I may note that these people for some odd reason resist terminology commonly accepted in our day. Almost everyone calls this kind of outing between two unmarried people a date. Whatever the name, this practice has its ardent defenders. It is not simply something done through mistaken judgment and then regretted, That it often ends up in marriage is not surprising. (And that this is a normal, good consequence is also defended.) What is wrong about all this? A number of things. First, the celibate charism is a permanent gift. One who has accepted the gift through vow is to honor his commitment. Vows are to be k~pt. The celibate may not marry, and he ought not to put himself in circumstanc'es that normally lead to marriage. If one responds by thinking or saying, "I have no intention to marry and there is no danger in our dating," I would answer that if the two ~142 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 persons are normal and persist in their relationship they are going to have a chastity problem. If they are not normal, they already have a problem. Then there is the question of scandal. One writer, admitting that many people in our society are scandalized in seeing religious and priests dating, expiessed the hope that one day our fellow citizens would come to see that a man and a woman can go out together with some other purpose than an eventual genital relationship. To be more clear, I think he should have said that he hopes the ordinary man and woman of our day will come to see that a platonic friendship is a likely explanation~ of why a priest and sister may date. This hope is naive. Anyone familiar with our sex-saturated world recognizes that this "likely explanation" is becoming more and more re-mote. I have met aremarkable woolliness of thought on this score of scandal. A sister will maintain that if people see anything wrong in her going out to dinner with a man, that is their problem, not hers. They must, she thinks, have unchaste minds to think of anything else of a platonic or merely business relationship. This view is innocent of reality in two. ways. The first innocence regards the types of scandal~. There is such a thing as pharisaical scandal, namely, that which people take when there is no least reasonable basis for it. This kind we may disregard. The other is what we usually mean, namely, when our action is such that in the normal understanding of.people there is basis for seeing something amiss in it. This kind we may not disregard. And this leads us to the second innocence in this woolly view. The person who holds it seems unaware that in our contemporary society a man and woman who.go out together are ordinarily viewed as either a) married, b) thinking of possible marriage remotely or proximately with this person or some other or c) doing something together but only as a part of a genital sexual relationship. It is. true that many people would admit that the two may have only a platonic interest in each other, but that is not the likely understanding of why they date. Now if th, ese people are scandalized when they see two consecrated celibates dating, their scandal is not pharisaical, that is, without solid basis in normal society. They ought not to judge that the two have sinned or plan to, but they are not wrong in think!ng what I have expressed in the above (a), (b), (c) sentence. It is important to notice about this scandal matter that people need not be sure that there is sexual sin between dating religious. Scandal is given if suspicions are aroused through a normal understanding that there may indeed be something amiss. The work of priests and religious for the king-dom is seriously undermined if people begin to think they are leading double lives, posing public!y as celibates and privately living as married or some-thing approaching this. The Church is severely damaged by suspicions like these. Priests and religious have no right to furnish a basis for them. We may be reminded of the splendid example of St. Paul. He refused :to scandalize "the weak" (i.e., those with erroneous consciences about eating Celibate Friendship." llluMon and Reality food offered to idols) even though what he was doing was perfectly per-missible[ He does not callously say "that is their problem." Rather he remarkslthat Christ died'for this weak brother and Paul will never cause his ruin. "That is why," says the apostle, "since food can be the occasion of t my brother's downfall, I shall never eat meat again in case I am the cause of my br~other s downfall (1 Co 9:7-13)¯ Dedicated religious have this same sensitivity. In no way will they sow the seeds of suspicion in the minds of their bro~thers and sisters, whether the latter be weak or strong. Our ~inal implication bears on maturity, chronological and spiritual, in ~ts bearl.ng on the question of deep cehbate friendship. If one reviews what we havelsaid about the context and signs of a beautiful relationshihpe, will easily see" a problem: are young religious, priests, seminarians really de-veloped/ enough, psychologically and spiritually, to be capable of what we are talking' about? It goes without saying that no one can cite a mathematical norm oriage at which people are mature enough to enter upon more than a mere ne, ed-relationship. In any event young people should remember that ¯ a capacity for genuine love among all age groups is not common and they . ought not to be easily persuaded that they themselves are already so capa- . ble. Young people especially are prone to mere need-relationships which they m~stakenly interpret as love. I am not saying that the young cannot love genmnely. But I am saying that no one, young or old, can love w~thout hawng Been converted¯ And no one loves deeply w~thout deep conversion. Thislis why prayer is absolutely crucial to the whole question of celibate friendsliip.' Those who write and speak about this matter and pay scant ¯ I . attention to the prayer-context are s~mply bypassing the core ~ssue. Vt r-ginity f~r Christ has' depths of which psychology has not dreamed. That man or woman alone is capable of a deep friendship who is already deeply (or at least is growing in depth) in communion with the source of all love, the God who is love. Preparation for New Ministries: A Futuristic View Mary Vincentia Joseph, M.~.B.T. and Carla Przybilla, O.S.F. Sister Mary Vincentia is Assistant Professor at the National Catholic School of Social Service; the Catholic University of America; Washington, DC 20064. Sister Carla is Executive Director of the National Religious Formation Conference; 1330 Massachusetts Ave., N.W.; Washington, DC 20005. The authors wish to acknowledge and thank Rev. Ladislas Orsy, S.J., for reviewing this article and for his helpful comments. The whole future of the Earth, as of religion, seems to me to depend on the awakening of our faith in the future. Teilhard de Chardin Today, with the growing consciousness of the personhood of woman and with the re-structuring of her roles in both society and in the Church, women religious are providing leadership in spearheading and developing new and exciting ministries designed to meet rapidly changing social needs. There appears to be a new perspective, based on a model of collaboration and interdependence, which captures both identity and purpose, while at the same time engaging in a dialogical process with the world. This vibrant movement, in response to the needs of people, and within the context of the charismatic beginnings of religious communities, is not only transforming the forms of ministry of women religious in the United States, but is also impacting on the orientation and style of preparation required for ministries of the future. The future however, is in the present. A futuristic view of ministry requires preparation for today's demands. We are living in a time of such 844 Preparation for New Ministries: A Futuristic View / !i45 accelerat ~d change that it is estimated that people will undergo retraining ~ . for occup, at~onal needs many times during a lifetime. Not only will many religious have to re-tool for today's work but a totally new orientation will be necess,ary to respond appropriately to ever-changing needs. Professional schools, i,n their socialization processes, are emphasizing education geared to the self-directed learner, preparing the adult learner for a major constant in our culture--social change. In the helping professions this means creat-ing a readiness to handle continuous and rapid change as well as skill in generating new models of helping. Incorporated within this orienting frame is the closely related concept of monitoring and assessing service effect¯ iveness. Has this trend fully impacted on religious communities, in their socialization processes and in preparation for second careers? Cer-tainly, it has influenced a number in their approaches to ministry. More still have to ~ confront this major dynamic influencing the mission of the Church in moder~n society. It vitally touches every area of "personpower": re-cru~ tment policies, qualifications needed for the various service modalities, the capacity to ~ntegrate the spiritual and rehg~ous dimensions m service, and the tra~mng modaht~es for new m~mstnes. What are the personal re-quiremedts necessary to meet new and changing situations? A look at the emergln.g~ forms of mlmstnes may provide some answers. As Rahner states, ttiese new models of service, similar to the secular professions, are concretelexpressions of the spiritual and corporal works of mercy.~ The p~urpose' of this article is to examine the developing forms of min-istry of women religious and to consider their implications for the so-c~ ahzat~on processes, e.g. the formation programs of religious congrega-tions as ~well as for re-tooling for new and re-focused careers. An attempt also wiillbe made to provide an organizing schema, a conceptual frame-work, to,~ analyze the major components of these socialization processes within a [context of future needs. The data presented here were collected during the preliminary phase of ¯ a larger study which is underway on the new careers of women religious, related areas of role conflict, and coping styles utilized in conflict resolu-tion. 2 Thlis first phase, a survey of 367 religious congregations of women in the United States, sought to locate the population of religious in new works, that is, ~n works which were new to their congregations.3 Communities ~Karl Rahner. "'Practical Theology and Social Work in the Church," Theological Inves-tigations, ~/ol. 10, translated by David Bourke (New York: Herder and Herder, 1973), pp. 267-68. I , 2This study is being conducted by Sister Mary Vincentia Joseph, M.S.B.T. with the Nationa~ Religious Formation Conference, Washington, D.C. Sister Mary Vincentia developed the research design and Stster Carla processed the data for this preliminary phase. The article was written by the former and the final version was completed jointly. 3The istin~ of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which included major supe-riors of 367icongregations, was used for the mailing. The time-frame of the survey was summer to fall, 1976. 1~46 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 were asked, in an open-ended format, to indicate the new ministry of each sister. There was a 94.60% rate of response which would seem to indicate, along with the many supportive statements, a high level of interest among religious communities in this area. A total of 5,892 religious was reported by their communities to be engaged in new works. ¯ Although this survey was not intended to be an exhaustive study, it was rich in information on developing works among sisters. The data, therefore, were analyzed and classified into broad categories of ministry. These findings would seem to have value in that they provide an empirical base, suggesting future directions and rough indicators for some future projec-tions. New ministries, as used here,, refer to forms which were new to religious communities. In considering the findings, it is important to note that a number of communities indicated that they have no new works, that their congregations have always been involved in what many consider new directions. The non-r~spondent group may also be composed of those who have consistently been involved in what is considered new by religious today. For example, in a recent study on sister social workers profession-ally educated in the United States during the period 1962 to 1972, forty-six sisters or the largest, number trained in any religious community were members of the Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity.4 None of these, however, are reflected.in the findings discussed here since social work is traditional apostolate of this community. Similarly, the large num-ber of sisters in this community, and in a few others, in parish work is not represented in the data since, historically, these communities have been engaged in this type of work. New Forms of Ministry The proportion of women religious in the broad categories of ministry are shown in Table 1. This typology follows the familiar classification of works according to the fields of health, education, and welfare (here termed social ministry). Other emerging forms of ministry did not fit neatly into these general categories and, therefore, were presented separately. Parish work, for .example, which involves a plurality of ministries, crosses the categorical boundaries of health, education, and social ministry. A special category was constructed for the spiritual ministries which have been in-creasing over the past few years. They clearly represent a cluster of spiritual and religious functions (such as directed retreats and prayer movements) generally performed in Church-related structures rather than in exclusively non-ecclesial settings. Similarly, supportive Church-related 4Sister Mary Vincentia Joseph, A Study ~of Self-Role Congruence and Role-Role Congruence on the Integration of the Religious Role and the Social Work Role of the Sister Social Worker. Unpublished DSW dissertation, the Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. 1974, p. 247. Preparation for New Ministries: A Futuristic View / 1t47 ministries are surfacing more explicitly and distinctly associated with some level of Church structure or Church work. An example would be the role of the diocesan consultant. These categories, particularly, give striking evidence of the shifting roles of women in the Church. Table 1 Proportion of Women Religious in New Forms of Ministries According to the Type of Ministry* Religious Type of Ministry No. % Health Ministry I 112 18.87 Education Ministry 1334 22.64 Social Ministry 1912 32.45 Parish Ministry ' 797 13.53 Supportive Church-related Ministries 384 6.52 Spiritual Ministry 266 4.5 I Other 87 1.48 5892 100.00 *Refers to forms of ministries which were new to religious congregations of women at the time of the survey. As can be seen, the social ministries represent the largest group of services provided by women religious among these new forms. Almost one-third of the survey population were engaged in a form of social ministry, 10% more than those in education and close to 15% more than those involved in the health field. An interesting piece 6f data was the small number of sisters actually engaged in such works as business, clerical work, and sales in strictly non-ecclesial setti.ngs. Although a large number of others worked in non-sectarian structures, such as hospitals, they were most frequently ehgaged in pastoral work in the human service fields. The dominant theme which ran through the findings was se~r, vice, often with a highly skilled and profes-sional orientation, within a framework of ministry or mission. From the comments of some communities, form of service and perspective of min-istry were clearly within the context of their charismatic beginnings. The categories in Table 1 will be elaborated more fully in the discussion that follows. New Forms of Health Ministry The largest single category in the health field was pastoral care in Cath-olic institutions--hospitals, .nursing homes, or other group facilities. As Table 2 illustrates, a forceful trend is noted when pastoral care in Catholic settings is combined with pastoral care in non-Church related settings: almost one-half of the new forms of health ministries are in the field of pastoral care. Interestingly, too, more than one-fourth of the sisters in new health ministries are providing nursing or allied medical services in public 1~41~ / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 or private institutions not sponsored by the Church. Thus, almost 45% of the sisters included in the survey in the health field offer services in other than Catholic institutions. This proportion is even higher when combined with non-Church related community services. Table 2 Women Religious Engaged in Forms of Health Ministries New to Their Congregations Religious Ministries No. % Community-based Health Care (nursing and related allied 202 18.17 services) Health Care in Non-Church-related Institutions* 289 25.99 Pastoral Ministry in Catholic Institutions* 363 32.64 Pastoral Ministry in Non-Church-related Institutions 192 17.27 Other (Physicians, dentists, other specialists/consultants) 66 5.93 Total 1112 100.00 *Refers to hospitals, nursing homes, and the larger group facilities. As would be expected;.a large proportion, or almost 20% are in in-novative community and neighborhood-based health programs (such as public health, visiting nurses, and outreach clinics, both in Catholic and non-Church related settings). This group consists largely of nurses and allied professionals. Interestingly, this trend somewhat parallels that in social work although there was a sharper reversal from institutional to community settings in that field. Close to two-thirds of the sister social workers were in institutional work prior to Vatican II in contrast to over two-thirds in community-based programs after Vatican II: No doubt this trend in the hea!th field would be greater if more Church-related commu-nity- based programs were available within Catholic structures as they are in social work, e.g. Catholic Charities agencies and other neighborhood and parish-based social service and social action programs. Also, it was inter-esting that close to 85% of the population studied provided services within Church structures and only 6% saw services in the public sector as an important future role of the sister social worker. Leadership within the framework of the Church, as long as these structures were available and viable for effective and relevant service, was viewed as a dominant future role. Close to sixteen were physicians or dentists; when combined with psy-chiatrists (see Table 4), we can see a more visible trend in the medical ministries. A small number were speech and music therapists. 5Joseph, op. cit. pp. 102, 174. Preparation for New Ministries: A Futuristic View 1149 New Forms of Education Ministries More than one-fifth of the religious in the survey population continued in new and specialized forms of the education ministry. This is not sur-prising since the majority of religious have professional training in this field and many communities hold education as integral to their mission. Most interestingly, however, were the innovative and creative forms taking shape. As reflected in Table 3, close to 40% are specializing in religious education, which would seem to be an important role for the religious of the future. Almost one-third teach in schools in the inner city and urban areas, reflecting the traditional concern of communities for the poor and culturally deprived. Close to one-fifth were in a variety of specialized forms of education to the physically and emotionally handicapped, school drop-outs, minority and bilingual groups, and a range of adult education pro-grams. Table 3 Women Religioas Engaged in Forms of Edncation Ministries New to Their Congregations Religious Ministries No. % Campus Ministry 86 6.45 Communications 67 5.02 Library Work 56 4.20 Religious Education 530 39.73 Teaching in Seminaries and Theologates 25 1.87 Specialized Forms of Instruction 252 18.89 Inner City Teaching 318 23.84 Total 1334 100.00 A developing trend in communications was discernible, revealing some interesting works. Thirteen sisters were involved in very technical work with the media, TV and radio, while fifty-four sisters worked with Catholic and secular newspapers/periodicals in writing, illustrating, and publishing. ¯ New Forms of Social Ministry It has been made forcefully clear in recent years, by both the magis-terium and the Council, that the social ministries are essential aspects of the Mission of the Church.~ Perhaps the most significant trends in new min-istries are, in this area, not unrelated to the directions in society and de-velopments in the Church. This field, which reflected the largest number of new forms, has been defined variously in the literature. Very broadly, it ~Eugene A. Mainelli. "'The Parish Community Becoming: Theological Reflections," Social Thought, i (Fall. 1975). p. 15. Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 is viewed as comprising health, education, and welfare. Most specifically, as used here, it includes those activities which focus primarily on the social dimension of human services: the response to socio-personal needs as well as social justice and advocacy efforts directed toward humanizing and transforming societal structures,r As Table "4 shows, the largest proportion of sisters engaged in social ministries, over one-third, were in social work. These data are consistent with Joseph's findings: as many sisters were professionally trained, in social work from 1970 to 1972, inclusive, as were in the previous decade,s It is not surprising that religious would select this field as it call for skills in working with both' personal and social needs. With the two-fold emphasis today on the person and impacting social systems, it provides opportunity for both service and social action. The sisters in this survey were social workers in school and hospital settings as well as in community-neighborhood pro-grams which reflected reaching out to others in a variety of ways. More than one-half were in Catholic Charities agencies, in both traditional family and child care services, e.g. family counseling, foster care and adoption ser-vices, and in community organization work, crisis intervention, and other forms of outreach. More than 30% of the religious in social ministries worked with minority groups and rural poverty programs, evidencing out-reach as well as justice efforts. Table 4 Women Religious Engaged in Forms of Social Ministries New to Their Congregations Religious Ministries No. % Prison, Probation, Police Work 99 5.18 Social Justice Work 168 8.79 Social Work 651 34.05 Psychiatric, Psychological. Therapeutic Work 82 4.29 Work with Minority Groups 376 19.67 Rural Poverty Work 204 10.67 Alcoholism and Drug Addiction 116 6.07 Youth Work 114 5.96 Day Care Programs 28 1.46 Group Homes and Specialized Care Facilities 32 1.67 Other 42 2.19 Total i912 100.00 Although many in the above categories were actively engaged in social justice, advocacy, and social action--as related to the groups served-- 7Cedric W. Tilberg. "'The Social Ministry of the Congregation," Lutheran Social Welfare Quarterly, Vi (December, 1966), p. 8. 8Joseph, op. cit., p. 90. Preparation for New Ministries: A Futuristic View almost 10% of the sisters ,wer~ involved exclusively in these activities. Most of these sisters worked in social justice centers or on special commissions directed to justice and peace. Eighteen, however, were in political min-istries or appointed to government positions at state or local levels, while twenty-three were lawyers, aids, or legal advisors to the poor. A number organized legislative networks to promote grassroots leadership and create political power. Sixty-six worked in halfway houses for alcoholics or parolees or in group homes for pre-delinquent or delinquent youth. Another thirty-two served in homes for the mentally or physically handicapped or the emotionally disturbed. Slightly over 5% of the sisters worked with prisoners/parolees and their families, did probation work, or were on the police force, a relatively new area of ministry and one rich in service potential. The "'other" category consisted of those engaged in natural family planning, Birthright, housing projects, and shop~ for the poor. The liberation of the oppressed, as a pivotal and actigie concern of the Social Mission of the contemporary Church, is vividly clear in these data. Neff Forms of Church-Related Ministry Table 5 shows that almost one-half of the religious working in supportive Church-related works were specialists in the various fields of ministry, e.g. education and health, who acted as consultants to diocesan programs. More than one-third held offices in Church organizations at national and inter-national levels, utilizing the competencies of religious in important lead-ership roles. Three sisters were canon lawyers, twenty-three were identified as vicars for religious, and twelve were in tribunal work, no doubt a significant future indicator for the role of the ecclesial woman, These data represent a growing trend for women to assume leadership positions at all levels in the Church. Table 5 Women Religious Engaged in Forms of Church-Related Ministries New to Their Congregations Ministries National and International Offices in Church Organizations Vicars for Religious and Canon Lawyers Marriage Tribunal Work Diocesan Consultants/Specialists Ecumenical Consultants Total Religious No. % 126 32.8 I 36 9.38 12 3.12 189 49.22 21 5.47 384 100.00 Parish Ministry There is a:remarkable movement in the Church toward parish ministry, 1~52 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 especially among women religious, markedly illustrated in these data.~ The parish may be viewed as the Church in mission; it is here that the Church's mission is concretized. Rahner, in discussing the parish, states: ¯ . . the Church will make its impact as a present reality there where the presence of Christ is made real . Here the Christian of tomorrow will come to realize the true nature of the Church. Of course such a community, which feels itself to be the concrete realization of the Church as achieved through word and sacrament, will be conscious of being united to all other communities which likewise are the same Church . "~ It is in the parish-community that the Christian of the future will experience the Church in word and sacrament. The parish was the largest single category of ministry; 797 sisters were reported as involved in some aspect of parish work. The Parish was actually the only single category in the broad classification of ministries (see Table /), since the data did not lend itself to clearly differentiate among the various forms of parish work. A number, however, did indicate that they were parish associates, assistant pastors, parish workers, home visitors, social ministers, pastoral assistants, eucharistic ministers, parish spiritual directors, and parish team ministers, evidencing the plurality of forms at this level and supporting the need for the team approach. It may also be an index to the role ambiguity often experienced by parish workers and, fur-thermore, may indicate the need for clearer role definitions. Presnail dis-cussed this, detailing the range of roles identified with the parish worker and urging specialization within a framework of the plurality of ministries and personal charisms, competencies, and training. He points to the role am-biguity experienced by the religious educator until the role became more specialized and the boundaries more circumscribed.1~ In recent years, a number of Catholic Charities agencies across the country have reached out to parishes to facilitate social ministries at this level. According to a study that is underway, 206 religious are involved in some way in these parish social ministries, either directly as parish staff affiliated with the agency or as parish workers, not administratively related to the agency but receiving consultation from agency staff.t2 This upsurge in parish ministry is consistent with the findings of Jo-seph. 13 Comparative data, pre- and post-Vatican 1I, on the major apos- ~Sister Mary Vincentia Joseph, M.S.B.T., "'Christian Social Action," Careers in the Christian Ministry (Washington. D.C.: Consortium Press. 1976), p, 118. ~UKarl Rabner, -The New Image of the Church." Theological Investigations, Vol. X (New York: Herder and Herder, 1973). p. 11. ~Gregory Presnail, "Guidelines for a Parish Worker," Sisters Today (November, 1971), pp. 416-21. ~zSister Mary Vincentia Joseph, M.S.B.T. and Sister Ann Patrick Conrad, M.S.B.T., National Trends in Parish Social Ministry: A Study of Parish Programs Affiliated With Catholic Char-ities Agencies, in process. ~ZJoseph, A Study of Self-Role Congruence and Role-Role Congruence on the Integration of the Religious Role and the Social Work Role of the Sister Social Worker, p. 241. Preparation for New Ministries: A Futuristic View / 853 tolates of 108 religious communities, were obtained. The most dramatic change was in parish work. The number ~f religious congregations engaged in parish work at this time increased from 17.35% to 44.90%, close to a 30% oost-Vatican increase. Thus, we can expect---on the basis of these data, a continued upswing in parish work with a greater differentiation among ministry roles and a continued use and refinement of the team approach. The challenge remains to identify and elaborate the emerging patterns of parish ministry. The Spiritual Ministries Spiritual ministries, close to 5% of the new ministries, represented an emerging field in which the religio-spiritual dimension is the primary focus. These are closely related to pastoral ministry, but differ in that generally thry' are performed within church structures rather than in a setting in which one of the helping professions is the host-profession such as the hospital or the social agency. These ministries consisted largely of houses of prayer, retreat work---especially directed retreats, and prayer move-ments. Summary A two-pronged trend is reflected vividly in these data: concern with religious/spiritual aspects of the person (as evidenced in pastoral care, religious education and the directly spiritual ministries) and with the social dimension of human need (noted in the large number of religious engaged in the social ministries). Parish work may be viewed as reflecting both trends as the parish is concerned with socio-religious needs of persons through its developing approaches or team ministries. Deepening insight into the Pauline concept of the plurality of ministries is illustrated remark-ably in the growth in ministries at this level, particularly among women religious. The emphasis on social need was not only reflected in the increase in social ministries but also in the service modalities and organizational patterns in the health and education fields. The upswing in parish work, social work, pastoral care in health settings, and religious educationhin that order--would seem to forecast that these will be important future roles of women religious. A Conceptual Framework for the Study of Formation Programs The literature on adult socialization~4 is rich in its implications for for- ~4Socialization is the process by which one learns the ways of a given group. Often, it is defined as role learning. In adulthood, it refers to training for life or occupational roles. Studies have been done on socialization processes in such professions as nursing and medicine. No published research has been located by the authors on preparation for the role of the woman religious. I]54 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 mation programs in religious communities and provides tools for critical examination and assessment. The work of Brim and Wheeler is particularly useful as it identifies core variables which influence socialization out-comes.~ 5 It suggests a broad conceptual model to study the essential com-ponents of formation and aids in raising questions about current structural patterns, Central concepts are: the recruit or socializee: the candidate; the socializing agency: the religious community; the socializing agent: .for-mation personnel; and, the socialization process: the process of formation. The importance of taking another look at formation programs becomes obvious not only in considering the trends in ministry but in recent work-shop experiences of the National Religious Formation Conference. During workshop meetings, both men and women religious were asked to define the qualities needed for the future religious. Most frequently projected characteristics were: (1)self-direction; (2) the willingness to search, risk, and deal with uncertainty; (3) a deepening spiritual life; (4) a sense of rootedness in the charism of the institute;and, (5) a global mission concern. These characteristics and the new ministries suggest the need for an orienting philosophy of learning geared to the adult learner. Cartwell, in an excellent article on current educational models in formation programs, clearly identifies the need for an integrated cognitive-experiential-devel-opmental approach appropriate to today's social and cultural needs.~6 The proposed approach to learning is the adult learning model, androgogy, which prepares the person for self-direction and on-gbing learning. This approach is grounded in active participation, mutual sharing, and a readiness to learn. It recognizes not only the potential of the recruit but also the learned skills and past experiences which are brought to the new learn-ing situation.~r ~ With the trend awayJfrom institutional forms of ministry to community and parish-based work, many religious are moving from highly structured settings to natural ecological settings which are often ambiguous and lack-ing in role clarity. Such settings require that structures not only be created but implemented effectively and that roles be defined and continuously reclarified. Services at these levels demand creative action and continued innovation. Collaborative team approaches are required, calling for a high degree of skill in interpersonal communication as well as in coping with conflictuai role demands. Competency and evaluation (a trend in our so- 15Orville G. Brim and Stanton Wheeler, Socialization After Childhood (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1966). ~6Peter W. Cartwell, O.F.M., "Formation--Whither or Whether," REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, XXXll (September, 1973), p. 1050. ~rMalcolm Knowles, The Adult Learner: Neglected Species (Houston: Gulf Publishing Com-pany, 1973). Preparation ,for New Ministries: A Futuristic View ciety where resources and commodities are scarce) will be essential to assess program effectiveness. Increasingly, then, ministry will require self-directed persons, ready to generate new service modalities, negotiate role demands, and collaborate with others in attempting to find solutions to complex problems. The Recruit-Candidate Very often young people today have broad experiences. Frequently, they are well traveled and view such experiences as important to their on-going development. Generally, those who enter the helping professions have a high degree of commitment to serve the needs of others. Those who would enter a religious community seek to deepen their value-orientation and share similar values with others in community. Many have been ex- :posed to an adult learning style, basically experiential, moving from the realm of the empirical and from skill in doing to the level of abstraction and conceptualization. They freely challenge ideas and existing structures, ex-pecting an openness of response and, themselves, inviting feedback. Where opeaness is absent, confrontation is often heightened. They seek an ex-panding personal development and view some contemporary religious structures as constricting growth potential. The questionmust be raised: Can present structures of many formation programs attract, support, and enhance the goals of these young women? In view of the socialization outcomes required fo~ the new ministries, what personal qualifications are needed in the recruit at entrance?~Selection and socialization processes obviously interact. Etzione states that where both are high, socialization should be effective.18 Space does not permit further discussion of the prospective candidate. It seems sufficient here to raise these basic questions. The Structure Granting the developmental-experiential nature of adult learning, one must consider the environmental or structural conditions which foster it. Organizational arrangements of formation programs will require on-going examination in the light of trends in ministries and related learning needs. A basic assumption of the androgogical model implies change in the self-concept moving from one of dependence, to increasing self-direction.19 When operationalized in structures, this assumption is reflected in mutual trust and collaboration, flexibility, freedom to express differences, and active participation in learning. These structures should be geared to fa- ~SAmitai Etzione, Complex Organizations (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1961). ~Knowles, op. cit., p. 45. Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 cilitate growth and provide experiential as well as didactic learning oppor-tunities, a direction underway in many communities. Self-concept theory and research have demonstrated the impact of ref-erence groups on the self-concept of the person. Where a person constantly receives negative images, a negative concept of self may develop. In the past religious structures emphasized negative feedback, often forming negative self-concepts in religious. Current structures must be realistic, emphasizing positive as well as constructive negative feedback. Such an orientation contributes to a realistic self-concept and confidence in both self-direction and leadership skills. The Socializing Agent Fundamentally, formation personnel must be comfortable with the self-directed contemporary religious. Question must be raised as to appropriate preparation for formation team members. The predominant emphasis has been largely theological while also drawing from the humanistic psychol-ogies. Since the new ministries require an on-going diaiogical process with the world, it would seem that a broadened training would be required drawing from the social sciences and the secular professions. This would highlight the environment, the interaction between the person and the so-cial context--in this situation, the community. The environmental aspects and their influences on the person need to be emphasized. The self is in constant interaction with social structures, both within and outside the community. Formation personnel need to be more aware of the impact of structures on the person in community and how the person can impact on structure, as a basis for mutual and on-going growth and change. The Process The process of socialization, which seeks to identify how a specific role is internalized, has been studied in a number of professions,z° Greater attention needs to be given to this process in formation programs. The work of Kinnane and Preister suggests that the ultimate direction of socialization should be characterized by a movement from dependence and indepen-dence to interdependence; the development from self-centered behavior to social behavior; growth in maturity; and, the increasing integration of re-ligio- spiritual values in ministry.2t Z°Howard Becker, et ~il., eds., Institutions and the Person (Chicago: Aldine Publishers, 1968). ZlJohn F. Kinnane, Career Development for Priests and Religious (Washington, D.C.: CARA, 1970); Steven Preister, "The Professional Socialization of the Seminarian into the Career of Priesthood." Unpublished paper, Catholic University of America, 1976. PreParation for New Ministries: A Futuristic View The formation process involves both formal and informal components. Basically, the formal process occurs in sequential phases, clearly marked by rites of passage or movement from affiliate or candidacy status to the position of novice or of commitment. Informal processes, however, operate and may be identified. It has been observed in one community that religious often proceed from the initial stage with some role ambiguities, to a positive identification with community (often at the beginning of the novitiate) to a negative identification, followed by a more realistic conceptma stage of interdependence in community and the beginning of internalized commit-ment (generally toward the end of the novitiate),z2 Although this was found to be th~ usual process, individual variations in development and regression may occur throughout the process. It does suggest, however, a process of integration and internalization which continues in all adult life. Young religious need to be continuously confronted throughout this process to recognize both positive and negative aspects of the religious community and consider within this context where they are, personally, at a given time as they develop a realistic view of the community and seek to serve within its framework of ministry, they have already begun to internalize their religious commitment. To be fixated in either a positive or a negative phase may well reflect a question of personal commitment within this particular life style. With the complexities of living in society today and the greater demands in ministry, it seems that more attention must be given to the processes of initial and on-going formation. Conclusion In conclusion, religious of the future are now, in fact defining them-selves. This paper has presented indicators for the future role of women religious based on ministries which were identified as new to their con-gregations. An orienting conceptual model was formulated to examine ex-isting struciures and processes of formation programs as well as to raise questions as to how these programs are preparing religious for future roles in ministry. A further question, however, needs to be asked. Although religious communities are intellectually endorsing new ministries, are affective sup-port structures being provided for these newly developing works? These survey findings therefore, compel communities not only to address their newly developing forms of ministry but also to consider the support sys-tems provided for these new directions. 22Sister Mary Vincentia Joseph, M.S.B.T., "S~cialization in a Religious Community." Un-published paper, Catholic University of America, 1974. This paper was prepared in con-junction with research on the socialization process of one community. Reflections of a "Temporary Monk" Anne Marie Harnett, S.N.J.M. Sister Anne Marie received permission for a "contemplative sabbatical" last year, during which time she resided with, and lived the life of several contemplative communities. Presently she is doing graduate studies in theology and resides at 519 Varnum St., N.W.; Washington, DC 20011. The poet's labor is to struggle with the meaninglessness and silence of the world until he can force it to mean, until he can make the silence answer and the non-being be. It is a labor which undertakes to "know" the world not by exegesis or demonstration or proofs but directly, as a man knows apple in the mouth.1 When I read this paragraph recently, I was excited. It seemed to express what I have been trying to do this year during a "contemplative sabbat-ical." Aboht a y.ear ago, I asked for the opportunity for an extended ex-perience oUsolitude because of a somewhat hazy intuition 'that such an orientation was at the source of any ministry for justice (a large interest of mine) and it was itself a powerful witness to the consumer ~ociety in which we live. ~' I address these reflections particularly to those men and women who" might also feel called to an experience of solitude--to encourage them. I speak to contemplative communities--to thank them for their hospitality to me when I needed to be a "temporary monk." I hope that these few thoughts will encourage contemplative groups of women especially to con-sider this kind of hospitality as a service to the Church. Since September I have been struggling with the meaninglessness and silence--sometimes catching glimpses of the answer and the being--in a seemingly endless game of hide and seek. I have let the various elements of the experience speak to me, wondering at times what all this has to do 1Archibald MacLeish, Poetry and Experience (Boston, 1961), pp. 8-9, in The Courage to Create by Rollo May (New York: Bantam Books, 1976), p. 89. 858 Reflections of a "Temporary Monk" / 859 with ordinary living, let alone with problems of violence, poverty, injustice, the needs and :,:~oblems of people today. Sometimes I have felt anxious and frustrated: c:,.cu joy-filled, occasionally guilty, generally at peace, "r,. year has been. a tapestry. It has provided me with a variety of experiences resulting in changed attitudes and new and keener aware-nesses. Many of the designs iffthis tapestry have not yet been woven, and like the underside of a tapestry, the pattern is not readily visible to me. Because I am always wary of instant experts, of people who spend a few weeks in a foreign country and then lecture or write about the people and culture of that country, I hesitate to say a great deal even about the early part of my adventure in the "desert"; certainly I cannot yet write about my current "Carmelite phase." I would like however to share my reflections on the short experience I had in a Trappist monastery in Mistassini, Quebec. The monks'there have opened their choir to both men and women, and so I had the privilege of sharing fully in their prayer from Vigil at 3:30 A.M. until Compline at 7:30 P.M. Their Office is beautiful inits simplicity. I found that it not only satisfied 'my need.for beauty in worship but that it completed my own prayer; whatever the mood or message of my prayer might have been. The Hours became~for me a stream into which I could jump at various times of the day, a stream which carried: along with it all my hopes, as-pirations and activities. Because chanting Office at 3:30 A.M. is so foreign to most of us, I would like to say a little abotlt Vigil. It was never easy; seldom .was it bright With praise or, comforting in sorrow or pain. It was to me what its name suggests: watching and waiting. I often thought all of this would be absurd if God did not exist, if he were not God with us and for usl Often too I would think of and so pray for other people who-were up for other reasons: those on night shifts, parents with sick children, street people, those with no bed to go to. At other times I would think of people close to me, some of them watching and waiting in a way only they could know; other~ now fully enjoying him for whom we in that church were keeping vigil. Often too I would just manage to be there. Always I knew that all the stars were laughing at our wonder. I became more keenly aware of the apostolic dimension of prayer, both liturgical and personal, knowing that my prayer and that of the monks and other guests extended far beyond the confines of that church. This is so because of the nature of liturgical prayer, because of the eucharist and our faith in its cosmic dimensions~, but also because of what happens in prayer. The experience of a deep need of liberation and healing, the experience of both the presence and the apparent absence of God, and of his absolute fidelity, the relationship of this prayer to daily life with its demands, calls, and responses--all this is a microcosm of the world today with its own great need for liberation and healing, and its search for God whom so many have dismissed or do not know. ~160 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 This experience in prayer brought me new attitudes toward solitude. For some time I had found periods apart renewing and increasingly nec-essary to my well-being. So when I went to Mistassini I considered it under this primarily physical or geographical aspect. Now, while I realize the necessity and appreciate the value of periods of physical solitude, I have come to think of it more as "an enclosure" I carry around with me. It is an inner attitude in line with the thought of Thomas Merton expressed in Contemplation in a Worm of Action. As I understand it, he sees solitude as a probing for truth, first of all in oneself; it is the acceptance of one's identity and of one's lot as given by God. While probing for truth and forming convictions, one seeks the courage to live, to witness in accordance with these convictions. It involves making decisions, consonant with one's inner reality and in the light of God's truth and love.2 I became more aware of the fact that my search and probing is a pil-grimage. Like Abraham I have set forth in the desert hearing the call, "Go forth from the land of your kinsfolk and from your father's house to a land that I will show you" (Gn 12:1). While my predominant mood as I set out on this pilgrimage was one of joy in God's presence, yet solitude sometimes brought me fear of the future, an angst fear. This reality I found also described by Thomas Merton: "The man who wants to deepen his existential awareness has to make a break with ordinary existence, and this break is costly. It cannot be made without anguish and suffering. It implies loneliness, and the disorientation of one who has to recognize that the old signposts don't show him his way, and that in fact he has to find the way by himself without a map.''3 Perhaps I will always have to live with this anguish because the old signposts are in fact gone, and the new ones are very hazy. Certainly they will never be as clear-cut and sharply defined as they were in the past. Very likely the way will never be clearly mapped out. Yet I have become more at home with my anxiety and at times even welcome it as an experience of my powerlessness, as a call to total de-pendence on God. Recently I found a passage in The Courage to Create by Rollo May which describes in psychological terms this aspect of solitude. The ex-perience of encounter, encounte¢ implying a deep commitment, always brings anxiety because of the shaking of the self-world relationship which occurs in the encounter. "Our sense of identity is threatened: the world is not as we experienced it before; and since self and world are always cor-related, we no longer are what we were before . The anxiety we feel is temporary rootlessness, disorientation; it is the anxiety of nothingness.''4 In mature creativity anxiety must be confronted if we are to experience joy. 2Thomas Merton, Contemplation in a World of Action (New York: Image Books, 1973), Chapter III, "The Identity Crisis," pp. 75-100. aIbid., p. 126. ~Ibid., p. 107. Reflections of a "Temporary Monk" / 861 I can live with anxiety and anguish, confront them and experience joy because of my faith and trust in God, and because of the love relationship I experience with him. The anxiety is then transformed into resting in him. It' is living in that marvelous gap between what my faith sees and feels and what God knows and is actually accomplishing in me; between my desire to live as he wants me to live, to be the person he wants me to be, and the fulfillment of this desire. It is a living of the words of Isaiah, "See, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? In the desert I make a way, in the wasteland, rivers" (Is 43:9). During the summer just before my sabbatical year I was a journalist at our general chapter which was one of reflection and discernment on our charism and our response to it in the world today. During the c.hapter our foundress was very much alive and present to us; she continued to be present to me during these weeks of solitude. As I reflected on my life as a woman religious and on hers, I saw that she had creative imagination'~ which she used in service to the Church. She consulted the signs of the times and, with eyes wide and in perfect freedom, said yes. This yes meant leaving a respectable and secure position, setting herself and her two com-panions up in an attic, opening a small school with no financial means, embarking on unknown seas in an as yet unfounded community. She said thisyes daily depending totally on God in faith and love. It seems to me that this is the kind of response to which God calls us today: the witness of a life--creative, integrated, with a willingness to risk, dedicated to the gospel. As I write these reflections in my room in the Bronx Carmel, I am looking at a little collection of prints tacked on my wall: La Misereuse accroupie (a woman crouching, possibly in prayer) by Picasso, Christ Mocked by Soldiers by Rouault, The Burghers of Calais and La Pensde by Rodin, the South Rose Window and Lancets from the Cathedral of Chartres. Beside them is the quote, "Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves." The collection symbolizes the strands of life that have brought me here and the threads continually being woven into my solitude, my experience of God. The Christ who is mocked is the crouching woman, the attraction of La Pens~e, the glorious center of the rose window. He is the reason for loving the questions and for being patient with the incompleteness of the answers. He is somewhere in the agony, the stolid acceptance, the chains and the resistance symbolized by the Burghers of Calais. At the same time he is in the beauty and achievement of ihe ensemble. My encounter with this reality brings me back to labor and struggle with the meaningless, the contradictions and the paradoxes. Again I am knock-ing on silence, waiting for being; above all, I am living in hope. ~Leonardo Boff, author of Jesus-Christ Liberateur, says that imagination is the creativity to see humankind become better and richer than the present cultural environment. The Call of Retirement: A Ministry of Elders Jeanne Schweickert, O.S.F. Sister Jeanne is Vice President of Ministry for the School Sisters of St. Francis. Her office is located at 1501 South Layton Blvd.; Milwaukee, Wl 53215. Over the past several years many old people have entered my life in new and powerful ways, the young old, the middle old, and the old old--and as they touched me I experienced the paradoxes of their lives: the hopeful expectations of some, the disillusionment of others; the longing for (he great past and the eager awaiting of death; the joyous celebration of life and the loneliness, fear and despair of day-after-day. It became more and more obvious that as the people I met approached old age, as they moved into retirement, they experienced traumatic mo-ments in their lives, moments that challenged their very personhood. Some time ago I decided to take council with some of the elderly sisters of my community. I invited them to get in touch with their own experience of retirement and share with me what they recalled happening inside them at that time. The following are a few of their comments: "Sometimes it feels like your personhood is diminished ." "I want to be seen first as a person, and then as a patient . " "Institutions make it difficult to be personal ." "You can't make decisions for yourself ." "I felt dethroned, becoming an observer rather than a participant . " "I was frightened of being a captive of the rocking chair and treated as a child kept busy with games and crafts . " "The real pain of not being active is that your opinion is never sought . " These are but a few of their comments; they are the more painful ones. 862 The Call of Retirement: A Ministry of Eiders / 1~63 However all of these perspectives reinforced for me again the perception of retirement as a time of moving away from something that had meaning rather than moving toward something significant in life. In his "Preface to a Practical Theology of Aging" Don S. Browning emphasizes that we must challenge both the idea that a person is only of worth or contributing when he is gainfully employed and the idea that the last stages of life should be a time of irrelevant comfort and preadolescent indulgence. Al

Issue 35.1 of the Review for Religious, 1976. ; Review ]or Rehg~ous ~s edited by faculty members of the School of Dwmlty of St Lores Umvers~ty, the editorial offices being located at 612 Humboldt Braiding. 539 North Grand Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. It is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute: St. Louis, Missouri. Published bimonthly and copy-right (~) 1976 by Review ]or Religious. Composed, printed, and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. Single copies: $1.75. Sub-scription U.S.A. and Canada: $6.00 a year; $11.00 for two years; other countries, $7.00 a year, $13.00 for two years. Orders shot, ld indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be accompanied by check or money order payable to Review /or Religious in U.S.A. currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent Review ]or Religious. Change of address requests should inclt, de former address. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Everett A. Diederich, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Miss Jean Read, Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor January 1976 Volume 35 Number 1 Renew',ds, new subscriptions, and changes of address should be sent to Review for Religious; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, Minnesota 55802. Correspondence with the editor and the associate editor together with manuscripts and books for review should be sent to Review for Religious; 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for .answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; St. Joseph's College; City Avenue at 54th Street; Philadelphia, Pennsyl- ¯ vania 19131. Review for Religious Volume 35, 1976 Editorial Offices 539 North Grand Boulevard Saint Louis, Missouri 63103 Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Everett A. Diederich, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Miss Jean Read, Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant EditOr Review ]or Religious is published in January, March, May~ July, September, 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 edi-tion of Review 1or Religious is available from University Microfilm; Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. Copyright (~) 1976 by Review ]or Religious. What Does. the New Expect of the Priest? Ritual of Penance Rev. V. Joseph Finnerty Father Finnerty teaches theology at Cathedral College of tl~ Immaculate Conception, the college seminary for ~the dioceses of Brooklyn, New York and Rockville Center. The seminary is located at 7200 Douglaston Pkwy.; Douglast0n, NY 11362. The problem with the sacrament of Penance is not about to be solved merely by external ritual changes. A new liturgical book though critical and long overdue is not an instant panacea for this problem. What is needed is a change of mind and attitude on different levels because the problem of Penance has many dimensions. Many topics sliould be dis-cussed prior to the prorriulgation of the new rite especially: a definition of sin, an understanding of conscience vs. superego, a rediscovery of the virtue of Penance, an emphasis on the e~:clesial aspect of the sacrament, a per-s0nalization of the ritual, an honest evaluation of devotional confession, a study of thi~ forgiveness present in the Eucharist, a look at the~ relationship between Penance and baptism. Most important of 'all is the change of atti-tude asked of the minister of the sacrament. What the Ordo requests of the priest-confessor is more demanding than any of the recent reforms relating to other sacraments. The Ministry of Jesus Let us look first at the ministry of Jesus since it is paradigmatic for our own. Scripture reminds us that a work of the Spirit is the shaping of a prophet. Jesus is that proph,et~ announcing a word of reconciliation, but He does not begin without first having received the Spirit's anointing. His first sermon began with the Isaian theme: The Spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has anointed me. He has sent me to bring good news to the poor . (Lk 4, 18) 4 / Review for Religious, Volume 35, 1976/1 The Lord's preaching was not especially intellectual: the Father loves us; men are brothers; the kingdom is at hand; life continues. It is not so much what Jesus said but what He did that is significant for us priests. He con-stantly reaches out to the riffraff. With scandalous ease Jesus is at home with a publican, a tax-col'lector, a prostitute. Jesus is a friend of sinners. That's the message. The message so upset the Pharisees that they wanted Him dead. It is hard to imagine anything that would be more offensive to the religious leaders of Jesus's day than to have meal fellowship with the riffraff who were considered beyond the pale. Yet this is what Jesus did. He risked being ostrasized, alienated or contaminated so that He could eat with sinners and minister to them. He did all of this joyfully? ~ Christianity is a-sinner's religion. He was given the name Jesus because He would save men from their sins (Mt 1:21). When John saw Him, he cried that here is the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world. Jesus gave His life so that men's sins might be forgiven. Before He died He took bread and wine, proclaimed these to be His body and blood, broken and poured out for the forgiveness of sins. The mystery of forgiveness of sins stands at the very center of the Christian kerygma as the sign of the king-dom. Do~es not the great prayer of the kingdom unite these two concepts "Thy kingdom come" and "forgive us our trespasses"? Simply put, if we priests fail in our celebration of the mystery of forgiveness, we fail at what stands at the center of the Christian message. The Minister as "Healer" " One of the first things to be said about the minister of reconciliation is that the model of priest as judge is inadequate. For too long Penance has been dominated by one image, that of the courtroom, with a judge and a defendant. The sinner accused himself, listed number and species, pleaded guilty, and. requested a pardon from the judge. The Ordo Paenitentiae is dis-satisfied with the image of priest as an examining magistrate. The priest is not primarily a judge who sits in judgment about another's misadventures. The dynamics of the courtroom offer a poor example of what Jesus did. The pries[ is a judge, but he is more than that. He is a physician who exercises a ministry of healing. It is not those who are well.who need the doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the virtuous but the sinner. (Lk 5:31-32) The Rite of Penance refers to sin as sickness and the sacrament as a healing ministry more than twenty times; it uses the image of judgment only twice. The image_of "Physician of Souls" has a long tradition in Scripture, in early Christian sources, and qspecially in the liturgies of the Eastern Churches. 1Joachim Jeremias, Rediscovering the Parables (New York: Charles Scribner, 1966) p. 97. New Ritual o[ Penance ahd the Priest / 5 The theology of forgiveness contained in the ritual is a challenging one. There is no one-sided emphasis on the sacrament working ex opere operato; no top,heavy statement on priestly power; certainly n,o min!st~y that can be exercised in a mechanical or perfunctory manner. First of all the setting for this healing ministry is less formal and more personal; No reference is made to the "confessional," the ritual speaks only of the place for the sacrament (~12) which national bodies of bishops are asked to define even more precisely (~38). It is not the purpose of the ritual to deny people their right to anonymity in the confessional dialogue. It is wrong to insist that people only experience the ministry of priestly reconciliation in a face to face situation. Pastors and liturgical experts must prepare creative sacred space for the sacrament in sucha way that it re-spects the option of being seen or unseen by the confessor. We must meet our people where they are, but God help us if we do not bring them any further. A thoroughg6ing personal exchange in the sacrament of Penance is x~hat is called for. The directive which says, "the priest welcomes him (the penitent) warmly and gr~eets him with kindness" (~41) reminds~ us of the para~bles of Luke where Jesus teachi~s that God takes 'the initiative. Metanoia, comes from the penitent's heart, but, it is first of all a response to the overture of the father's loving kindness. He searches out the sinners; he looks for us. One warning! This is a friendly greeting, not a slap on the back. The dynamics of this ritual are not those needed to get class reunions off to a gQod start. The celebrant of Penance must not hesitate to be him-self but he must not communicate only himself he must'communicate the Holy One of God. The minister of healing must not act as though he has nbt experienced healing in his own life. He must know that he himself is a man forgiven. He cannot announce Church doctrine in a cavalier (take it or leave it) atti-tude. He never loses respect for the penitent while not condoning his sin.ful actions. A year ago an article.in L'Osservatore Romano highlighted this healing work of the priest: ¯ . . no sacrament involves the personal action of the minister so much as the sacrament of confession. The believer seeks a minister who will devote time to him; he seeks a patient man who will listen to him and believe him; he seeks a charitable man who will not pour salt but balm on'his wounds. He seeks a wise man who will not place on his shoulders burdens that he cannot carry; he seeks a serious and experienced man who will understand and then apply the yardstick of the Lord of conscience. He seeks a prudent~ ,discreet man, who will not delve where it is not necessary, who will teach where he is certain and will ask only for an upright conscience in cases, where the com-plexity of life makes it impossible to give a peremptory definition of obliga-tions and solutions . It is not unusual to hear the complaints of penitents whose feelings have been hurt in the very act of seeking Christ through the painful and dignified accusation of their sins . A not unusual complaint, 6 / Review for Religious, Volume 35, 1976/1 due--let us be clear--not to criminal or juridically blameworthy behaviour on the part of the confessor, but to acts of carelessness, impatience, arbitrari-ness, and sometimes--to be frank---~f t~ndue and incomprehensible pressure of one man on another, in the most sacred realm of conscience. Is it not too much to ask every priest, who is a minister of forgiveness about his usual attitude to the ministry of the confessional? Does he devote to it, joyfully or at least patientlyi all the time it requires? Does .he receive every penitent with Christ's mercy, without discrimination? Is he prepared to listen rather than holding forth sententiously?. Does he bring to the confessional the spirit of a friend, a brother, a'father, who does not judge the other more severely than the Lord would? Does he endeavor to discover extenuating cir-cumstances and to see the good that always exists in a soul alongside the bad? . . . Those whose primary obligation it is to save confession from a crisis that seems to be threatening it, are first and foremo:~t .the priests, to whom it has been entrusted by Christ through the Church.: The Holy Spirit and the Ministeroof Forgiveness A study of the journey and route taken by the Ordo Paenitentiae on its way to the Vatican printing press over the past ten years is very interesting for many reasons. Such investigation reveals that a major sou. rce from which the new rite draws its inspiration is ,the Eastern churches. It is a fact that the role of the Holy Spirit in the liturgy of the W~st has not received due attention. The most :striking and far-reaching reform has been to bring the Holy Spirit into the center, to the heart of the sacramental happening, thereby fulfilling the mens of the .,council, even if this was not voiced in lettera. The Cons'titu-t! pn on the Sacred Liturgy helped us to rediscover Christ; the post conciliar liturgical reform will help us to rediscover the Holy Spirit.:~ The rite~,~attempts to do for the West what the East has never forgotten, namely to unveil' the primordial link established in the gospel of John be-tween the Spirit and forgiveness. Receive the~ Ho.ly Spirit. For those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; for those whose sins you retain, they are retained. (Jn 20:22-23) Time and ~time again' this theme is presented in the rite itself. Just as the penitent is moved by the Spirit to seek forgiveness (:;q:6), so too the minis-ter acts by the power of the Holy Spirit to declare and grant forgiveness. Whether it be the c6mmunal rite or the rite for the reconciliation of the indi-vidual penitent, the minister and the penitent are told to pray together for a few moments asking for the gifts of the Spirit (#!5). Many of the .sug-gested Scripture selections emphasize the role of the Spirit. Finally all of this reaches a climax in the prayer, of absolution spoken by the minister -""The Minister o~ the Sacrament of Penance" L'Osservato~re Romano, February 7, 1974. ¯ aGodfrey Diekmann,'"The Laying on of Hands" Proceedings o] the Catholic Theo-logical Society o! America 29 (1974) p. 349. New Ritual o[ Penance and the Priest / 7 who announces the reconciliation accomplished "by the Holy Spirit sent among us for the forgiveness of sins." Imposition of Hands--Sign of the Holy Spirit The proclamation of forgiveness is accompanied by the ancient gesture of the imposition of hands. For centuries the sacrament of Penance was known as "the laying on of hands ad paenitentiam." Charles Borromeo tried to restore the penitential laying on of hands but he also introduced the con-fessional. He could not have it both ways, so only the remnant of the solemn gesture remained, namely the vertical extension of the right hand. The laying on of hands is not a peripheral rite restored by liturgists who have a bizarre archeological mentality. The renewal of this ancient sign tells us that it is the sacramental gesture par excellence. It reminds us of the healing ministry of Jesus who so often cured with a touch of the hand. But most important of all, this basic sacramental gesture, reinstated now in the liturgy of each of the sacraments, teaches that an epiclesis, a calling on the Spirit to effect change, is not restricted to the Eucharist. During an earlier age when the liturgy of reconciliation had no specific formula of absolution this gesture was never eliminated. It had a power all its own. It meant that the forgiveness of sins was the work of the Holy Spirit. One 0t~ the problems with Penance has been its symbolic poverty (this is true not only of Penance but of much of our liturgy a baptismal bath that is'not a bath, Eucharistic bread that is not real bread, etc.). We are great with words but weak on symbolic action. Henri Nouwen says that even young clergy who should know better are systematically eliminating every trace of symbol in favor of more and more verbal discourse, chatter, explanation, endless and infuriating pedagogy. That this is liturgy's death should be, by now, apparent." Too often our liturgy ~s wordy beyond toleration. The ges-ture of the imposition of hands, a_t_ the climax of the liturgy of reconciliation, speaks more eloquently than a thousand words about the meaning of Sacra-ment. At first many priests will find the imposition of hands strange and un-comfortable. It demands of the physician of souls closeness, gentle.ness, and communication of strength. It will not be easy for us to overcome a training that emphasized reserve and distance in dealing with penitents. It will take time and a great deal of common sense. At this point in the liturgy the penitent should kneel as the priest stands to impose hands and proclaim the words of forgiveness. Naturally the gesture is impossible except in rooms designed with the new ritual in mind. Much depends on the i~articular penitent and the mood of the moment. For some, this physical gesture would be a wonderful sign of forgiveness, rec-onciliation and acceptance. For others its newness could cause some mis- '~Henri Nouwen, Reachit,g Out (Doubleday, 1975) p. 30. Review [or Religious, I/olume 35, 1976/1 understanding and create further tension in a sacramental situation already filled with anxiety. The confessor open to the Holy Spirit and sensitive to the disposition of the penitent must judge each person se!earately . Certain priests may need to push themselves into a more physica~l, touching manner of healing sinners. Others may find they must restrain a natural effusiveness which can alienate . Both types of confessors obviously should be on guard in these charged circurhstances when a troubled penitent might mis-construe the laying on of hands. Lonely, injured spouses or sexually immature individuals could see this as a kind of advance. Whiie a sympathetic priest may feel compelled to comfort and console, he should be aware that his well in-tentioned action may instead confuse and complicate,r' The Priest as "Spirit Bearer" The initial key "needed to unlock the theology of the minister of recon-ciliation found in the Ordo is the idea of the priest as "Spirit bearer." This was a frequent description of the priest in the early church (Hippolytus, Cyril of Alexandria, Didascalia). Gerald Broccolo remarks in Concilium that for years we have considered the priest as alter Christus--someone wholly configured to Christ. While this is true, alter Christus seems to be the com-mon vocation of. every Christian, every member of the priestly people of God. Perhaps, he says, it might be more fruitful to view the priest as "a sacramental personification of the Holy Spirit." There is a great similarity between the. function and mission of the Holy Spirit and the role of the priest. The priest personifies the spirit when he consoles, encourages, gives guidance and support, convicts the world of sin, and teaches the Christian vision of human existence. Even though other Christians can frequently minister to the human family :in some of these same ways, the priest has been given the special charism of office to do so.'; Discernment of Spirits The celebrant of the liturgy of Penance must'possess the quality of spiritual, discernment (:~10A). He has the key function of raising the penitent's consciousness about gospel values. The confessor's manner should lead the penitent into an experience of discovering the truth about himself°on a deeper level. He is the catalyst who helps the penitent recognize the root causes of sin. He helps in the discernment of hidden sins, unsus-pected'offenses, and unrepented deeds that escape secular man today but which rip at the fabric of every community. Too often we pray for the wrong "things, we confess the wrong sins, we deal with symptoms and never treat the real illness. Why is it that go many settle into mediocrity and become lukewarm in a search for union with God? The monotonous cata-logue of sins that routinely comes to the penitent's lips keep him from ¯ ~Joseph Champlin, Together in Peace (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1974) p. 145. ~'Gerald Broccolo, "The Priest Praying in the Midst of the Family of Man," Concilium 52 (1970) 56-72. New Ritual o[ Penance and the Priest seeing his true self. To know one's tru'e sins is grace. To have a healthy sense of guilt is gift. It,is-the result of prayer. A prayerful and mutual dis-cernment in the dialogue of confession under the guidance of the Holy Spirit is the first step in a process of discovery. "The Spirit Js the first step in a process of discovery" (1 Co 2:10). We need the Spirit to help us face the truth about ourselves. The Confessor as "Pray-er" The more ancient phrase, "Spirit bearer," says a.great deal not only about who the priest is but also about how he should act. If he is "Spirit bearer" in the midst of the penitential assembly or for that matter in the Eucharistic assembly, he must act in a way that stimulates the faithful to pray~ A primary presupposition of all liturgical reform, and most especially of the sacrament of Penance, is that the sacrament is prayer. John Gallen r(marks that "What the contemporary reform of the Church's liturgy needs most in this~moment of its history is the rediscovery of liturgy as prayer.''z It is no accident that the first request made by the ritual' is for the priest and the penitent(s) to pray together (:#: 15, 16). Familiarity with the many suggested .prayers in the ritual is important but free prayer in one's own words is called for as well. The minister of reconciliation is not conducting a counseling session,. nor is he giving a conference on spiritual direction (:#:7B). While it is frequently necessary to give a word of counsel and direction, any serious situation which demands extended attention might~more profitably take place ¯ ¯ elsewhere. The ,ministry of reconciliation cannot be effective unless the confessor is a good "pray-er." Whether it be in a communal liturgy of penance or in the rite for the reconciliation of individual penitents, the priest is the celebrant who truly prays. The priest is "Spirit bearer" by public deputation of office, so that when he prays among men he must do so in a way that stimulates others to pray. His manner of prayer must engender the gift of the Spirit in the people around him. This cannot remain merely an intellectual conviction for the minister, rather he must endeavor to communicate this conviction in a humanly tangible manner. It is unfair to make tran'slations and texts bear the brunt of negative criticism with regard to liturgical reform. The even more commonly voiced disappointment with the r~sults of contemporary liturgical renewal can frequently be traced to the lack of a celebrant's internal dynamism of the Spirit being communicated to the assembly. The liturgy~cannot be rushed, it demands preparation, it rakes time. In an earlier age, canonical Penance was presided over by the bishop with the assistance of his presbyters and deacons who were joined in this act 7Johrl Gallen, "Liturgical Reform: Product or Prayer?". Worship 47 (1973) p. 587. Review for Religious, l/olume 35, 1976/1 of worship by a community of 6elievers interceding on behalf of the penitents. The penitents themselve3 did not appear at this assembly without having spent months (even years) in prayerful preparation. Make no mis-take, we have no desire to slavishly imitate a sixth century liturgy in the twentieth century, but the Ordo Paenitentiae does have every intention of recapturing an understanding of reconciliation as a profound prayer ex-perience of the Holy One of God. In this act of worship, we attempt to communicate the incommunicable. Reconciliation cannot be mass produced. The-practice of "frequent confession" or "confession of devotion" will need redefinition so that the Sacrament will not be reduced to superficial ritual observance. After seven centuries of unbalanced emphasis on causality to the neglect of the signs, the Ordo Paenitentiae is another example of Post Vatican II's rejection of an unthomistic stress on causality that led in the past to a more or less mechanistic view of sacraments. Whittling down a penitential liturgy or any other sacramental celebration to what is abso-lutely essential for validity can erode its prayer context. More is required for fruitful celebration than a basic minimum. If celebrants use emergency rubrics as the normal procedure for the parochial experiences of the Sacra-ment, no translation, no text, no liturgical book will be of any help in solv-ing the problems of Penance. The American Bishops put it well. "Faith grows when it is well expressed in celebration. Good celebrations foster and nourish faith. Poor celebrations weaken and destroy faith.''~ :The Protestant community will be less likely to dismiss the sacrament ¯ of Penance if it sees it as a prayerful experience between minister and penitent(s) who stand under the word of God with faith prior to a procla-mation of!forgiveness. It is not magic. It is not over and done with in a few moments. It is now, as it was in the early Church, a process, an event that takes time. If Penance in our time has hit rock bottom, it will rebound only if we rediscover Penance as prayer. For this critical ministry the Church needs charismatic men at ease with situations which permit a free flowing prayerful exchange with penitents under the direction of the Holy Spirit. Tension Between Ecclesial and Individual Elements The Ordo Paenitentiae reminds the Church of the~ diversity of ways in which a Christian obtains forgiveness (prayer, Eucharist, works of mercy, Scripture, etc.) (:~4). The ritual of Penance now includes a rite which in-corporates general absolution after only a general confession of sinfulness. Kenan Osborne in a report made to the Catholic Theological Society of America remarks that with the Ordo "a definite break has been made; a door has been opened officially, and although the document takes a strad- SMusic in Catholic Worship" Bishops' Committee on the Liturgy, 1972. New Ritual of Penance and the Priest dling position, the openness to new forms cannot be saddled or bridled . ,,9 With regard to the limited use of general absolution the Ordo may be termed a transitional document, an important first step. Pastors anticipate an openness from the National Conference of Bishops ~ for expanded use of this rite in the years to come. However in age of personalism, being ministered to as "a face in the crowd" is no instant cure for the problem of Penance. True conversion, real change of heart, a new direction to one's llfe, and authentic reconciliation with God and Church does not happen more easily by eliminating a personal meeting with a sensitive minister of the Church. The second rite integrates the ecclesial and individual dimension of rec-onciliation. It must be said that with large congregations, even when many priests are available, it will prove awkward. At other times, with small congregations it may pose no real problem. However, in the lives of busy people it may prove impractical to expect everyone to wait until the entire group of penitents has confes~sed individually before concluding the ceremony. It will be pastorally and practical!y better in many parishes to conclude the. Penance service first and then invite the participants to individual confession and absolution. This will prevent truncating the. dia-logue of prayer" which is confession. Over the past ten years it is understandable that priests have spent most of their time attending to liturgical renewal as it relates to Eucharist. However during this same period many ~ther prayer services once familiar to Roman Catholics have disappeared. As a result we feel we have little choice when we come together for prayer. Is it not true that most Catholics labor under the false impression that the word "liturgy" means "Eucharist"? The Eucharist is the preeminent liturgical action, it is the "summit" of our worship, but it is not the entire mountain, We have placed too heavy a burden on the Eucharist to answer eyery .spiritual need of all the people all the time. We misuse the Eucharist by overuse as though it were the only prayer form that our people know. The rite,for the reconciliation of many penitents with individual confession of sins and the suggested non-sacramental penitential services in the Ordo are part of the answer to our prayer needs. These? rites (even when all do not individually confess) must be highlighted as important ways of. reinterpreting what is meant by our~ traditional concepts of "frequent confession" and "confession of devotion." Further, these rites are a good response to Vatican II's request for a. less individualistic liturgical piety. Liturgical services are not private functions, but are celebrations of the Church, which is the 'sacrament of unity,' namely a holy people united and :,Kenan Osborne, The Renewal o] the Sacrament o! Penance (Washington: Catholic Theological Society of America, 1975) p. 48. Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/1 organized under their bishops. Therefore, liturgical services pertain to the whole body of the Church; they manifest it and have effects upon it; but they concern individual members of the Church in different ways according to the diversity of holy orders, functions, and degrees of participation.~° It is to be stressed that whenever rites, according to their specific nature, make ~provision for communal celebration involving the presence and active partici-pation of the faithful, this way of celebrating them is to be preferred, as far as possible, to a celebration that is individual and quasi-private,it Every sacrament must' be celebration of Church. In an earlier age, the bishop presided over a penitential~liturgy that literally included every-one, priests, deacons, and laity. Today the priest is asked to work with liturgical committees in the formation of ministers of the Word, readers of prayers and examinations of conscience, musicians, acolytes, etc. In addition to this collaboration, the priest must ~sense that each l~enitent actually celebrates with the Church in the rite of individual con-fession and absolution. "Thus, the faithful Christian, as he experiences the mercy, of God in his life, celebrates together with the priest the liturgy of the. Church by which she continually renews herself" (~11). Since the penitent is in dialogue with the confessor in this rite, it is appropriate to encourage him to read the passages from" Scripture, to allow him time to make an act of sorrow, and even have him suggest an appropriate penance. Although not every Catholic is capable of such participation and we should not burden people who are not prepared, neither should we patronize or underestimate the ability of many American Catholics who desire from their priests "something more." Standing Under the Word of God Finally, it might be helpful to remember the bishop's mandate given to all priests moments before ordination: "Share with a~l men the word of God you have received with jby." Like Jesus the minister is anointed by the Spirit to bring the Good News of forgiveness to his people. HiS min-istry of "breaking the bread" of God's word in teaching the people by means of the homily is an essential part of the liturgy of Penance. Even in the rite for ~the reconciliation of individual penitents the priest should be reluctant to omit those few verses of Scripture and subsequent words of encouragement. Karl Rahner says that there are forgotten truths about the sacrament of Penance that need to be rediscovered. The homily within the ritual of Penance is a privileged opportunity "to teach as Jesus did" about the true meaning of sin and about the need for reconciliation with God and with the Church. Almighty and merciful God, you have brought us together in the name of your Son 1°Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy #26. 11Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy #.27. New Ritual o[ Penance and the Priest / 13 to receive your mercy and grace in our time of need. Open our eyes to see the evil we have done. Touch our hearts and convert us to yourself. Where sin has divided and scattered, may your love make one again; where sin has brought weakness, may your power heal and strengthen; where sin has brought death, may your Spirit raise to new life. Give us a new heart to love you, so that our lives may reflect the image of your Son. May the world see the glory of Christ revealed in your Church, and come to know that he is the one whom you have sent, Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord. (Ordo Paenitentiae :~99 Opening Prayer) Bibliography' Alszeghy, Zoltan. "Reform of the Rite of Penance,"~Theology Digest 23 (1975) 100- 106. Buckley, Francis. "Recent Developments in the Sacrament of Penance:' Communio I (1974) 83-93. Champlin, Joseph. Together iJ, Peace Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1975. Colborn, Francis. ',Psychotherapy and Conversio9," American Ecclesiastical Review 167 (19:.73) 75-90. Curran, Charles. ~'The Sacrament of Penance Today," Worship 43 (1969) 510-531, 590-619; 44 (1970) 2-19. Diekmann, Godfrey. "The Laying On of Hands: The Basic Sacramental Rite," Proceedings o/ tire Catholic Theological Society o[ America 29 (1974) 339-366. Donnelly, Doris. "The Problem of Penance," America 129 (1973) 324-327. Duffy, Regi'~i ~'Concelebration of Penance and a Therapeutic 191odel," Worsl, ip 48 (1974) 258-269. Gallen, John. "Liturgical Reform: Product or Prayer?" Worship 47 (1973) 580-591. -- "The Necessity of Ritual," Tire Way Oct. 1973, 270-282. -- "A ~PastoraI-Liturgical View of Penance Today," Worship 45 (1971) 132-150. Poschman, Bernard. Penance attd the Anointing o[ the Sick, New York: Herder, 1964. Prieur, Michael. The Sacrament o] Reconciliation Today, Bethlehem: Catechetical Comtnunications, 1974. Rahner, Karl. "Forgotten Truths about the Sacrament of Penance," ~Theological vestigations Volume II. -- "Problems Concerning Confession," Theological'Investigations Volume II. -- "Penance as an Additional Act of Reconciliation with the Church," Theological Investigations Volume X. Schillebeeckx, E. Sacramental Reconciliation New York: Herder, 1971. Sottocornola, F. A Look at the New Rite o] Petratrce Washington: U.S. Catholic Conference, 1975. Vogel, C. "Sin and Penance," Pastoral Treatment b] Sin ed. P. Delhaye New York: Descle6, 1968. Renewed Religious Life: The Dynamics of Re-discovery George Kosicki, C.S.B. Father Kosicki is on the staff of Bethany House of Intercession, a center of spiritual renewal that emphasizes intercessory prayer on behalf of all priests. His address is: Bethany House; Seminary of Our Lady of Providence; R. R. No. 1; Warwick, RI 02889, Six years ago, my superior general, Father John C. Wey, C.S.B., released me from University teaching and research in the field of biochemistry to work full time with prayer groups and to give retreats. He asked me to experiment with prayer groups and communities and bring back what I could for the renewal of our own religious ~ommunity, the Basilian Fathers. He advised me to search out various approaches and not to get. tied down to one thing too quickly. In following his advice, I have experienced a variety of communities and traveled extensively giving retreats, mainly to priests and religious these last years, searching for some understanding and some answers. It has been a time of being a pilgrim and I have found some in-sights and factors that I think need to be part of renewed religious life. Experiences by Decades My experience of religious life began after high school with the no~,itiate in 1946 in Rochester, New York. I remember it as a joyous time; a time when I wanted to give myself to the Lord without reserve. I felt ready to give whatever was asked of me with generous heart. There were no agoniz-ing questions, no searching for answers; all was there in the community and the rule, In 1956, two years after ordination, I was director of our scholastics (college seminarians) at Assumption University, Windsor, Ontario. It was a time of intense activity: studying, teaching, research and counseling. Con- 14 Renewed Religious Li[e / 15 cerns with the scholastics centered about the rule, spiritual exercises, aca-demic achievements, work with the boarding high school students and sports. Ten-years °later in 1966, as director of the. scholastics, I was involved in seminars on the documents of Vatican II and deeply immersed in the construction of a three-quarter-million-dollar house of studies. We had more novices than we had rooms! One of the concerns was the right layout and atmosphere that would "form community," such as the color of brick and the arrangement of rooms. .~ By the time it was opened we could not fill it. Now, approaching 1976, I .am searching for ways to renew religious life. I am trying to listen to what the Spirit is saying to the communities. There are no scholastics at the university and neither am I there. During these past years I have.been exposed to a variety of communities' experiments that have added to both my experience and non-experience of community. While traveling to many parts of the world giving retreats on faith renewal, I made my home base in various living situations. At the university I lived with fellow Basilian priests in an academic atmosphere where many were of one mind on our work, but so many of our hearts were off in different directions; in different theologies, different psy-chologies, different styles of living. ' During the summer of 1970 in Detroit I was part of a seven week program of sharing and prayer with a group of priests. It was a temporary community that inspired us to continue the searching. During the academic year of 1970-71 a group of students and a few priests came to live together as a community, using a former convent in the inner city at Santa Maria Parish. ,We were of one heart but never made cl~ar our agreements and found that we were not of~one mind. We thought that our common involvement with the large central prayer group at Gesu Parish, Detroit, would form us into a community; but we had no clear headship and a random pattern of living developed. In the beginning of 1971 a nucleus of five priests was attracted to a vision of a community committed to ~he renewal of priests. They joined,me at Santa Maria and on several retreats. We spent the summer together in sharing and prayer. It was a strained situation because the focus began with our interpersonal relationships, dealing with areas of trust and lack of trust, and seemed to continue at that level. In a sense, we were our own first customers; we were the ones who experienced healing, but there was so much more needed for so many brothers. The two priests, who stayed on with me (1971-72) in the retreat work with priests, found it increasingly difficult to work with the renewal of priests. Our community experience was good but not good enough. ,We tried to be of one heart and one mind but diversity of interest, of calling, and of talent seemed to dominate. Our temporary commitment worked against our making the needed agreements. For the next two years I moved to the Word of God Community in 16 / Review ]or Religious, l/olume 35, 1976/1 Ann Arbor, Michigan, as a base of operation. The leaders of the com-munity asked me to come and live with them and receive the Christian support I needed for the retreat with priests. The Word of God is an ecu-menical lay community of more than 1200 people living in extended family households. It is a life ~of prayer and common worship that over-flows in service. The bond of unity is commitment to the Lord and to one another. I came to experienc6 the pattern of their community life and to see before me re-discoveries of many basics of religious life. In living with a family household, I came to appreciate the enormity of the love and fidelity of the parents, at least thirty-six hours a day. I came to be aware of the devastating impact of the school, peer group pressures~ TV, movies and .advertising on the lives of the children, I realized the need of a Chris-tian space to be free to be Christian and the need of common worship to support the members. Then, in living with a household of young menocom-mitted to a single life as brothers, I came to experience the rediscovery of poverty, obedience and celibacy. I watched before my eyes young men committing their whole lives to the Lord, to one and another and to service of the community with an eagerness and simplicity that I knew many years ago. There is no lack of commitment among the young; it is being directed toward these vibrant communities. These community cells are the remnant clusters that,.~are rediscovering the basic elements of religious life in our times. They are rediscovering: commitment, prayer, obedience, sub-mission, ~order, celibacy, poverty, forgiveness and confessing of sins to one another, healing, admonitions, service, brotherly affection, and love. ~ During the past year I~have been living with a small group of Basilians attempting to apply some of these re-discoveries into our "Basilian Way of Life." It is a simple, experiment: (an we live our Basilian way of life in a simple way? We came to experience the support of each other in regular faith-sharing of God's movements in our day, in praying together daily, in our Eucharists and meals and in our weekly hour of intercession for the needs, of our fellow Basilians and the Church. We found ourselves of one heart.We could freely share and pray together and for each other, but our different apostolic works took us in different directions, limiting our time together, At the present. I am preparing for another community experiment: a house of intercession for priests by priestsl As a result of the power of heal-ing and unbinding we experit~nced in a forty-day period of intercession for priests last summer (1974), six of us have been released by our major superiors to form a core-community of intercession. We are inviting others tO join us for a week or mori~ of thisoministry of prayer for our brothers. The six of us (two Basilians, a Maryknoll missioner, a Trappist, a Jesuit, and a diocesan pastor) want to live as a community putting into practice some of the re-discoveries of religious life. We want to be a healing com-munity that will help unbind our brother priests. Renewed Religious Lile / 17 It is interesting to note that a parallel change took place in our seminary in Toronto during these same decades. In 1946 St. Basil's Seminary con-sisted of some fifty theologians and faculty housed in an old orphanage, A great emphasis.was placed on the theology of St. Thomas and on teaching. In 1956 the classroom extension on the new seminary marked the beginnings of the "New Theology." By 1966 the new freedom expressed itself in new patterns of studies, small group encounters, and a general ~democratization of life style. Now, approaching 1976, a remnant of Basilians is part of a theological union at St. Basil's College. What can be said about 1986? What will religious life be like? I have some. questions that concern me and some re-discoveries that have given me hope. Questions about Religious Life What can I say about the renewal of religious life in light of this back-ground of experience? I wish 1 had the answers. What I do have. is the anguish of many concerned questions and the insights of some re-dis-coveries. Will religious life, as we have known it, die out? Isoa remnant to preserve this way of life for a future restoration? Can the new wine of renewal be put into old wineskins? I would like to answer these questions with the surety that would give hope, but I am confronted with the reality of dying communities--empty novitiates, closed seminaries, the average age of membership increasing dramatically, continued resignation of mem-bers. Another question that concerns me is the :nature of the apostolic work usually done by religious communities; such as, schools, hospitals, and social work. Where does the religious community enter a government controlled structure and how does it survive as a work of mercy and charity in the midst of a bureaucratic system? A related question confronts religious com-munities: Do we dare sell our institutions or are we secure in them like the young rich man in the Gospel? Can we be secure in insecurity? Another concern ~about religious life is its isolation from the full ecclesial community. Have religious communities become churches unto themselves? Have they been more interested in their self-perpetuation and the advancement of their own apostolic endeavors than in the welfare of the people of God and the proclamation of the Kingdom? Another concern is that many religious communities have attempted renewal by a single directional thrust; that is, the lessening of discipline and order. The usual result has been the lessening of the time given to prayer by the individual and by the community. This type of renewal was not an experiment; it was just a change. There was little, if any, evaluation and no time limit set for the termination of the change. A greater emphasis was placed on personal responsibility and initiative, but so many of us have come to realize how much we need the mutual support of each other that is expressed through order. Review for Religious, l/olume 35, 1976/1 Another thrust has been on pluralism within the community. I, among others, was a strong proponent of pluralism at our renewal chapter of 1968, but now I see the need of unity, of unanimity, of being of one heart and mind in our community and apostolate. What has been the effect of these changes? The drastic changes in .the last decade have been devastating to the morale of many older members. Nonverbal communications came across: that what was done before~was not good and what we are bringing in is better. The renewal has ushered in new and good things. But have we discarded some of the treasures of the old? From my experiences of living in various communities, I have come to some insights into re-discovering some of these discarded treasures. Insights into Re-discoveries I have come to see that there is no lessening of cofnmitment among young men and women. It is being directed, however, to new styles of life, to the lay communities and not to the traditional forms of religious life. Religious communities and leaders in the Church need to take a sincere look at what is happening in these lay communities, not with a stance of "wait and see" or of tolerance, but of active participation and encourage-ment. The Spirit is speaking to these communities and .the Church needs to hear wtiat the Spirit is saying. ~, Religious communities will find that the basic practices that have been rejected in our renewal process are now being "re-discovered" by these lay communities. What richness they are finding in common and private prayer (what used to be called office, meditation, holy hours), in Scripture reading, in teachings (conferences), in an ordered life under headship (obedience and rule), in support, encouragement and admonitions, (moni-tions, spiritual direction), in confessing their sins to one another and praying for one another (examen, chapter of faults), in times of sabbath (grand silence). But, above all, the basic commitment to ~the Lord Jesus is made explicit and is freely, talked about and regularly renewed. The reality of Jesus as Lord of their lives together is what makes these com-munities vibrant and alive with new members. I have come to be less discouraged with the conflict experienced in religious communities, realizing that the source of the conflict is often the Holy Spirit Himself. The Holy Spirit convicts us so that we would get off dead-center, so that we would not be self-satisfied with our security. The message of the Spirit to religious communities may well be the message of the Spirit to the Church in Laodicea: You keep saying, "I am so rich and secure that I want nothing." Little do you realize how wretched you are, how pitiable and poor, how blind and naked! Take my advice. Buy from me gold refined by fire if you would be truly rii:h. Buy white garments in which to be clothed, if the shame of your nakedness is to be covered. Buy ointment to smear on your eyes, if you Renewed Religious Li]e / 19 would see once more: Whoever is dear to me I reprove and chastise. Be earnest about it, therefore, repent! Rv 3:17-19. The message of the Spirit is to repent, to be renewed. It is not a call just to a change, but ,to a change for the better, to a renewal. I see that religious communities need tO keep searching and re-discover their founda-tions. Experimentation I would encourage religious communities to cbntinue experimentation; that is, to try what is possible with agreed-upon limits. The difficulty with many experiments is that they were tried without an understanding of the nature of experimentation. It was not experimentation but change. Experi-mentation means actually doing something with pre-set limitations that allow evaluation. For instance, so often an "experiment" is attempted with no termination date and, when it finally does terminate, it is usually because it just fails due to the nature of the situation and the members feel the failure as frustration and/or guilt. A'termination date allows an evaluation of positive and negative features. Also, experimentation calls for oneness of heart and mind. The members of the group need to agree on their ideals and on the practical' steps necessary to achieve them; such as, time commit-ment, prayer schedules, work assignments, finances, order and headship. Experiments in community life fail so often because of the lack of agree-ments among the members; agreements are needed on the ideals as well as on the practicalities of day to day living and on the authority to call: one another to fulfill the agreements made. Agreements are the limitations set on the experiment that allow evaluation. The professor who directed my ~dissertation research in biochemistry insisted on two principles in regard to experimentation: One, "Don't talk about it, do it;" and the .other, "An experiment never has enough controls." ~(Controls are the fixed limits set on the experiment that make possible its evaluation.) And so~.in regard to experimenting With renewal of religious life, I would encoutage religious communities to "try and try again" and to ¯ "set specific agreements on what is to be done." I would encourage experi-mentation not just change, o ~ The Church needs many examples of what can be done. We need living models of renewed religious communities that can be a sign ot~ hope to other communities. We need religious~communities to be living witnesses of the Risen Lord Jesus. It would only take a few t6 spark a spiritual revolution in the Church. The Charismatic Renewal and Religious Life The charismatic renewal cannot be igno~'ed; it just won't go ,away by not paying attention to it. The message of the charismatic renewal is to the whole Church and in a special way to religious communities. We need to Review for Religious, Volume 35, 1976/1 hear what the Spirit is saying no matter what our experience of the charis-matic renewal has been. There are a variety of messages spoken directly to religious communi-ties, some of which can be easily accepted and others causing tension. The many people who have been renewed by a new fullness of this Spirit challenge religious to be renewed and have their hearts set on fire with the love and the power of the Lord. This fire expresses itself in the ways that should be part of religious life: by the presence of God, in the prayer of praise, in the power of ministry, gifts of prophecy, healing and discernment, in the love of Scripture and speaking of the Lord. This new fire is available to all religious for the asking, that is, if we ask with hunger for the Lord and the expectancy of faith. The challenge of the charismatic renewal is not only to the individual member of religious communities but also to communities themselves to rediscover the essential factors of their life together. This kind of challenge causes tensions. Many religious as individuals have experienced the power of their "baptism of the Holy Spirit" and have been set on fire with new life but confronted a tension when they returned to their home community. For many, the prayer-meeting with people not of their own community is the occasion of love, fulfillment, and prayer; but when they return home they find bickering and superficiality. Others, on returning home are confronted with the challenge: Why can't you find your fulfillment at home? I see that the major cause of the tension is the Holy Spirit Himself; He is healer but He also is.judge This is true of the individual and of the community.This tension is good and from the Spirit Who brings the sword. We are being challenged to be renewed. Are there any religious communities that have been renewed by the charismatic renewal? Some~have been founded anew, such as, St. Benedict's Abbey, Pecos, New Mexico. But we need more models of renewal. People are waiting for a community to say, "Here we are!" We need some :.real evidence of the Lord's work and we are waiting. We need to be patient and wait for the Lord's time-table. Some religious communities are experi-encing a charismatic renewal by "osmosis," that is, a gradual absorption of ' various aspects, such as, shared and spontaneous prayer,,a greater rever-ence for the Word of God, renewed interest in the Lord. But we also need the direct renewal of deeper conversion to the Lord Jesus. The greater yielding to the power- and ministry-gifts of the Holy Spirit and the deeper relationships of love for one another in full community, What can an individual religious do when there is tension within the community over the charismatic renewal? Love much and love still more. It is the witness of love expressed in daily service, care, forgiveness and patience that melts tensions. Only by asking for this love in daily prayer will we be able to love in this.way. ~n addition, the individual religious will need to find support in a praying-healing community. For a while this may Renewed Religious Life have to be outside the "religious" community! What a contradiction that a member of a religious community would have to go outside that community to find spiritual support. And yet I have seen far too many religious who have had to do just that. There are many lay communities that are experiencing a renewed li~e in the Spirit and are challenging religious communities to drink deeply of the new wine and be what they are called to be. Religious communities are being challenged to be leaders of renewal in the Church, to be an integrated part of the whole Church, to be a believing, confessing witness to the world, a charismatic witness to the Church. Religious communities ought to be charismatic communities with all the gifts of the H01y Spirit operative; including wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discern-ment of spirits, tongues and interpretation (cf. 1 Co 12). Religious com-munities need to make use of all the gifts of the Holy Spirit that are given for the upbuilding of the Body of Christ. Religious communities have been challenged to renewal by the Second Vatican Council to look to the charism of their founders. Such a looking to, and renewal of, their original charism may in some cases be a "re-discovery" and in others a restoration. Com-munities do have a charism that identifies them. It may be a ministry or a life-style but always it is a fire. It is the fire that enkindled the founder and set on fire the hearts of those who followed. The characteristics of this fire can be seen in the early Church itself, as described in the Acts of the Apostles. Surely the whole Church needs to experience its founding charisms and it will if religious communities become charismatic. Factors in Renewed Religious Life From my experiences of failure and success in a* variety of community experiments, I see that there are basic factors to be taken into account in any renewed community. The factors I would like to stress include: common commitment, agreements, headship and submission, sin and forgiveness, prayer in private and together, Eucharist, celibacy and mutual support, poverty, discipleship, :apostolate and brotherhood (companionship) and witness. The order of importance of the various factors depends on the nature and state of the existing community and apostolate. There needs to be a dynamic equilibrium of being disciples, apostles, and brothers (com-panions). 1. Common Commitment: The common commitment to Jesus as Lord is the fundamental factor of Christian life. Each of us, individually and together, needs to profess Jesus as Lord. He alone can be the center and reason for our lives together. We need to allow Him to be the Lord of our lives. It is His Spirit dwelling in our hearts that binds us into one body. This dimension of community exists prior to us and we enter into it, that is, the community of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit pre-exists. As we enter into the Spirit of the Lord Jesus we enter into a pre-existing community. Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/1 We do not "form" community in the sense of giving it birth~ but rather we allow it to grow the more deeply in each of us as we enter into the Spirit and allow Jesus to be the Lord of our lives. As we enter into a relationship with the Lord, we enter into a common-union with Him and so with all the others who also have entered into this union. Our common-union-in-Christ is the bond that forms community. This is the bond that needs to be made explicit, public, vocal, and regularly renewed. Many religious communities continue to assume ,,that this basic rela-tionship is real in their members. My experience.,testifies that this assump-tion cannot be made universally and needs to be made explicit. We need to make explicit our relationship to Jesus as the Lord of our lives, that is, we all need to support one another in continued conversion. One way of supporting each other in this relationship is by our daily prayer support and faith-sharing (see below for further development) which gradually begins to counteract the domination of other "lords" in our lives. And we have been deeply influenced by "lords" other than Christ in these past decades: by the dominance of success, by the fallacy of numbers, by the influence of materialism, by the ideals of self-fulfillment, etc. We need to renew our basic commitment to the Lord Jesus. 2. Agreements: We cannot assume that we are of "one heart and one mind" (Acts 4:32); we need to re-discover how to make agreements and come to oneness of heart and mind. It is a process that takes time and listening to all the members but it also involves laying down our own pre-conceived ideas and desires to achieve a unanimity but not a uniformity. It means that we want to be reminded of our agreements so that we may keep them. Agreements need to be clear and even written down so that we do not have misunderstandings. The agreements that are not clear are usually the source of "double expectations." One person expects to do B and another C and neither is fulfilled. We need to agree on our expectations, our ideals, and on the daily, practical ways they are to be achieved. Agreements are the "controls" of the experiment; they set the limits of what can be done together, limits of time commitments, involvements and duties. When evaluation is done, we need to look to our agreements. They will show us how the experiment is working. 3. Headship and Submission: Each member needs to be under the authority of another, not in the sense of being under a superior~ as we knew it in the past, but in the sense of being a part of the body. Each member of the body needs to be in submission to and in support of the whole, body if the body is to function as one. In the past we had separated the roles of superior, confessor and spiritual director so that the superior was not to involve himself in the spiritual life of the individual and the spiritual director or confessor was not to involve himself in the daily life of the individual. We need tore- Renewed Religious Li[e / 23 discover the role of a "spiritual elder" who would take responsibility for the whole welfare of the person. Each person needs such a "head" to reflect his needs, to challenge him, to confront him with his agreements, to foster his total growth. Such a "head" has the responsibility to see that the individuals and the community are growing; he is to see that decisions and agreements are made and problems are faced up to but he does not have to make the decisions himself. Such headship means support and submission of all the members of the body to one another, not just to the head. This re-discovered concept of headship would extend obedience beyond the vertical relationship to the horizontal as well. It would mean a submission and reverence to one an-other as members of the same body. It would mean that members iaf a brotherhood would not be just keepers of their brothers, like Cain, but rather be brothers to their brothers in the Lord. ~" 4. Sin and Forgiveness: One of the major factors in the. daily living of Christian community that needs to be re-discovered is the effect of sin and the need of forgiyeness. Sin has a drastic effect on community. The sin of any one member of the body affects the whole body. My sin of resentment or anger affects you and your sin affects me. Sin is a communal responsi-bility. In the recent past we have made sin. a private matter mainly to pro-tect the privacy of conscience. We have relegated sin to the privacy of confession or to the spiritual director and have separated the office of confessor, spiritual director and superior. We~ need to reconsider the effect this has on community. Sin is not a private matter. We need ways to confess our ~ins to one another, forgive one another and pray for one another s6 that we be healed (cf. Jm 5: 16), In the past religious communities have had ways of confessing sin to one another; in chapter of faults and in monitions, but these became stylized into dead rituals and were dropped by many communities. There are simple ways of confessing our sins to one another that should be in-corporated into our daily life. Sin will continue to be a reality that we need to deal with daily. Seventy times Seven times a day we will have to forgive one another. 'Community exists not when sin disappears but when we learn to forgive four hundred and ninety times a day. We need to learn to ask for forgiveness, to give forgiveness and to receive it. When we exchange forgiveness we acknowl-edge sin but ~ve also'acknowledge that our love is greater than sin. To the extent that we have forgiveness--to that extent we have~ community (Bon-hoeffer). If there is any one single factor that needs to be present in com-munity, I think, it is forgiveness. Sins against our.relationships are the major factors that destroy community. Forgiveness, as we ourselves have been for-given in Christ, is our mission of reconciliation and restores community. 5. Faith Sharing: One of the ways that our common commitment to the Lord Jesus is supported is by faith-sharing. Daily we need to share our 24 / Review for Religious, Volume 35, 1976/1 faith experiences and how the Holy Spirit is working in our lives. In the past we had examen as a time to review our lives, but the emphasis was on ourselves, our sins, our virtues; it became a time to make a list ot~ our faults. The daily sharing at the end of the"day can become a new form of common examen. For example, beginning with a period of silence we can let the Spirit reveal to us where He acted today so that we could recognize His action in our lives; then each in turn can share two or three moments when they recognized the action of the Spirit and corresponded to it or did not correspond to it. In listening to one another we come to hear how the Spirit works in each of us. We can respond with joy, prayer and en-couragement. Daily faith sharing becomes a very special time of closeness in the local communities. We come to know and support each other; we come to know ourselves and the delicacy of the movements of the Holy Spirit. Our faith grows as we hear the faith of our brothers expressed. Faith comes from hearing and we need to hear the faith of one another as well as see it. As trust grows among the group, the confession of~.our weakness and sin becomes possible. It is in this kind of sharing that we can confess to another, pray for one another and so be healed. 6. Prayer: To be a Christian community, each member needs to be faithful to daily prayer. I would place the minimum for each person at an hour of private prayer each day. We need a block of an hour to be before the Lord, to let Him love us, heal us and teach us. If we are to work with Him, we must know Him and this takes time. There is no substitute for this daily time of drawing nourishment from the Lord; it would be better to miss a meal than to miss this time of being apart with Him. To be Christian, the community needs to pray together. The prayer of the' Church Calls us together several times a day, But over and above that, I have come to see the power of hours of prayer spent together in inter-cession for the needs of the Church. In interceding for others, we join Jesus before the throne of the Father. The Father waits for us to ask for our needs in the name of Jesus. Prayer is the time of drawing spiritual nourishment for life. Without prayer we are inviting death to reign in the community. Each individual needs to feed the community with his prayer and, in turn, the communal prayer strengthens the individual. It may well be that the lack of prayer in religious comn~unities, both~ private and communal, has been the major factor in the increased signs of death--decrease in commitment and decrease in vocations. If I were to venture a guess at the major factors among those listed, I would point to the lack of prayer and lack of forgiveness. We need to rediscover prayer--not a return to reciting prayers, but truly praying. We can make use of every form of prayer available to us: the official prayer of the Church, shared prayer, spontaneous prayer, prayer in Renewed Religious Life / 25 the spirit, silent contemplation, lectio divina, holy hours, litanies, the rosary, novenas, and any other form. In this time and state of the Church, we need to make use of every channel of power to cry out in our need for mercy. The prayer of Our time is just this: lamentation. To weep with Jesus forthe ChurCh and the world. ~' 7. Eucharist: The celebration of the Eucharist, I have come to experi-ence, does not "form" community in the sense of giving it birth, but it rather is the cause of growth of community. It nourishes the life that is there and celebrates it. The Holy Spirit gives birth to community and He must be dwelling in our hearts in order that we be nourished by the Eucharist. This means that we need to approach the altar with forgiveness and conversion of who we are. If we do not recognize the assembled body for what it~is as the body of the Lord, we eat and drink to. our own judg-ment and "that is why so many among you are sick and infirm, and why so many are dying" ( I Co 11 : 30). The Eucharist can be an escape from facing the real 'issues that divide us.,On the other hand, the Eucharist can be and should be the source of healing of our divisions. To be healed we need to confess both our sinful-ness and our faith in the two-fold presence of the Lord:' The Lord is present as spiritual food and as the assembled body. Our faith is expressed in,the invisible presence and our submission .and obedience is expressed to the visible presence of the assembly. To be truly one we are to be one in faith and one in obedience. Is the real source of divisions over this obedi-ence? Do we approach the Eucharist "listening to" (the real meaning of obedience) the Lord and one another? Do we approach the body of the Lord with reverence, submission and obedience? When we celebrate the Eucharist, confessing who we are and confessing who Jesus is, we truly will recognize the Lord in the breaking of the bread. He will open our hearts and minds and heal us so that we might be one. Eucharist ought to be and can be th~ summit and source of our life to-gether when we approach the table of the Lord as a, "confessing com-munity." 8. Celibacy: Mutual Si~pport o[ Love--Consecrated celibacy is a way of living for the Lord in a singular way. It is a gift of the Lord for the upbuilding of community by which we are freed to love more broadly and serve with greater commitment. In a sense, celibacy is a gift of time for the community; it frees us to give time to love and service. On the one hand; celibacy is freeing but, on the other hand, it limits us to be served and be loved by the community. To live as celibates we need to receive the support of community. This involves mutual 16ve and concern. It is a marriage to the bQdy of the Lord, His Church. I have come to re-discover the need of small celibate communities within the larger ecclesial communities because it is in the small com-munity that this mutual love, concern, and support is expressed in a daily Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/1 way. The mutual support of love can be expressed in a number of ways: praying for each other and over each other for support, healing and deliv-erance from various kinds of bondage, sharing of faith experiences, con-fessing our sins and .forgiving, speaking to each other the tru~th in real love, facing our fears fearlessly, sharing the daily events of work, recre~ation, meals and the special events of celebrations, submitting to one another so that each person is under headship, expressing our affection for each other in visible signs. "Greet all the brothers with holy embrace" (I Th 5:26). This sign of affection may seem like a small or silly thing but it is not. We cannot embrace a brother with a resentment against him.It has been a fascinating discovery for me to realize that the very signs of affection that were so definitely discouraged in novitiates and seminaries because of the fear of homosexuality, are the most effective way of avoiding the problem. A warm affectionate community is not only the greatest antidote to homosexuality but also is needed to live out our consecrated celibacy. 9. Poverty: Poverty needs to be re-discovered. I see that poverty has two fundamental aspects: possession and dispossession. The first movement of poverty is to be possessed by the power and the presence of the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. When we are possessed by Him we are rich and truly free. The second movement of poverty is to be dispossessed---of all that is not of Christ: of things, attitudes,, and relationships. To me this means that we. may become poor in new ways as well as in the old: poor in the extent of involvement, poor in the use of our time, poor in productiv-ity, poor in successes; as well as poor in material goods, food, clothes, housing and transportation. When we are dispossessed, we stand weak and stripped before the Lord and man, and allow ourselves to be posSessed with the richness of the Lord; He becomes our power and joy. Religious communities are called to be poor, not just in spirit, but also in fact. Our sign to the world is that we are rich in the Lord, Can re-ligious communities be the sign of contradiction that confronts the "lords" of our age: materialism, competition, and ~ivarice? 10. Disciples-Apostles-Brothers: I am coming to rediscover the need of a dynamic equilibrium between three aspects of religious life. We need to be disciples, apostles and brothers (companions), that is, all three need to be renewed, not just one or the other. As religious, I see that we are called by Jesus as His disciples to follow Him, and sent by Jesus as His apostles with His power to do the work of the Father, and united as His brothers by His love to be a witness to the world. In renewing religious life we need to emphasize the word ltis; we are to be ltis disciples, ltis apostles, l-lis brothers (companions). Have we attempted to renew our communities according to our own patterns, making ourselves disciples of our founder, or apostles of our own brand of apostolate? Or have we attempted renewal of our communities by approaching the renewal of just one aspect, such as, Renewed Religious Li]e / ~17 the apostolate or the community? Community life cannot be renewed with-out the renewal of discipleship and the apostolate; they are all inter-related. I have experienced, however, that the aspect that is most easily passed over: is discipleship. We have a tendency to assume that all our mem-bers are undergoing continous conversion and all are praying.and know Jesus Christ in a personal way as Lord and Savior. My experience bears witness that this assumption cannot be made. To put it in another way, many religious need to be evangelized. Many more than we like to admit need to come to experience the presence and power of the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. l 1. Ecclesial Witness: The religious community ought to be and can be the living witness of what it means to be Christian. It ought to be able to say to those in need: "Come and see." "Come and live with us that you may know how to live." The religious community ought to be and can be the yeast that leavens the Church with a ferment of new wine, bringing new joy and hope to the Church and a world that so needs new vision and good news. The religious community ought to be and can be a confessing com-munity; confessing both its sinfulness and that Jesus is Lord and Savior. The confessing community speaks the truth in love: we are in need ot~ help and Jesus is given for our help. The world needs to hear this truth spoken in great love. The religious community ought to be and can be a poor and praying community 'that is the sign to the world that Jesus is alive in our day. The religious community ought to be and can be charismatic and serve the body of Christ with all the ministries of the Holy Spirit., Steps Toward Achievement What can be done if, in fact, we are not experiei~cing the ideal? I would suggest some practical steps that could be taken to work toward it. These steps are possible at any time. 1. Ask the Father in Jesus to send Their Holy Spirit of love and power to draw men together; 2. Forgive, forgive, forgive and remove the obstacles to our being one; 3. Share to the extent possible; sharing our burdens, our prayer, our faith experiences, our goods; 4. Listen to the Spirit revealing Himself to each of us and through each other. We need vehicles of communal listening in otieying the Lord. If we want to know what the will of the Lord is, we need to look with discernment to what He is in fact doing and saying. A further step then follows: as the Lord calls together a core of leaders who are similarly drawn to meet (step 5) on a regular basis, even Review Ior Religious, Volume 35, 1976/1 daily, to carry out steps 1, 2, 3, and 4, this calling will lead the leaders to commit (step 6) themselves to one another. Around such a core of committed leaders, a believing and witnessing community can grow. There are some Christian communities who have grown in this way. We need to look to them for the message they are speaking to the Church in our day. They are living and speaking a radical message. Do we darer listen? Pastoral Ministry. For those who want to more. Trinity College offers a unique program integrating scripturel theolog~ and professional skills to 15elp you be of greater service to your fellow man and A combination of theoretical and 'practical preparation offers opportuni-ties for specialization in health care, the aging, correctional work, the parish or education. Choose from a 4 semester MA degree program, a 2semester non-degree program, or a 5 week Summer Institute starting June 28, 1976. Fc~r more information write or call Sister Mary Louise Norpel, S.N.D., Director, at (202) 269-2276. Trinity College Dept. 02 Washington. D.C. 20017 Please send me more informalion. narr~ address dry state__ZIP___ TR N H[NGTON The Art of Religious Leadership Sister Noreen Murray, F.M.M. Sister Noreen resides at 225 East 45th St.; New York, NY 10017. As a student at St, Louis University, School of' Social Service, I had the opportunity to participate in a Values and Ethics course that helped me to take a closer look at who I have become because of the values I hold. I selected the topic of leadership for ~'ne Of our assignments because I be-lieve that good leadership is essential for the growth of individuals. The emphasis of this paper is on the role of religious women who have assumed the responsibilities of leadership. As used in~ this paper, the term, "leader" is synonomous with the terms of "superior" or "coordinator" that are presently being used by many religious communities. The art of religious leadership is the creative process which unravels as an individual accepts responsibility to help other persons or organizations, strive to achieve the goals or ends for which they have come together with a shared vision. A religious leader is an individual who responds to life with her whole being; aware that every person she meets and every breath she takes is a gift from the ;Father for her. The discovery of God in her life has brought new insights and .meanings to everything she does~ She has been able to come,to a deeper understanding of' who she is, as she reflects on her womanhood, religious commitment and responsibilities. God has gently touched her and whispered her name, beckoning her to assume the office of leadership. I believe that a religious woman has a lot to contribute as leader, both within her own community and also in public organizations. The focus therefore of this paper will be on the various dimensions of creative leadership which are applicable to both settings and will be indi-cated by reference made to a leader with responsibilities in community. The importance for a religious leader to be aware of the reasons why her community was founded cannot be stressed enough. For when a leader 29 30 / Review [or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/1 is able to step back in time and become immersed in the history of her :ommunity, she is able to have a better perspective of where the community has come from and what is its potential for the future, In doing this, the leader may have to call the community to accountability because over the years they have become so involved in "doing" that they have lost the freedom of "being." The call to accountability is sometimes a painful one for the leader to initiate and yet if the community is to be viable, it must be one of life rather than of technological necessity. As a religious leader looks at the community, she realizes that it is a dynamic interaction of individual women who have come together with a shared vision, in the hope of one day attaining their goal. The uniqueness of each woman in the community gives a richness to the life of the com-munity, when she is allowed to be herself and grow to her potential. Com-munities that have been in existence for years have sometimes become so involved in their Work and apostolate that they get further and further away from the real meaning of their existence. The encouragement that a religious leader is able to give to women in her community to become sensitive to the roots of the community and see how the roots can remain firm as they branch out into various works, will often be a bond of unity for all.'involved. Personal reflection on the community enables the women to have a better understanding of what part they play in its growth and de-velopment. With this enriched insight, there is often a renewed dedication and commitment that occurs in the life of each woman. Although the religious leader cannot escape the complexity and magni-tude of the work she is confronted with each day, she can approach the situation responsibly. An awareness of who the women in her community are, may be one means she can use to delegate some of her work. In dele-gating work to an individual, the.leader is giving her ~the opportunity to utilize her talents and gifts and expand her potential. Once the leader has delegated what work can be done by others, she is then in a better position to see what she has to do. By taking time to list' in a priority sequence the things that are to be done, she,~will have a more realistic perspective Of what can be achieved. As this priority list is developed, the religious leade'r realizes the possibility of frustration has been lessened when she is not able to cover all the work that is before her because the demands that she has placed on herself are more realistic and in line with what can feasibly be accomplished: A religious leader is as human as the next person and like the rest of mankind, she must take time to step aside from her work and be re-freshed. It is important for the leader as well as the community to realize this because unknowingly in her desire to help others, she maybe over-doing things and stifling her own potential for growth. The community can be very supportive to her by respecting her humanness and acknowledging the efforts she makes to bring them closer to their goals. While the religious The Art o] Religious Leadership / 31 leader shares with her constituents the proposals and decisions that are to be made, it is often she alone who bears the brunt of mistakes and failures that have occurred. I believe that it is important for the women in community to accept the responsibility of our failures, as well as our suc-cesses with our leaders. We are human beings and any one of us is capable of making mistakes. We must learn to accept ourselves with our weaknesses as well as our strengths. The creativity of a religious leader to initiate new dimensions for change is often met with resistance from the community members. The stability and comfortableness that has existed for years does not want to be shaken. The question of "Why is it necessary to have these changes?", is often posed by some of the sisters to the religious leader. The prayerful preparation that has gone into formulating these changes gives the re-ligious leader the openness to listen to each one and respond in such a way that all have a better understanding of what is involved in these changes. The element of risk is often involved in any decision and one must be willing to pay the price for that risk, if one is going to be true to herself and her calling. To step into the unknown can be a frightening experience and yet as one begins the journey and stumbles and falls along the way, she is often in a better position to pick herself up and proceed onward. The channels of communicationthat are accessible to all the women in the community, is a very important consideration to which' the leader should be sensitive. If'the leader is to speak to the members of the community, it is important that she realizes there is more than one way of expressing our ideas, and if we are to speak to a group, we must see what method will be most receptive by this particular group. The ability of the women to com-prehend what is being said is important, and the leader must make every endeavor to make the arch of distortion ever smaller. The arch of distor-tion is affected not only by the acoustics of the room, its physical situation in the comm._ unity, but also by the importance and relevance that this com-munication will have on the individual sisters. The growth of community is not a one-sided effort but rather the interaction and exchange of all the women in the community. Because of this, it is imperative that the means of communication be accessible and used by all the members. Even though the religious leader may not have personal expertise within the area of financial management, it is important for her to be involved in the formulation of the budget and other financial expenditures. This principle highlights another aspect of leadership and that is the ability to select .persons who have expertise within a given field and the capability of utilizing this expertise on a broader scale. Once the leader is able to share various leadership responsibilities with qualified persons, she is relieved of many pressures and is therefore able to extend herself in a more human way to others. Review for Religious, Volume 35, 1976/1 The vision of a religious leader often extends beyond her immediate community to the larger community of the neighborhood,, city, nation or world. If her community is to be a dynamic witness to others, it is impera-tive that it has interaction with others. The call to leadership does not stop at one's doorstep, rather it calls one forth to become responsible in new and varied ways. Leadership is dynamic, if we-will allow it the freedom to be creative and responsive. When a religious leader knows what her beliefs are, it is important that she stands up to be counted. Christ's call to discipleship was never one of ease but rather self-giving. The truth and sincerity of religious leaders speak loudest in the silence of their presence and the beliefs to which they give witness. The emphasis of this paper has been on religious leadership in both communities and public organizations and was expressed from the view-point of religious leaders in community. I believe that the responsibilities for a religious leader in a public organization would basically be the same. By substituting the word organization for community in the paper, I think one can understand the validity of this statement. The presence of religious within a public organization can be a very powerful force in helping the organization grow to a new dimension. Change does not happen overnight in any organization but the influence that a religious can have on an organi-zation by her presence and convictions may stimulate the organization to have a greater accountability for its existence and policies. I believe that it is a challenge and responsibility that religious have to step out of our comfortable environments and into the realm of risk and venture forth into the unknown. Religious leaders do not have all the answers; they are striving as best as possible to encourage a great degree of collegiality in decisions that are made, for they recognize the ability that each woman has to enrich the community by sharing her ideas and insights. It mfiy seem as though I pre-sented an ideal type of leadership that is not very real, however I believe that it is very difficult to jud.ge or criticize another for mistakes when I am not totally aware of all the intricacies that are involved. My presen-tation was one of potential, something that should be strived for by all leaders. When we open ourselves to the humanness of our leaders, we ha~,e a greater appreciation for their efforts and stumbles they have made as they try to enrich our shared vision. The creativity that is involved in leadership brings each of us to new dimensions and possibilities. Are we willing to accept the guidance of religious leadership that may lead us into the unknown, facing us with the possibility of taking risk? If we do not have all the answers, are we willing to pursue that truth which will lead us to its discovery? Shall we take this journey through life, or shall we sit by the shores and watch the waves come in? The response that is to be given to these questions is a personal one. Are we ready to make that response and live with the choice we make? The Holy See, the Society of Jesus and the 32nd General Congregation Vincent O'Keefd, S.J. Father O'Keefe, past president of Fordham University, has been an Assistant General resident in Rome since 1966. He has frequently acted as Vicar General during Father Arrup¢'s absences from Rome. His address is: Borgo S. Spirito, 5; C.P. 9048; 00100 Roma, Italy. Introduction The modesty of that title reminds me of a course we had as novices. It was entitled, "From Adam to Pius XII." Anyone studying the 32rid General~Congregation now or at some future date will place its distinctive note in the deep and continuing concern and the decisive intervention of the Holy Father. I'd like to reflect on this with you and follow this order: first of all, a brief outline of the sequence of events which will provide a kind of framework of reference and indicate the essential documents; then a consideration of what happened at the congregation to bring about the personal inierventi0n of Pope Paul VI; this will enable us to look into the concerns of the Pope, and the stance and approach of the congregation; and finally, we'll try to sum up and indicate where we go from here. Sequence of Events 1) On Easter of 1972, Fr. General wrote to the pope of his intention of convoking a general congregation "during 1974 or in early 1975, and thus was cancelling the Congregation of Provincials which would have been held in 1973. Cardinal Villot replied, on April 18, 1972, in the name of the Holy Father, who was pleased that a general congregation would be convoked 33 34 / Review for Religious, Volume 35, 1976/1 and indicated what he considered to be important orientations. 2) On September 8, 1973, Fr. General issued his letter of convocation, setting the date of the 32nd General Congregation for December 1, 19~74. On September 15, 1973, Pope Paul VI sent an autograph letter to Ft. General in which he indicated the lines of authentic renewal in the spirit of Vatican II. 3) On November 21, 1974, Pope Paul VI received Ft. General, who gave him a copy of the postulata, along with a memorandum listing the topics which the general congregation would probably treat in accordance with the postulata and the preparatory period of the congregation. 4) The members of the 32nd General Congregation were received on December 3, 1974, by the pope, who pronounced a lengthy discourse which is the key document of the Holy See with regard to the general congregation. 5) Cardinal Villot sent a letter, dated December 3, 1974, in the name of the pope. In his meeting with the Holy Father on November 21, 1974, Fr, General had raised the possibility that the congregation in the course of its discussions might ask that the fourth vow be extended also to non-priests. Cardinal Villot's letter said that such an extension could present grave difficulties that would prevent the necessary approval of the Holy .See. 6) On January 22, 1975, the general congregation, .after serious and prolonged discussion, held an indicative vote, a sort of straw ballot, with regard to extending the fourth vow. More than two-thirds of the assembly voted affirmatively, and this was conveyed to the Holy See on the same evening. ~ 7) .P.ope Paul VI sent an autograph letter to Fr. Ge~neral on February 15, 1975, saying that the~e could be no innovation in the fourth vow and requesting that all the decrees of the congregation be forwarded to him before their publication. 8) On February 20, 1975, the pope received Fr. General. 9) On March 7, 1975, the pope received Fr. General ~nd the recently elected general assistants, and gave them a comrdunication for the con-gregation. 10) On May 2, 1975, Cardinal Villot wrote to Fr. General in the name of the pope, to authorize the publication, of the decrees of the general, con~ gregation. Along with the letter were some general norms of interpretation and particular observations on several of the decrees, The official edition of the documents of the 32nd General Congregation will contain those documents which the Holy See considers necessary .t0 evaluate: the congregation, and to assure that our religious and apostolic activities, are in conformity with the Ignatian Charism and obedient to the fatherly orientations which .the pope gave to the general congregation on different occasions. These documents are: 1 ) The H01y.Father's discourse of December 3, 1974 2)~ Cardinal Villot's letter of the same date The Holy See and~the 32nd General Congregation / 35 3) The autograph letter of Pope Paul VI on February 1 ~, 1975 4) The communication of the pope to Fr. General and the general ~. assistants on.March 7, 1975 5) The letter of Cardinal Villot on May 2, 1975, authorizing the pub- =~ lication of the documents of the congregation o The" Congregation With this background, let's consider what happened at the congregation. In its initihl stages it determined~its approach: and modus operandi. Right from the start, .it' wanted .to determine its agenda in the sense of what matters it should, treat, before launching into any particulhr question. This led to the drawing up of .a list of priorities--those matters to which the congregation wanted to direct its immediate attention. This was not meant to indicate the absOlute importance of any issue, but was rather an effort to select those items which the congregation as a whole felt it should0treat at the outset. One of these priorities dealt with the nature of formal membership in the order and such related ques~tions as differences in "grade" or official .status among members. One of the commissions formed dealt with the. matter of the grades and presented several reports to the congregation. It is to be recalled that Pope Paul VI alluded to this matter in his discourse of December 3, 1974, where he said, You are likewise priests: this too is an essential character of the Society, without forgetting the ancient and established tradition of enlisting the help of Brothers who are not~ in Sa~red Orders and who have always had an honored and effective role in the Society. Priesthood was formally required by the Founder for ali professed religious, and this with good reason, be-cause the priesthood is necessary for the Order~he instituted with the special purpose of the sanctification of men through the Word and the sacraments. o- Effectively, the sacerdotal character is required by your dedication to the ,active life--we repeat--pleno sensu. .~ In Cardinal' Villot's letter of December 3, 1974, he mentioned that the Suprrme Pontiff had studied the possibility raised: by Fr. General in the audience of November 21, 1974, of extending the fourth vow of special obedience dirca missiones to all Jesuits, including flon-priests. The Holy Father said that, after having studied the matter, such an innovation. seemed to offer grave difficulties which" would prevent the necessary ap-proval of the Holy See. This communication was sent so that it~ would be kfiown during the disCusgions of the congregation.' The congregation discussed the matter of grades seriously and at length. Several ,options were possible, e.g., make no Changes; ektend the fourth vow 'to all priests but not to .brothers; simply accept no more as spiritual coadjutors; abolish ~the distinction of grades, etc. In order to aid the com-mission in its arduous work of preparing a definite report, the congregation voted to hold an indicative vote, a straw ballot, The vote was held on 36 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/1 January 22, 1975, and a vote in excess of a two-thirds' majority in favor of suppressing the grades was the result. This was communicated to the Holy See on the same day by means of a personal messenger, Fr. General had arranged to keep the Holy See fully informed on the proceedings of the congregation. In addition to a personal messenger from the congrega-tion, the Acta and the news bulletins were sent regularly to the Holy See. The news of the indicative vote proved very disturbin~ and upsettin~ to the pope. After a report was sent to him of the reasons which led to the indicative vote, the Holy Father sent an autograph letter to Fr. General on February 15, 1975: He repeated what was in Cardinal Villot's letter of December 3, ~1974, and said that there was to be no. innovation with regard to the fourth vow. He. wanted ~no change in the Formula of the Institute. He also expressed doubt about certain .orientations and attitudes that emerged from the work of the congregation, exhorted it to reflect profoundly on its responsibilities, and asked that the decrees be sent to him before publication. ~ The congregatibn was deeply unsettled by this turn of events, and confused, It was a time that called for spiritual insight, humility and cour-age, and these qualities were not lacking. There was a situation of difficult communication and misunderstanding; a painful situation since the Holy Father himself was involved. The congregation tried to explain to him what it had intended in all loyalty. The Holy Father stated what he expected of the congregation. ~ Why Did the Congregation Treat This Matter? The question of the fourth vow is connected with the distinction of grades. It is a problem that the 32nd General Congregation had inherited from the 31st General Congregation. This latter congregation had mandated the constitution of a commission to examine the whole problem of the suppression of the grade of Spiritual Coadjutor, and also the advantages and disadvantages of granting solemn profession to Temporal Coadjutors. The commission was set up and prepared a first report which the secre, tary of the Society sent to all the provinces in 1970 as a helpful factor in deciding the VOte for calling or not calling a general congregation. Replies were expected from the province congregations on the possible options proposed in the commission's report. After the province congregations, the commission completed its work and presented a second report to the congregation of procurators in Sep-tember 1970. The 31st General Congregation had recommended the constitution.of another commission, w~ich sought to aid and stimulate the execution.of its seventh decree on Temporal Coadjutors, and also sought to clarify the profound theological aspect of the vocation to the Society of a religious who is not a priest: A complement to this activity was an International Congress The Holy See and the 32nd General Congregation / 37 of Temporal Coadjutors, the results of which were presented to the congre-gation of procurators. The congregation of Jprocurators discussed this question fully and underlined it as one calling for an urgent solution. Thus also for this pur-pose, it was fitting,that Fr. General convoke a general congregation within three to four years. After the convocation ,of the general congregation, the question of the grades, was the object of much work and study by special' groups in prepa, ration for the province congregations. The result of this intense work was the presentation of 65 postulata which directly treated the distinction of grades; and of these,,41 postulata from provinces called for the abolition of this distinction. The Commission set up by the 32nd General Congregation to deal with this question felt it was committed to study this matter, keeping in mind the letter of Pope Paul VI of September 15, 1973,,his discourse of December 3, 1974,.and Cardinal Villot!s letter of December 3, 1974. ¯ Since the problem of the distinction of grades in its totality and in the variety of its possible solutions went beyond the concession of the fourth vow, the.commission offered the congregation an accurate analysis of the postulata and the different .options possible which derived from them. Two reports were submitted which included the reactions and observations of tlie delegates. When the congregation voted on whether they should treat this question, 228 voted in favor of treating it. The commission presented its document for an initial discussion and an indicative vote on all the options. The results of the presentation and discussion were these: 1 ) ,the congregation was aware of the mind of the pope; 2) any decision of the pope would be accepted in full obedience; . 3) the congregation .wanted a full discussion of the matter, to arrive at an awareness and knowledge of the real state of the Socii~ty on this question, of the real difficulties involved, and of the possible remedies; 4) the congregation felt that if it should conclude that the only way to meet the difficulties was by the abolition of the grades, it would not only be possible but would also be.a duty on its part, in view of its responsibility to the Society, to present these difficulties to the Holy See by means of a genuine Ignatian rep.rese.ntation; 5) the congregation intended such an Ignatian representation to pre-cede any kind'of definitive act or action. The elements of a" genuine lgnatian representation were brought out. In the lived experience of the Ignatian life style, it is a primary feature of the fatherly mode of governing proper to the Society. It doeg not imply a will contrary to obedience, but rather a desire for common collaboration in the search for and discovery of the divine will.(Cf. Ex. Gen. 131; Const. 38 / Review for Religious, l/olume 35, 1976/1 292, 543, 627.) It presupposes always an authentic spiritual discernment, a disposition of interior indifference, and a total openness to the ultimate decision of the superior who in this way will be better informed. The discussion in the Congregation Hall was prepared by discussions in 18 small groups, The discussion itself was long and full; some 57 speakers aired their views. The meaning of the indicative vote was solely that of giving the future work of the commission and the subsequent action .of the congregation a more concrete orientation, and avoid long and useless work. No one could predict with-any degree of probability, however, what the end result of the vote would be. This, then, was the background of the congregation's indicative vote. The pope's reaction showed that there had been a misund~rstanding,,that he was displeased, and that there was a difference of approach and stance between him and the congregation. Fr. General was received by the Holy Father on February 20, 1975, who evidenced how grieved and concerned he was at the action of the con-gregation, which did not seem to be responding to his expectations. The pope was surprised that the congregation had not understood that he had meant to exclude discussions on the fourth vow right from the beginning. His discourse of December :3rd, 1974, did not seem to have received the careful attention it should have gotten. The congregation was following a line quite different from the one he had indicated. The pope showed by concrete reference that he was reading the Acta and the bulletins. He also mentioned specific~ally that he was praying every day for the congregation and offering Mass for its success. Fr. General expressed the regrets of the congregation that the Holy Father had been so grieved, and assured the pope of the obedience of the congregation. The pope insisted on the necessity of continuing discussions with him and said he was. ready to receive the general whenever he wished. The congregation then went on to follow the pope's wishes in com-pleting the decrees. A special group of delegates was named to study the different communications of the Holy See and to see whether the points mentioned in .these communications had been treated in the various de-crees of the congregation. This led to the formulation, discussion, and en-actment of the Introductory Decree as well as to a careful treatment of the other decrees. On their completion, the decrees were submitted to the Holy Father be-fore publication and promulgation. The congregation ended on March 7, and the last of the documents reached him just after mid-March, On May 2, 1975, Cardinal Viilot wrote to Fr. General in the name of the Holy Father, authorizing the publication, of the decrees, and including general norms for interpreting,the decrees properly ~as well as particular observations on five of the decrees. The Holy See and the 32nd Geheral Congregation Against ,this background let's look into the concerns of the Holy Father, and the stance and approach of the general congregation. The Pope's Concerns 1) The pope looked beyond the Society to the effects of the congrega-tion on all religious orders and congregations, and on the whole Church. In his .letter of Septerfiber 15, 1973, he said he was well aware of the.im-portance of the congregation, which could be an hour of decision for the Society, for its future destiny and work in the Church, as it is also an hour of decision for other religious families. He repeated this in his discourse of December 3, 1974, and added, You are at the head of that interior renewal which the Church is facing in this secularized world, especially after the Second Vatican Council. Your Society-is, We say, the test of the vitality of the Church throughout the centuries; it is perhaps one of the most meaningful crucibles in which are encountered the difficulties, the temptations,, the efforts, the perpetuity and the successes of the whole Church. This view of the Pope, embracing all religious families and the Church, is a constant theme in his dealings with the 32nd General Congregation. 2) The Holy Father wanted no changes in the Formula lnstituti lulii III, and describes himself as the guardian of the essentials of our institute. In his eyes it is 'fidelity to the Formula and to the basic documents of the Society' that make it the fit instrument of service to the Church that it has been for so long a time. He favors an updating and adaptation of our insti-tute, bUt.~always in conformity with the spirit and charism of our founder. 3) The pope considered a change in the so-called "grades" as a dam-aging mutation in our Formula, one that would change the nature of the Society, particularly in its distinctive note as a presbyteral order. In his eyes it would affect our lgnatian charism. For the Holy Father, the question of the grades was connected with a thrust for promoting justice, and'this could lead to an undermining of a direct priestly ministry, could stress a political and social involvement, and bring about the involvement of more lay peopl6 in our endeavors. The tluestion of the grades was what provoked the first intervention of the pope after his initial discourse, but his concern clearly went beyond this issue, which was a manifestation of certain orientations and tendencies in the congregation which were the' real concern of the Holy Father. 4) The pope feared that the"notion of priesthood inothe congregation would not sufficiently underline the distinction between a common priest-hood and an ordained, ministerial priesthood. The move would be away from the notion of priests, "who administer the grace of God with the sacraments; priests who recei~,e thepower and have the duty to share organically in the apostolic work of sustaining and uniting the Christian community, esp'eci~lly with the celebration of the Eucharist; . . " This 40 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/1 could represent a drift from. a priestly order to a type of secular institute. 5) The same danger is present in the discussions on the relation between evangelization and justice. In the letter of Cardinal Villot, of May 2, 1975, there is a particular observation, about the decree on Our Mission Today: "Human development and social progress in. the temporal order should not be extolled in such exaggerated terms as to obscure the essential significance which the Church attributes to evangelization and the proclamation of the full Gospel." (This is a quote from the closing remarks of the pope to the Synod of Bishops in October 1974.) There is a danger of looking at the promotion of justice solely or most importantly in its economic, social, and political aspects. This applies to the Society in a special way since it was founded for a particularly spiritual and supernatural end. Every other undertaking should be subordinated to this end and carried out in a way appropriate for an institute which is religious, not secular, and priestly. Moreover, we must not forget that the priest should inspire lay Catholics, since in the,promotion of justice theirs is the more demanding role. The tasks "proper to each should not be confused. 6) The pope felt that the general congregation gave less attention and importance to problems touching the renewal of spiritual and religious life which is an indispensable condition for a fruitful apostolate, whereas recent years show the effects of a widespread secularization on the Society. 7) In the matter of fidelity to the Holy See, something proper to the Society, the pope felt that the congregation tUrned its attention to restricting the limits of a necessary fidelity rather than to correcting certain regrettable deviations in doctrinal and disciplinary matters during the last decade with regard to the magisterium and the hierarchy. 8) The pope felt~ that the publicity about the congregation's indicative vote on the grades put him in an unfavorable position, could seem to place him before a fait accompli, led him to a disagreeable correspondence. It should be noted here that the reports in the public press did not manifest an understanding of what the extension of the fourth vow would entail. In fact, most of them spoke of an attempt to lessen or weaken obedience, and this in spite of serious attempts to give accurate information to the press. 9) The pope had intended his December 3, 1974, discourse to serve as a program for the congregation, and was disappointed and felt that it had not received sufficient attention from the congregation. To express the matter in the spiritual shorthand of our day, the Holy Father felt that the congregation was over-emphasizing the horizontal di-mension and that there should have been more emphasis on the principles of religious and ascetical life. 10) Ultimately, the pope's concern was that the congregation and the whole Society which it represented, should be faithful to Ignatius and to itself. He judged it to :be a decisive moment for helping the Church, so prone The Holy Se'e and the 32nd General Congregation / 41 to deviations in these days, when the vast task of doing great things is still reserved to the Society of Jesus~ His concern was that we should be men of the Church. The Congregation's Stance and Approach Turning now to the congregation, the following should be noted: 1') For the congregation, the matter of the grades was a mandate from the 3 Ist Congregation, was something of real moment and interest to many in the Society, as shown by the postulata, and could.be presented to the pope in the form of an Ignatian representation. The indicative vote was no more than that. The information that was given out on the indicative vote was in the context .of informing the Society of the. work and progress of the congregation since the whole Society had been called to participate in the preparation of the congregation. As the only legislative body in the Society, the congregation felt it could supply to the Holy See, ~better than anyone else, the iinformation needed to judge the status of the grades' question in the Society. 2) In the indicative~vote for the abolition of the distinction of grades, the congregation's fundamental motivation was.based on the conviction that it'was possible t6 distinguish between the fundamental~ lgnatian charism and its concrete realization in history. The charism looked to the creation of a group capable of a generous and effective commitment to the Supreme Pontiff by an aprstolic service centered in a zealous and continuing priestly work. Its concrete realization was in a juridical structure, created by Ig-natius~ which was the distinction of grades. A decisive number of the delegates thought it possible to maintain the fundamental charism but with a different structure. The abolition of the dis-tinction of grades was 'desired, but with the conviction and under the con-dition that. the Society should remain a religious, apostolic, and sacerdotal order bound in a special way to the Supreme Pontiff. The arguments in favor of the abolition had a common presupposition, and that is the development of directives and concrete norms for a severe selection process, starting from acceptance into the novitiate andcontinuing through the~succeeding probations. Along with legislation for the future, transition~ai norms would have been required to provide for the juridical and personal situation of those already in th6 Society. 3) The congregation looked on its response to the Holy Father's reply on the grades as an act of full, mature obedience given by a group of men acting according .to Ignatian obedience, predisposed to accept whatever the decision of the pope might be. 4) It is true to say that the congregation considered things .from the point of view of the apostolate and apostolic needs, but this did not entail a neglect in treating the principles of religious and ascetical life, or rele- Review for Religious, Volume 35, 1976/1 gating this to a secondary status. When examining the questions of religious and ascetical life, the congregation found that its predecessor, the 31st Congregation, had done this very well and felt no need to ~'epeat.what had been well articulated. The 32nd Congregation would confirm what its predecessor had enacted. 5) The congregation felt that horizontalism is indeed a central note, but need not oppose a vertical dimension. It would rather express an enduring consciousness of the needs of man and a desire to respond to them. In its initial stages, the congregation discussed a so-called "priority of priorities., Some, unfortunately, thought that the congregation had chosen the promotion of justice as the "priority of priorities," for the Society and her apostolate. ~ This was not true and led to misunderstandings. The con-gregation chose as the priority of priorities the criteria for the apostolic service of the Society and the promotion of justice, per modum unius. The congregation accented the "service of faith. The promotion of justice is intimately connected with this, but it is quite different from transforming the whole end of the Society into the promotion of justice. It is true to say that ~oncern for the dimension, promotion of justice, accompanied the work of the congregation whether it dealt with our life or our apostolate. The congregation underlined and emphasized the dimension, service of faith, precisely to correct and counteract a socioeconomic tendency in an exclusive sense. The thrust of the congregation was towards a healthy inte-gration of the religious and social dimensions of our Jesuit mission. 6) As an aid to understand the actions of the congregation, it is important to recall that there is little continuity from one congregation to the next as far as the participants are concerned. Each general congregation has a substantially different membership. In the group from the United States, only two or three had previous experience at,a general congregation. The role of the general at a congregation not called to elect a new general is not understood by all. He has an obvious leadership function, but he is subordinate to the congregation, is a member of ,it, and cannot impose his views on it. ~ It should be noted that Fr. General's example during the congregation was as of a tower of strength, a real source of unity for the participants. The activities of the congregation .forged a bond of solid t~nity between Fr. General and the members of the congregation. In spite of some groundless rumors, there was never any mention of resignation during the congrega-tion. 7) The congregation did obey the Holy Father in what were ~difficult circumstances, aggravated by an absence of dialogue and a growing fatigue. Obedience was shown by integrating into the texts of the decrees and declarations, suggestions and amendments in line with the pope's directives. 8) The special group set up to study .the communications of the Holy See to see whether the principal points were covered in the documents of The Holy See and the 32nd General Congregation / 43 ,the congregation, judged that they were covered, but the congregation went on to draft ano Introductory Decree due to the work of this special group. , .9) The,congregation sought a document which would put in modern-day terms~what the Formula lnstituti means today. This meant translating the propagation and defense of the faith, and the works of mercy, into what these t~rms mean" for us today. It was in this way that the congregation showed its commitment to and interest in the Formula lnstituti and our other basic documents. The congregation's approach was to study this matter during the con-gregation and put together a document little by little in the light of the dis-cussions. To some this could seem to be relegating this matter to a gecondary role,-but the congregation's mind was to make it a more meaningful docu-ment, to present the Formula in a vigorous statement ]or today's Jesuits .and today's mission. 10) The congregation was a lived experience of the complexity of relations with theHoly See. The ai~alysis we have been d6ing can seem clear and easy now. It was not quite the same during the congregation-itself. The clarity has ~come through prayer, reflection, soul-searching, and a form of frank exchange that was not always this way iw the past. Let me attempt to sum up something of what we've seen, with a few pointers for the future. -- Interventions of popes in general congregations are not unheard of. What is unusual with regard to the 32nd General Congregation is the per-sonal and continuing aspect of the intervention of Pope Paul VI. We have seen that, as far back as 1972, the pope was interested in the general congregation; his interest increased as the congregation grew nearer and continued right through the sessions of the congregation. He read the documents personally before allowing them to be published, and he shall certainly be interested in the implementation of the decrees. His statement, .given at different times, has been, "Show your fidelity by your actions." This~has~been a personal and direct interest on the part of the Holy Father himself and 'not handed over to one of his staff. In his eyes the congregation was to fulfill 'a: very important function for religious life. In his letter of September 15, 1973, and in his discourse .of December 3, 1974, the Holy Father's idea was to.set out a program and an approach for the congregation. There 'should be an effective renewal and proper adaptation in accord with Vatican II, but this could not follow a line that would be alien t6 the very character of the religious family, un-faithful to the charism of the founder, or that would lead to the abandon-ment of the primary values of a life consecrated to God. The common elements of religious life should be confirmed, and allowed to grow and develop. These elements are the following: the imitation of Christ as pro-posed in the gospel; the renunciation of worldly things so that the religious 44 / Review ]or Religious, l/olume,35, 1976/1 might live for God alone, and for the building up of the Church; a joyful and constant observation of the vows which should lead to the heights of the spiritual life, where contemplation is joined with magnanimous action. For the Society of Jesus this means a fidelity to its tradition based on Christ, the Church, and St. Ignatius. The congregation, therefore, was to attend to those principles of the spiritual and apostolic life which for cen-turies formed the structure holding the Society of Jesus together and made it a most serviceable instrument for the pastoral, missionary, and educa-tional apostolates, involving a cultural formation, of the highest excellence. The source of strength for the Society should be the foundations of religious formation, laid in the past. These are: a diligent, dedication to prayer; austerity of life; supernatural strength by which apostolic effective-ness is increased; complete observance of the vows, especially obedience, which 'is peculiar to the Society and a condition of its religious discipline; the ascetical value of community life and the advantage.s it offers for the formation of character; and, in a special way, fidelity to the Holy See. This was the program that Pope Paul VI traced for the.general congre-gation of an order that is religious, apostolic, sacerdotal~ and bound to the Holy Father by a special bond of love and service. ~ It was not clear to the majority of the delegates that this was intended to be the lines of a 'hard and fast program. It gradually became clear, after the ditiiculties arising from the treatment of the question of the grades, and after a good bit of discussion and reflection, Some had felt this from the beginning, but they were few in number. The congregation found that the 31st Congregation had treated the matter of prayer, the vows, and the principles of religious, and ascetical life, very well. The problem was one of execution rather than of articulation, and the 32nd General Congregation decided to confirm and renew the 31st Congregation. But this could seem to be neglecting these principles, or relegating them to a secondary place. Through his interventions, the Holy Father impressed on the congrega-tion the direction he wanted to be' followed. The congregation obeyed and followed this direction; and in his communication of March 7, 1975, the pope said that it was comforting to see that the congregation well under-stood the force and meaning of what he urged and that they accepted .his intervention in a spirit of cooperation. In all his communications; the Holy Father ,underlines the point~ that his actions are motivated by his deep affection for and attachment to the Society, and by his appreciation .of the role that the Society has played in the past and is to play in the future. Thus, he feels, that.he can,be frank in his remarks. I think that most preferred a frank and open exchange, rather than the circumlocutions of a diplomatic style of writing, Cardinal Villot's letter of May 2, 1975, conveyed the pope,s own observations on the decrees~ These are meant to assure the faithful imple- The Holy See and the 32nd General Congregation / 45 mentation of the decrees. When several articles appeared in the Italian press which put the May 2nd letter in a negative light with regard to the congregation, the Holy See sent the Italian text of the letter, to help correct these false impressions, The pope could truly say that the congregation had not achieved the global result expected of it. When we realize his plans for the congregation, we can understand this. But it does not express a negative vote on the congregation. It indicates that there is work yet to be done; the decrees are to be put into execution, and this should be in accord with the pope's directives, especially those in the discourse of December 3, 1974. As Cardinal Villot says in his letter of May 2, 1975, the pope directed that the decrees be returned to Fr. General so that they can be put into effect according to the needs of the Society, with the hope that Jesuits may draw strength from these decrees as they continue their progress in genuine fidelity to the charism of St. Ignatius and the Formula of the Institute. We are called on to enter into the views that animated Pope Paul VI. The quality of our religious life is to be such as to serve as a safeguard against a continually threatening secularism. The priestly character of the Society is of particular and enduring importance and must be a part of all our apostolic choices. There is much work to be done in reflecting on the integration of our priestly nature and evangelization in religious life, in reflecting on our specific way of living and being apostles. ¯ We are called to reflect on and' revise our behavior with regard to the service of the ecclesiastical magisterium, to revise the sense of our presen-tation and faithful explanation of the declarations of the magisterium and o1~ the hierarchy. We are ca/led to be men of the Church. The work ahead of us is to study, assimilate, interiorize, and put into action the decrees of the congregation, with an eye to the pope's fatherly observations . and directives. We must avoid two extremes: not attending to the Holy Father's observations; .and dismissing the validity and relevance of the decrees of the 32nd General Congregation. The final word belongs 4(0 Pope Paul VI. He told us to carry on in nomine Domini, Evolution in Chapters William F. Hogan,, C.S.C. Father Hogan is an Agsistant General of his congregation, as well as Procurator General. He lives at Via Framura, 85; 00168 Roma, Italy. The last fifteen years have seen great differences in the general and pro-vincial or regional chapters of most religious communities; in fact, for many of them, this period has seen the real beginnings of .chapters as such. In not a few congregations, indeed in most, the Opening and closing° dates of chapter meetings were decided before the capitulants assembled, thus often precluding any real in-depth study of issues and evaluation of the religious life and mission. Frequently the chapters were conducted like superiors' meetings, with decisions being handed down from the president as faits accomplis for information or perhaps ratification. The principal business was usually the election of major superiors and councils, .and it was more common than rare that provinces or regions'~did not have their own pro-vincial or regional chapters outside participation in the general chapter. Chapters evolved slowly in religious institutes from the time of Pacho-mian cenobitism when the monks gathered at Pabau in the month of August and the superiors gave a report on the condition of their houses and new superiors were appointed. St. Benedict instituted the local or con-ventual chapter in his rule, although he doesn't use this term; the whole community of the professed was to be consulted on important matters and was involved in the choice of the abbot. Other monastic groups followed suit and there eventually arose the policy of "what touches all is to be approved by all," a principle later included in the Rules o/Law at the time of Pope Boniface VIII. Regional and general chapters find their formal beginnings in the Carta Caritatis (1119) of the Cistercians, even though there had previously been regional meetings of abbots in order to have uni- 46 Evolution in Chapters / 47 formity in the religious life. The Cistercian order by rule was obliged to hold annual meetings of the abbots of the order and to regulate

Issue 25.4 of the Review for Religious, 1966. ; Life Charter for the Sisters of the Precious Blood by Sisters Angelita and M. Agnes, Ad.PP.S. 557 Practice of the Holy See by Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. 590 The Cloister Grille by Mother Mary Francis, P.G.G. 615 Mystery and Holiness of Community Life b~ Charles A. Schleck, C.S.C. 621 Identity and Change by ~qister M. Howard Dignan, B.V.M. 669 A Paradox of Love by Brother F. Joseph Paulits, F.&C. 678 Meaningful Adaptation by Sister Marie Leonard, LH.M. 684 The Hyphenated Priest by George B. Murray, S.J. 693 Having Nothing by Sister Helen Marie, O.&F. 703 Survey of Roman Documents 714 Views, News, Previews 718' Questions and Answers 726 Book Reviews 732 VOLUM~ 25 NUMBER 4 July 1966 SISTER ANGELITA MYERSCOUGH, Ad.PP.S. SISTER MARY AGNES KURILLA, Ad.PP.S. A Life Charter for. the Sisters Adorers of the Most Precious Blood Vatican II's Decree on the Adaptation and Renewal of Religious Life directs that "constitutions, directories, custom books, books of prayers and ceremonies and such. like be suitably reedited and, obsolete laws being suppressed, be adapted to the decrees of this sacred Synod" (n. 3). These decrees, everyone recognizes, are focused in the mystery of the Church. Vatican II's theol-ogy of the Church clearly lays emphasis on .its dynamic aspect as the People of God joined together in Christ and made' alive in the Spirit. While its institutional character, which has been emphasized in recent cen-turies, is never lost sight of, the stress is. strongly on this prophetic element. ~ The Council's teaching on religious life, too, is un, derstandably influenced by its pastoral ecclesiology. It .is the prophetic element of religious communities, their existential reality as worshiping communities of frater-nal love and. apostolic service, rather than their juridical organization, that is underscored. While no formal theol-ogy of.religious life has been expounded by the Council, certainly Chapter Six of the, Constitution on the Church as' well as the Decree on the Adaptation and Renewal of Religious Life lay evident stress on the dy-namic inner element. It would seem, consequently, that in the revision of documents, this orientation of the Church on the reli-gious life in an ecclesial context must be borne in mind to assure that such revision be truly "adapted to the de-crees of this sacred Synod." At pre.sent, many congregations of 0sisters have a, single Sister Angelita Myerscough, Ad. PP.S., and Sister Mary Agnes Kutilla, Ad.PP~., are sta-tioned at the Pro-vincial Mother-house of the Sisters Adorers of the Most Precious Blood; Ruma (P.O. Red Bud), Illin6is 62278. VOLUME 25, 1966 557 Sisters Angellta and Mary REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 558 basic document, the "constitutions," approved by the Church. Such a document often contains minutiae of practice as well as canonical norms for government, the regulation of the novitiate, of profession, and so on, besides more basic guidelines for living. Frequently the canonical prescriptions of such a document quantita-tively far outweigh the few articles which give genuine guidance and motivation in living the Christian life in the particular spirit of the congregation. For example, many constitutions, theoretically meant to be a guide to holiness, make no reference or only a very meagre ref-erence to the work of the Holy Spirit. Clearly, constitutions structured in this manner were conceived in a framework of ecclesiology which stressed the institutional character of religious life. The ques-tion arises: Should the work of revision not look to-ward a more basic document which would delineate the dynamic plan of religious life in a particular congre-gation within the Church, a document that would sketch the ideal of life in community consecrated to God in the way of the gospel counsels in that particu-lar congregation? Faced with this problem, the American constitution-revision committee of the Sisters Adorers of the Most Precious Blood, working in preparation for their gen-eral chapter (Fall, 1965), explored the possibility of such an approach. After discussion and examination of the-basic principles that should guide such work of renewal in the light of the Council's teaching and its spirit, the committee concluded that revision work should distinguish the different levels of elements in the-present constitution,. It should attempt, in the first place, to draw up a very basic document which would be so structured as to give genuine guidelines for living, defining the life of the sister rooted in. an ecclesial community, sharing the particular charism of the foundress. A secondary document, the committee decided, should be drawn up which would contain the canonical and juridical elements' of a statutory nature, necessary for the functioning of the congregation as an organization, as an institution. Regulations of the more minute practices, inasmuch as they need to be spelled out at all, might well be contained in a third document, readily responsive to continuing adaptation by an internal au-thority of the congregation as a whole or at the provin-cial, or even local, level. Pressured for time, the American constitution-commit-tee prepared a draft of a first basic document, a kind of life charter for the congregation, that stressed its dynamic character. It is this preliminary document--a draft copy needing much further refinement which is printed here as a possible source of help to others. The general-chapter'of the congregauon, meeting in Rome in August and September of 1965, neither d~s-cussed nor approved the work proposed by the American interprovincial ~committee, ,.nor another ~revision, sub-mitted from another part o[ the ,c, ongregation. Instead, the chapter "ffdoPt.ed a plan for '.further work on the revisiofi of constitutioris Under:,the direction of 'an interfiati0nal Committee which is to use as a poiiat of departure the work" already prepared. -- The'f0110wifig life'charter, ~hen; has not been adopted by the congregati6n -' for 'submis~iofi to the competent e~ccles~asucal authority. It does, however, represent an effort at revision of constitutions thatwould give. the sisters a life charter expressing in a manner consonant with the~spiTit of renewal in the Church today the essen-tial "char~icter"'hnd original slSirit,~ of the Congregation of the Sisters' /~dorers "of the Most .Precious Blood [ounded ' in It~ily in 1834 by'Blessed Maria De Mattias. There, is no question of an ~ff6rt to creat a radically new spirit or new way of life, but rhther-a sincere attempt at genuine renewal more faitHful"to the charism of origins than the later, "more juridical' ~onstitutions of 'recent decades. The sisters who have examined this work have re-acted favorably; for they expect revised constitutions to be a norm they can truly live by, motivated inwar~dly, led by the Spirit to faithful response to their Christian vocation in the Church today. On the other hand,° ecclesi-astics whose business it is to examine the revised docu-ments of religious may, at least at first, react unfavor-dbly. Learned as they are in the law and long accustomed to judge constitutions' by their c6nformity to specific canons and general" norrnae~ they may hesitate before this~,kind' of approach, even "though the Whole spirit and work of the Council suggests it. Perhaps'it Will be some time before' i't will become,evident that the s~rvices of theologians, .bib~l~ical scholars, and histori'ans of Chris-tian spirituality are also needed in the work of exiamining p~oposed revisions'or n~w constitutions of religious com-munities. It may take even 10ngdrqor the time to come wheh scholarly religious (even womenl) may be invited 'to" help in the Careful htudy of proposed documents preliminary to the Church's Official approval of l such constitutions~ as ~/" ~ay of life. .' ¯ " '. ' Permission for ~oublication of this tentative effort has been granted by Mother Marciana Heimermann, Ad.PP.S., general superior of.the congregation, who had been a member of the American intetprovincial com-mittee working on this document. Lile;Chart~r ', VOL~UME 25, 1~66 ' 559 Sisters Angelita and Mary Agnes REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 560 PART I. THE COMMUNITY OF CONSECRATED LOVE CHAPTER I. THE CONGREGATION IN THE CHURCH God graciously calls Certain persons whom He has brought, into His household through baptism to wit-ness more fully to the paschal mystery by profession of the gospel counsels in a religious congregation. This way of life is a sign of the.Church, called to b~ the community of God's holy people, walking in His presence, living together in the spirit of the beatitudes while awaiting the glorious coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. To be a sister in the Community of Adorers of the Most Precious Blood, founded by Maria De Matfias, is to pledge oneself wholly to the adoring, redeeming love of the Son of God who gives His Precious Blood, chalice of the new and eternal testament, as daily seal of God's covenant with His chosen people. ¯ Thus the Eucharistic celebration is the sum and sum-mit of life in the Community, and the center which draws each member to Christ's compelling love. Let each sister,, then, be the living image of this compelling' !ove, of which the Precious Blood is a sign, an expres. sion, a measure and a pledge,1 offered in filial adoration to the Father, poured out in compassionate redemption of the neighbor. Through the Blood of Christ, each member gives herself wholly to God in consecrated love, for the building up of the Church, the Body of Christ (Eph 4:12). In Him she is to love and be loved; to serve, teach, heal, comfort the distressed; to deal patiently with wrong, so that through her the whole of creation may move toward "that beautiful order Of things which the great Son of God came to establish through Divine Blood." 2 The Sister Adorer looks to Mary, Mother of God and first adorer of the Most Precious Blood, to know the true meaning of her adoring, redeeming vocation: wom-anly surrender to God, and motherly service to others. She sees this reflected in her holy foundress, Maria De Mattias, who was so attracted to the paschal .mystery under sign of the redeeming Blood of the Lamb, that great love for the Church, vivified by the paschal 1 First Constitutions o] the Congregation, 1857, p. iv. ~ Letter of Blessed Maria De Mattias to Bishop Annovazzi, Nov. 13, 1838. presence of Christ, was the source of her apostolic strength. In this, her aim was that which the Church defines as the purpose of all apostolic work: "that all who are made sons of. God. by faith and baptism should come to 'praise God in the .midst. of His Church, to take part in the sacrifice and to eat ttie Lord's supper." 3 The sister sees too how Maria's' love for Mary most holy, gave such boundless depths to her dedication to her neighbor, St. Joseph, St. Gaspar del Bufalo, and St. Francis Xavier are special patrons of this" congregation. In them the paschal mystery has been achieved, for they have suffered and have been glorified with Christ. Now they teach the. sister to draw' all to .the Father through Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit, thus fulfilling her vocation of adoring, redeeming love,-gloriously trium-phant in the paschal mystery. CHAPTER ~II. P~ERSONA.L GRowTH IN COMMUNITY' 1. Accep,,tance The Community, in receiving a young woman into its midst, accepts responsibility for her. As all of the sisters share in,receiving her, all are to remain aware of this resp6nsibility, pledged to God, to the Church, to the congregation, to all the People of God whose leaven she is to be. ~ God has called this baptized person to dedicate her life to Him in, consecrated love, and has guided her to our cQngregation. The Church takes her into religi6us life ~acc0rding to our cbnstitutions, and during the Eucharistid.sacrifice makes her act an event in salvation history by accepting the young person's public profes-sion of vows as a Sister Adorer of the Most Precious Blood. , Gift for gift, Community and member extend to one another the.,ctiarity Of Christ. For the work she opens herself to do. for God, the Community cares for her and gives her a suitable education so that with her po-tentials unfolding, she might fulfill both herself and her commitment in the lifetime God appoints to her. 2. Initiation Although early education in religious life is desig-nated in successive stages as postulancy, noviceship, and scholasticate, they hre fundamentally one, a unifying growth "forming a personal continuum. It is the way in which the person progressively deepens: her baptismal commitment- as a Christian and reorientates and re- Constitution 'on the Sacred Liturgy, n. 10. + + + LiIe ~,harter VOLUME 25, 1966 ÷ .÷ ÷ Sisters Angelita and Mary Agnes REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 562 patterns its, outward expression .as a Sis~ter Adorer.of.the Most Precious Blood. The postulancy,acitudints her with religibus .life;!in general and with our congrtgation in. particular.It tests her~readiness to become a member 6f thd, Community and safeguards her from entering pretipitately on, a way of life. f6r which she may'.bd fundamenfally umuited. In the noviceship, the Director;of Novices assists.her to learn and to live the' life of the ~congregation.by bringing her. first of all to ':a,.'more ,,intensely .shared ~member-ship in the. Church;' and then~,,an understanding of .the vocation of the Sister Adorer, ~ledicated 'to the glory of the :Precious Blood as it manifests' itgelf in the adoring, redeemifig love of the Savior at~ the. present moment in The Director explains to her the.~ principles ~of' reli, gious life in the light of the counsels,,of~ Sacred Scripture, the requisites of the vows as determined,by the Church, and how th~e are lived i~a fourfbld growth: as a reli-gious whose aim is union with God; as member of a reli, gious Community-family i~nt9 which she isinteg~fited through .charity; as' an: apostle,:~ .well.~repared tO give excellent service in the spiri~tiiM ~ahd ~orp'oral workg of mercy; as member of a well=ordered '~Sb'cietyI ~vh0se. in: terests' she. prom6tts thr6ugh tbopetation~and pr'odu~: tivity. Above all the noviceship prepares her 0to be a Sister Adorer of/the Most Precious Bl6~d,'~'d~voted~ ~0 the Church~-.and ready to be at i'her disposal thttiOgh' he~- C~mn~Unity. Then, what the novice has begqn, to live in the noviceship, 'she freely bi~ds~ h~iself ~.~o continue with the profession of. vows: 3. Identification The newly professed sister give~ herself during her scholasticate to her edla~ation., for th~ ~apostolate by deepening her realizati6n 'of the redemptive aspects of the Precious Blood,' by devoting ~herSelf to studie~, and by a.cquiring the skills she will need ~in her future s~r,~- It will b~ her privilege in whatever assignment she may receive, to bring others closer to God, to find Him in the truth, beauty, and goodness of this world, arid to comriaunicate (1 Col 9:22) her discovery to Others', Her purposeis to be°all things to~a.!l:~people, even a~. the Precious Blood is"'all~ 'things to all' members oF the Mystical' Body, to .win "all for Christ, and in Him to restore.all things tothe Fatherr ¯ .~he scholastic sister is to learn' ~aduall~', for all times; and to the extent of her abilities the habit of intellec-tual effort, the strenuous .discipline. of long exacting hours of concentration to master truth and ~o express it in whatever form of science or art it may require. In this she experiences on a n~tural level, a distinctive kind of asceticism which detaches her from the non-essential and channels her efforts toward the essential. That grace may build on a well-founded nature,' her intellectual capacities, her possible artistic bent, her emotional responses, all her human endowments are stimulated and cultivated to enter into the total com-mitment which she has made of herself to God in reli-gious life. Let the sister esteem and strive for every excellence in her perfectible nature, that she may bear witness to the Gospel call: "Be ye perfecL even as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Mt 5:48). The Director of Scholastics and the faculty who work with the young sister are to her an exemplification bf the Adorer's vocation. Let these sisters, therefore, be truly guiding lights, united in mind and heart with one another, giving that selfless devoted service which is inspired in them by the redemptive Blood of the Savior. At the end of the years of scholasticate, the young sis-ter should find herself spontaneously at home in her Community, well identified with her congregation in its adoring, redeeming vocation, its community life, its Christ-like and professionally competent service, its stability as a human organization pledged to a divine purpose, to which she is ready to give herself in works of mercy. 4. Creative Growth In the eternalplan of God, each person is to fill some moment of salvation history in fellowship with others. The sisters will find that the twofold commandment of charity binds them to others in God whose creative love underlies their human and divine relatedness. The apostolate of mercy is the pursuit of this related-ness. Let the sisters be perceptive of another's needs, whether of body or of mind; respectful of his person, no matter of what age or circumstance; gentle and skilled in filling each particular need as it requires to be filled. Thus their service will be truly creative, and in the mutual exchange of giving and receiving helper and helped may witness to the greatest of the beatitudes: "Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy" (Mt 5:7). Let the sisters regard their assignment to a particular community, place, and work as part of God's arrange-ment in their lives, trusting His word that "to those ÷ ÷ ÷ VOLUME 25, 1966 563 $i~t~r~ Angelita and Mary Agn~s REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 564 who ,love God all things work together unto good" (Rom 8:28). The sisters in the individual houses need to establish themselves in harmony as a community of God's holy people, reflecting the Church and witnessing to the joy of the beatitudes if ~hey are to proclaim the word of God in. sincerity and truth (see 2 Cor 1:12). It is to be expected that weariness, routine, exhaustion [~om physical and mental work, loneliness, misunder-standing and conflicts, emotional disturbances, personal inadequacies, the pressure of time will disturb them frequently. All these form the unique cross each must ~adjust to and carry with whatever natural and super-natural helps she may have a4ailable, without how-ever, unduly inflicting her cares on others. These diffi-cult experiences are her exercises in and test of maturity. Let the sister accept them generously and use them as creatively as she can to make herself that image of God which was meant to be from all ete,rfiity. In a more positive way, let the sisters be open to what-ever is beautiful in their environment and experience. Their feminine graces are God's gift to them and are meant to be cherished and cultivated, to be part of the consecrated love they offer Him. To sustain a ,high level of excellence in their apostolate, the sisters need to remain relevant to their umes, eager to learn through continued in-service educa-tion, to ~.mprove their skills, to deepen their, perceptions, and courageously, confidently try what may be new and unfamiliar in their work. For greater cooperation and efficiency, the sisters are to acquaint themselves with the best methods, procedures, and human skills of admin-istration in their contemporary "world. Moreover, there is pfirticular need that the sister~ do not neglect their civic and social duties in society which needs the moral support and spiritual idealism represented by reli-gious. If God has endowed a sister with "leadership, ability to communicate, and other necessary requisites, let her be of service also in rdligious and secular professional organizations. In her close and frequent contacts with clergy and laity, she is to be aware of her solidarity with them, of the common gifts and needs which unite her to them. Together they all share in the universal call to holiness, "to put on as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, a heart of mercy, kindness, humility, meekness, patience" (Col 3:12). Together with them, ttie sister "in this temporal service will manifest to all men the love with which God loved the world." 4 Let their mutual relationship with clergy or laity Constitution on the Church, n. 41. be marked by courtesy, genuine concern .and. considera, tion, cooperation and esteem for one another's vocation, fhat in fostering the wholeness and holiness of one another, they may bear witness to one faith, one baptism, and one Father who is over all and above all (see Eph 4:5). " The creative growth of a sister during her years of active service will. continue in a fourfold way to intensify her religious life, to unite her more closely to her Com-munity- family, to extend her apostolic service, and to make her a vital member of her congregation in 15to-moting its welfare. 5. F, ulfillment The life of a.,Sister Adorer is outwardly apostolic and inwardly contemplative in varying proportions. As hard work, illness, and.age take their toll ,of physical ~health and endurance in the sister, she comes face to face with the gradual decline of ,her active service-~ She must sacri-fice the satisfactions of her former ,absorbing outward activities one by one. Perhaps her greatest trial is to feel useless and a burden. This too is part of God's purposes, for it: means that she is entering on a vital and new apostolate, that of prayer and suffering. The contemplative aspects of her lifelong vocation .are now to receive more exclusive attention. She becomes in ever greater measure part of the spiritual vitality of her Community, Her very presence among her sisters, her life spent in prayer and retirement, the Small Services she.can still render, the wisdom, of her years, all are. an in-spiration to the younger members. One of her .great services at this time is her readiness to see her Commu-nity change to meet the needs of the times and her sup-port of this with confidence that the Holy Spirit will guide the Community aright. She gives her Community a deeper faith, a more complete trust in. God, a more selfless devotedness through her prayers and sufferings, her very passiveness in physical weakness, as~ ,the paschal mystery is coming to fulfillment in her life. She accepts death as she ac-cepted her call to the gospel counsels--as a means to union with God. Her final act is one of community, stepping from among her sisters on' earth to the company of her sisters in heaven. Her final achievement is the Christian pass-over through death to glory. CHAPTER III. THE GOSPEL COUNSELS IN COMMUNITY The vows of religious are a covenant with God, made with Him through His Church, drawing all of one's life ÷ + + VOLUME 25, 1966 565 4. 4. Sisters ,4ngelita and Mary Agnes REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 566 on earth now into that union with Him which the Son of God mediates in us through His holy word and through the fullness of His paschal mystery for all eternity. Vows are a sacred bond by which a person is to~ally dedicated to God, loved beyond all things. The vows effect, a visible community in the Church, based not on property, nor on marriage, nor on independent self-determination, but on consecrated love. 1. Poverty The Word is made flesh at the Incarnation and in the Eucharist that all material things might receive divine significance through the Body of Christ, presented to the Father in His Resurrection and glbrious Ascension and daily offered ~anew at the Holy Sacrifice. With full appreciation of the goodness of: material things, the sister, too, by her vow of poverty, gives a new significance to things. She surrenders their independent use to the sovereignty of God. Thereafter the whole significance of her poverty lies in her dependence on God in faith. By .her vow of poverty, the Sister Adorer of the Most Precious Blood is a sign in the Church, publicly wit-nessing through consecrated imitation of the poverty of Jesus, to the supremacy of His adoring, redeeming love in her life. Let her commit herself wholeheartedly to the gospel counsel of leaving all things .to follow Christ. With St. Paul, she is able to abound or to be needy (see Phil 4:12), neither condemning the riches of human culture, nor placing her heart's joy. in them for their own sake. Freed from the spirit of dominion over earthly goods, with faith in God and trust in His providence, let the sister cast all her care on the Lord for He has care of her. Let her lay aside all temporal anxiety, to be witness to the beatitude: "Blessed are you poor, the kingdom of heaven is yours" (Mt 5:3). And if the Lord occasionally permits the sister to lack something that is necessary, let her thank Him, realizing that this privation' renders her more like to God who, being Lord of the universe, rendered Himself poor for love of her. Impelled by love for their vow of poverty and in-spired by the spirit of their Mother Foundress to whom the poor were most dear, let the sisters be genuinely concerned with the needs of the poor. "Give special attention to the poor," she tells her sisters, "and try to lead them on to good; send them to confession often, because God wants them for Himself since they have been ransomed by the Precious Blood of His most holy Son." 5 The sister's detachment' foreshadows the life of heaven, echoing, the very life of the Trinity in whom no one per-son Claims anything separately, for all .life is held equally in the common good.of die divine nature. The. religious ~ Community as a whole also has its commitment to,pove'rty, standing before the world as a sign of Christ's all-sharingAove, For all that the congre-gation possesses "is channele6~to the holy People of God who are served¯ through the works of mercy in which the members en~age, ~ ,' As a 'faithful~ steward, the Community administers the~Master's goods 6n~rusted.to it by the Church, that the ~'poor might bed.fed, ttie ,sick healed, the ignorant taught, the needy, visited, aged and orphans cared for; for whatever is done to the least of these, is done to Christ (see Mt 25:40). ' 2. Consec~'ated Virgin(!y The consecrated virgin~ is a covenant~sign of God's union with His holy people; He is one who loves, and can be loved uniquely and personally, universally and perpetually. The sister's life means that ~a ,human being is called to experience God's° personal love and that a human person is called to be .the ,bride of the Lord. She is also a sign of the eternal blessedness of. heaven where one's .love will be open .to all in its utmost intensity. , The Sister Adorer of the Most Precious. Blood,~as~,a Christian virgin is a witness, of. the fullness of God's~.love which called forth all of the Precious Blood on the cross for the Redemption of mankind. The sister's re-sponse to this initiative of God!s infinit.e and ,personal love for her is to identify herself fully with the Church, the one and only bride of Christ, ~to be caught, up ,totally in the life of worship and in t, he fruitfulness,,0L~ the Church as she unfolds her mission in thelworks of mercy. Let the sister's bridal .,relationship with Christ~,be evident in her loving receptivity~ of~the things¯ ofrGod, in her generbsity and interest ~in all ~His °concernS.As Mary:, accepted' the ;role, of universal motherhood at the Incarnation, so the sister,, overshadowed, oby the "Holy Spirit, consecrates her. ~lo~e to God for universal spiritual motherhood. She promises to devote herself to the task of fostering and nourishing the Christ-life in,souls redeemed by the Precious Blood and called to divine sonship in the risen Savior . ¯ The sister is an understandable sign 'of0 the divine love only insofar as she loves as Christ loves, with a * Letter oI Blessed Maria De Mattias to Sister Maria Gaetani, April 5, 1862. ' , + ÷ ÷ VOLUME 25,.11966 567 ÷ ÷ ÷ Sisters Angelita and Mary Agnes REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 568 deep, unique personal love. The sister must be willing to take the risk involved in forming deep personal and truly human friendships.with those called to be sons of God through the paschal mystery. Without friend-ship she runs thelopposite risk of becoming selfish, hard, unloving, and ineffective in truly helping others. By. the vow of virginity a sister renounces the intimacy, complementarity, and companionship of a husband as life partner, the satisfying experience of sex, the hope of children of her own flesh, and the delights of a home of her own. She must be careful not to seek .compensation for the lack of these .physical fulfillments by possessive-ness or a need to dominate. Let her find courage in God's personal love for her, and let her dealings with men be a mature sharing and concern for the work of the Church. ~Vhen the heart is not constantly filled with a strong faith and trusting love, virginity can become a burden. The sister's total committment to the apostolate re-quires above all, faith in the kingdom of God which is at hand, the readiness to work, and the willingness to suffer and sacrifice for the attainment of "that beautiful order of th!ngs which the grea~ Son of God came to es-tablish in His Blood." e This purity of heart can take root only when it is founded in deep personal prayer and nourished by spir!tual.reading. Devotion to Mary most holy and a profound humility will safeguard her .fidelity to her divine Spouse, who is continually calling to her: "Arise, my love, my dove, my beautiful one, and come" (Ct 2:10). 3. Obedience Our' Savior Jesus Christ redeemed the world through His obedient love, Himself.becoming a new covenant in His own Blood, to form for the Father a new people to be a communion of love.7 His Spirit who dwells fin their midst draws them powerfully into the current of Christ's obedient love by which the unfolding of God's redeeming plan goes for-ward through space and time. A Sister Adorer of the Most Precious Blood is called by the Father to live wholly within this.~ current of Christ's obedient love pulsing in the Church, and trans-forming the world. Let each sister by her vow of .obedience respond joyfully to this call, for through the vowed religious obedience of all the sisters together, the congregation is constantly renewed by the Father as a Community of o Letter of Blessed Maria De Mattias to Bishop Annovazzi, Nov. 13, 1838. ~ Constitution on the Church, n. 9. (See 1 ~or 11:25.) love pledged to ~arry forward the redeeming mission of Christ. Thus the congregation as a whole becomes a living sign, witnessing to the dynamic presence now of Christ's loving sm'render to the Father, which all are called to share. Thus, too, superiors and sisters together, experienc-ing authority in the bondsof charity, pledge themselves to do the will of God lovingly on earth as it is done in heaven so that the religious Community becomes a sign of the final destiny of the world made wholly conformed to God's loving design. A. What a Sister Vows By her vow of obedience a sister commits herself to be fully obedient~ to the Father's will within the framework of the Congregation of the Sisters Adorers of the' Most Precibus Blood as patterned by its constitutions and statutes. Let the sister surrender her whole person to Christ in the .Church, in and through her religious congrega-tion, thereby placing all her talents and life energies at the service of Christ'S' redeeming mission. Thus she will also be aspiring to the most complete fulfillment possibld of her own unique destiny~ in God's saving designs for her. By her vow of obedience, the sister likewise publicly affirms her decision to forego all individualistic planning of her .life's endeavors and activities in order the more fully to carry out the will of the Father in a Community of redeeming love and service. The' sisters will center their, common life of obedient service in the Eucharist. Here they will renew their self-surrender with Christ in His paschal sacrifice. In joyous fellowship they will find here the humility, power, and love for daily fidelity to the calls of obedience. B. Obedience of Superiors Because the sisters live their life of service in com-munity, in the human condition of a world in process of redemption, it is necessary that some sisters be given the responsibility of directing the service of others. The authority which these sisters bear must be pri-marily an authority, a service, of love to show forth the goodness and kindness of God our Savior, as was the authority which the Father gave to Jesus and which He in turn entrusted to His Church. While the superior must often be an administrator of temporal affairs and a guardian of discipline and ob-servance, her role is primarily to be a leader in charity and service. Hers is a ministry of love to her sisters, in 4, L~I~ VOLUME 25, 569 Sisters Angelita and Mayo Ag~s REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 570 health an~d in,illness, in,,rest, and in work, inall their temporal and spiritual needs. ~ . The sister .who is given the office of superior mustE be first in obedience.It is her task in a very special way. to discern the wil~l of God, .as fa.r as sh~ canl at each time~ point of God's unfolding salvation plan fdr the whole community and for each individ~ual sister in all .the major concerns of life.~andI .ser, vice within th_e,.con.grega- , In~.o~der to discern what God wills for, ~each~ and for all,, let the sister'.charged with the service of superior pray unceasingly for light from the Spirit and .listen~at~ten-tively to His promptings. Let her reflect, study, and enter into dialogue With others,'e~pe6ially with her sis~ ters, remembering with St: Benedict. that "the Lord often reveals what is better :through him who. is younger" (St. Benedict). _ ,Relying on the Spir.it, she can confidently hope to . discern as far as possible within the limits of the human condition, the.manifestations of God's will, first of all in His living word in the Sctiptures.:~nd in the voice of the living Church. She will discern His will throug.h the guidance of the constitutions and statutes, the history and the spirit of .the congregation, bearing willingly the,, burden of inter-preting them in love and prudence according to corn crete circumstances. She will likewise find God's will manifest through the God-given endowments and aspiratigns of the si.sters, through the present needs of the world, and especially the needs of the immediate area of the ~ apostolate. Al-ways her supreme norm in seeking, to ~know God's will for the Community and for each sister, in ,the concrete moment will be the law of Christ which is the law of love. Not only will the superior listen to the Spirit as He speaks through her sisters and others in order to discern God's purposes, but she will also communicate as far as possible to all her sisters her own insights and under-standing of what she.believes,God wishes for the Com-munity and for each sister. Thereby she will better ful-fill her role as leader in love and service°by promoting a thoughtful and mature involvement~ of all the sisters in the common service of the Community in Christ's re-demptive work. For a sister to fulfill the difficult service of superior, it is important that she be a religious who is strong and mature, prudent and, patient, secure befo~'e God, her neighbor, and herself.- She is to manifest a firm trust in her sisters. .She will be watchful not to promote an unworthy subservience among the sisters, nor will she allow those who are more authoritarian to dominate the Commu-nity. She will be alert to discourage all childish obedi-ence. Rather, she will promote a genuine Christian obedi-ence o[ humble faith and love. In this way, she can help each sister continually to develop toward the Spirit-given freedom in God's service which enables each to enter more fully into the current of Christ's loving obedi-ence by which the world is redeemed. Many sisters must necessarily share the responsibility of serving the sisters as superiors at different levels within the entire congregation. The superior general serves the entire congregation, the provincial superior the prov-ince, and the local superior the sisters of her house. It is important that they all respect, love, and support one another in their mutual task of directing the sisters ac-cording to God's will. Each superior at her level of service focuses the unity o[ her sisters in their loving, obedient service. "The Institute of the Most Precious Blood is made up of many individuals, but it must be but one heart and one soul, since there must be but one will, the will of God. and this will is made known to us through holy obedience." s C. Obedience of the Sisters Because the superiors bear the heaviest burden of obedience in the community, it is clear that all the other sisters must seek to have for them above all a strong Christian love and trust. The sisters will manifest this love in many ways, Be-cause "love is kind and patient" (1 Cot 13:4), they will accept the superior as their leader in service with all her human frailty, trying not to demand of her a perfection in life and in discernment to which even the best su-perior can only approximate. They will do their utmost to avoid unkind criticism of the superior and her deci-sions. All the sisters will support the superior by their prayer, especially in their daily covenant renewal in the Eucharist.~ The sisters will wish the superiors to deal with them honestly and frankly. They will expect the superior to direct them firmly, to discuss with them their service in the apostolate and their progress in loving obedience in community, and to correct them in love when neces-sary. s Letter of Blessed Maria De Mattias to Sister Maddalena Capone, April 8, 1850. ~ Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, n. 10. + 4. + Life ¢lmrUr VOLUME 25, 1966 ÷ ÷ Sisters Angelit9 and Mary Agnes REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 572 The religious obedience of the sisters is not the forma-tive obedience of children toward parents, nor merely the prohibitory or regulatory obedience necessary for good order in any society or community. Rather, by the vow .of obedience each sister commits her life freely and responsibly to the redeeming work of Christ in His Church as it is specified through the religious Con-gregation of the Sisters Adorers of the Most Precious Blood. Hence it should be dear that no individual sister, by appeal to her vow, can shirk mature responsi-bility, for all her actions, since her vowed commitment to Chrigt's obedience makes her all the more fully re-sponsible for freely directing her whole life according to God's will.~ For this reason, each Sister Adorer should always seek to obey with faith, with a ready promptness, intelli-gently and with a sense of personal responsibility; above all, with sincere humility, not only externally and superficially, but with true cooperation of mind and heart. In faithfulness to their vowed obedience the sisters must wish the superior to be as fully right as possible in her discernment of God's will for all and for each. For that reason they should be. willing to give her all possible help in the measure of their own resourcefulness in discerning God's plan according to times and circum-stances and their personal insights. All are responsible for offering to the superior, with prudence, humility, and love, whatever suggestions and information they believe will be helpful to her in her task as superior. At the same time the sisters will be kare-ful not to impqse their point of view unduly, realizing fully that their suggestions sometimes will not be fol-lowed and often cannot be. The sisters will recognize that in many circumstances it is neither desirable nor possible for the superiors to explain decisions made. The sisters will sincerely try to recognize in such decisions a true discernment of God's will and obey in faith and joy. If, however, a sister is humbly convinced that a more serious decision does not truly accord with God's plan in. the given circumstances, it is her responsibility to make known to the superior, with all humility and love, her reasons for so judging. If after reconsidering the matter the superior con-firms the original decision, then a sister will, as far as possible according to her conscience, follow out the directive, trusting in the supporting grace of Christ, who "learned obedience through the things that He suffered" (Heb 5:8j. In so acting, a sister is not blindly yielding to an nn- reasonable command. Rather in faith she seeks its rea-sonableness within the larger framework of her life of obedient love and service in the Church. In rare in-stances when a sister cannot in conscience obey a direc-tive, she must be willing humbly arid with love to bear with Christ the suffering which her decision entails. Indeed, through, her vowed commitment, each sister has freely entered into the depths of the paschal mystery of Christ's loving obedience by which He redeeins the world. She knows that thereby she has pledged herself to a pattern of service which at times will certainly lead her, as it has the saints, to share the anguish and suffering and death of our beloved Savior, "obedient even to the death on the cross" (Phil 2:12). Though she is aware of her own weakness in face of the ultimate demands of religious obedience, she will rely on the power of the Spirit poured forth constantly from the opened Heart of the risen Lord. Through the strength of His love she can confidently renew her vowed pledge to be obedient with Christ through death to glory. Living as she does in a community of love under the sign of the saving Blood of Christ, each sister, whether superior or subject, will find her life of obedience con-stantly thrusting her forward in the current of Christ's redeeming love, more and more fulfilled in her own per-son as she is more wholly given to the service of Christ's redeeming mission from the Father. CHAPTER IV. FELLOWSHIP IN CHRISTIAN LOVE 1. Fellowship The love of Christ has joined the sisters in fellowship with one another as members of the Community given wholly to the glory of the Precious Blood. This fel-lowship has as its sacramental sign and source the holy Eucharist which unites them to one another in Christ at the table of the Lord. From the sacred precincts of the altar each sister car-ries Christ with her to the daily encounters which await her. Let her meetings with her sisters as well as with all others be a recognition of her previous meeting with them through the Eucharist. The sisters are to receive one another as Christ has received each of them, as they have received Christ, in a holy communion. Let them bear one another's burdens and allow each one to be wholly that person and that reflection of God which the Creator has designed her to be from all eternity. Let individuality be tempered with a genuine availability to others in the spirit of the beatitudes. To have time for thi~ availability implies continual simplification of one's personal needs, not with rigid constraint but with a gentle yielding faith. 4- 4- + Lite Charter VOLUME 25, 1966 573 + + ÷ Sisters Angelita and Mary Agnes REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 574 Simplicity is found in the free joy of a sister who forsakes obsession with her own needs, her progress or her failures, in order to fix her gaze on the light of Christ.lo Perfect joy is in the laying aside of self in peaceful love; it is wonderment and thankfulness con-tinually renewed in the face of the free giving of Him who grants an abundance of spiritual and material bene-fits. 2. Communication God favors man with the gift of communication that he might come to live in unity and charity. Let the sisters communicate truly then, with God and neighbor, in word and action, in movement and manner, in writing and reading, in sound and in silence, as the need of the moment requires. God communicates His holy word to man in Sacred Scripture; the thoughts of His heart in the sacramental life of His Church; Himself in the Eucharist, His sacred Body, His Precious Blood. Let the sisters in return communicate themselves to Him with loving attention and peace of heart; in out-ward composure and inward silence; in the fellowship of His holy people, whether in the lit.urgy of the Church or in the public worship of the Community or in the solitude of private prayer. Formed thus by the w~rd of God, the sisters will com-municate with one another simply and openly in a way that their word may reflect the gentle word of God. The sister is to listen with care and receive the neigh-bor's word with faith and respect, opening herself to understand the true meaning of what the other is trying to communicate to her. Let each be considerate of the other's need, of one another's time, obligations, free-dom, the pressures of the other's work, so that conversa-tion may be neither pointless nor harried but may be shared with .purpose and with kindliness. Let movement and manner be a witness to the charity, joy, peace, and patience of the Holy Spirit who wishes to act in and .through each sister and for this has chosen her to be a symbol of given-ness in His living Church. Let the sister give herself generously to serve the holy People of God with all that she is and has. Let her word to them convey what the word of God imparts to her in her communion with Him. Writing is the image of one's thoughts; readirig, the reflection of one's interests; listening, .one's openness to sounds of truth and beauty and goodness. All are means 1o "It is in simplicity that one finds wha[ is natural, and the divine is in the natural" Pope John XXIII. to discover, and to serve God, one's neighbor, and~ one-self. Let the sisters also read and listen to the more subtle communications of God that surround them: the lessons of nature, the signs,and circumstances of the times, the needs of others, the quiet day-by-day directives of the Holy Spirit at work among the People of God, so that they may come.~to'know and further the ways ~of God with His creatures. Let their sound disturb no one, their silenc~ make no one anxious. , The sisters are" to cultivate God's manifold gift of communication with careful attention. Let their words be trifly vessels of truth. Let them. use this precious art with modest~ and discretion, with sincerity and good-ness, ~ith all beauty~ that through communication their joy'in~ unit~ and charity may be full. 3. ~'ommo'n Life The sisters are to find in, all community activities-- rest~ repast.; re~creation, common work, or study--a way living the beatitudes. In this they will be a sign of joy and sisterly love among people. "Let the sisters Open themselves to what is human and through their fellowship with the whole people of God they~will ,see all vain desire to look down on the world vanish from 'their hearts. ~ They will be present to their':day and age;' and will adapt themselves to the conditions, of the moment. "Let them give profound affection to their parents, relatives, and friends, and through its quality help them to recognize the absolute' iniperative of a sister's 'voca-tion." .Each meal of ,:the Community is an agape in which sisterly love is manifested in joyfulness and simplicity of heart, whether'the meal be taken in silence, accompanied by spiritual reading, or. cheered with conversation. May Christ .be seated at each table to bless the food which His bounty prgvides, and which loving hands have prepared with care for ,the bodies He has created. May He make of one heart all who share in the breaking of one bread at the Community repast. It is Chris~ who receives .their thanksgiving for the refreshing goodness the meal and of the companionship they have shared with one another at table. It is particularly at recreation that fellowship and communication can unfold that human kindness which nourishes charity. Recreation is a Community experience of the freedom of the children of God. It is an opening n See the Rule of Taiz~ (in French and English), 1961, p. 14. Else-where in this document there are also brief borrowings from or thoughts inspired by the same rule. + + 4- Liye Charter VOLUME 25, 1966 ÷ ÷ ÷ Sisters Angelita and Mary Agnes REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 576 of one to another, to all, the confident giving of oneself to the Community~ and the ready acceptance of others just as they are at the moment. Let a sincere desire to please pervade the atmosphere of recreation, no matter what activity fills the time, Consideration for one another will effect that happy me-dium of activity in which all can relax, be refreshed in mind, and strengthened in sisterly affection. The harmony of prayer and recreation in the Com-munity will reflect in the harmony of work by which each sister can prepare to give her best and .most for the spread of the kingdom of God in her apostolate. To do this while living in community requires orderliness: in things, in activities, in the use of time. Let the sisters promote the good order of the house by carefulness in the use of furnishings and equipment, by willing cooper-ation in household work, by a reasonable punctuality in observing the daily schedule. The sisters ,should try to achieve continuity in their work during the hours allotted to it, and they will be careful to allow this same continuity to others. Let each sister know how to give herself to her assign-ments according to the capacities God has given he.r, without comparing herself with others. In true under: standing of membership in the Mystical Body, let her give generously of herself to her Community and to the Church .and find in the variety of services rendered by the members of her Community an expression of the wonderful works of God. 4. The Spirit of the Beatitudes It is in the inner circle of one's Community that the joy of the beatitudes germinates and flourishes for the enrichment of the whole Church. As the first four beatitudes relate the sister to God, the last four relate her to her fellow human beings. To be poor in spirit is to know humility, to be of the "anawim" of God, who live out of His bounty and share His goodness with one another. It is to be aware of one's sinfulness before the holiness of God, but to use the consciousness of sin as a precondition for ttie holiness which God Himself perfects in those who accept all His arrangements in their lives. Meekness is complete suppleness before the designs of God, knowing that God does the decisive work and letting what is decisive rest with Him. It is to see past and through the human factors which are the outward cloud concealing the purposes of His providence. To see the reality .o[ evil as it desecrates the inner temple of God in the soul is to know sorrow, the sorrow and compassion of Christ, suffering servant of Yahweh. it is to unite whatever one has of suffering to the redeem-ing value of the Precious Blood through which evil is overcome by good, sin by grace, hate by love, Satan by God. Hence sadness of heart becomes a beatitude in the ioy of redemption through the paschal mystery. Hunger and thirst for holiness lead all who suffer from their own and others' unholiness to look to the holiness of God, to be open to His action as the dry ground is for rain. It is to find the emptiness of earth's fullness in the face of the fullness of God in whom one day they shall neither hunger nor thirst anymore. To be merciful is to have an open heart for the misery of others, to be ready to help bear their burdens of mind or body. This is the beatitude of love, the deepest mys-tery of Christ and of Christianity. Purity of heart is clarity and simplicity of motive and purpose; it is straightforwardness and honorable frank-ness, for only one who approaches others in trans-parent purity is able to communicate with them truly, and .from this experience know what it means to see and communicate truly with God. When sincere, straightforward communication is lack-ing, good will is weakened; and misunderstandings, strife, chaos abound. God's gift of a peacemaker at this point, one who works for and creates peace, bridges the misunderstanding, reconciles differences, dispels, quar-rels, says the first word to soothe irritations, and brings about that sweet reasonableness which is the root of charity. Lastly, in our imperfect world love can evoke hate for its response. To live as a Christian, and much more as a Sister Adorer of the Most Precious Blood, is to accept without indignation and without retaliation such a negative response. It is to know something of the oppo-sition and persecution which enveloped Christ and which cost Him His Precious Blood. But it is also toknow the humility of the Son of God who, though He was God, gave Himself for the redemption of mankihd by becom-ing their victim. In the end, it is to know also the beati-tude of the Resurrection, the triumph of the paschal sacrifice. PART II. THE coMMUNITY OF ADORING LOVE CHAPTER V. WORSHIP A sister's worship is her whole being's .tribute to God; ¯prayer is her communion with Him. His holy word ex-presses the living bond between Himself and His holy people. As God speaks to the sister in the words of Sacred ÷ + ÷ Lite Charter VOLUME 25, 577 4. Sisters An~elita and Mary Agnes REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Scripture, may she find it her joy to "speak to God through the same inspired words, For the word of God is the great treasure ,hidden among us: for worship, for apostolate, for community. God entrusts this treasure to His Church, which as His faithful householder brings forth from its riches new things and old, as the readiness of the times requires. Let the sister, then, receive each day's bounty of the word of God a.s Holy Mother Church unfolds it in the liturgy--in the Eucharistic celebration; in each of the sacraments; in the DiVine Office by which the whole day is permeated with the presence of God; in private prayer, spiritual reading, and meditation. Let her listen ¯ to the word ofGod with an open, reverent~heart and give herself fully, together with the people of God, to the liturgical celebration of the mystery of redemption. Each Sunday is to "renew the living hope of the Resurrection, that t.riumph of the .Precious Blood re-flected in us first through baptism, then through con-firmation and dedication by vow to the Precious Blood. Let the Lord's day be a day of joy and relief from work.1~ The sisters are to prepare for Sunday and the feastdays of the Church with loving attention to the mystery about to be renewed °and to celebrate the day in com-munity as a sign of the eternal fellowship of heaven. As she faithfUlly renews the sacred seasons each year with Holy Church, she is duly formed by them to that image which her Creator envisioned for her. 1. The Mystery of the Eucharist The title of Adorer of the Most Precious Blood finds its perfect flowering at Holy Mass when this divine Blood renews its ~eternal covenant mission: adoration of God and redemption of mankind. . Let the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass be the very heart of a sister's life, a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, hei paschal banquet ih which Christ is eaten, her mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to her. The depth and height of her participation in this supreme act is without limit. For in each day's Mass she offers herself anew, together with her fellow sisters, and all .the holy People of Go'd, ~with this day's particular needs. Through Christ, he~ immaculate Victim and her Mediator, she and those with her are drawn day by day more perfectly into union with God. and with each other until God is all in all to them. , Th~ Mass will truly be for the sist~ '~a be~iuty ever ancient ever new if, living her life of prayer closely 578 ~ Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy; n. 106. united to that of the Church in her liturgy, she relives in herself each year the complete cycle of the redemptive mystery. Each day, in rich variety, the word of God forms her anew and prepares her; together with the celebrant and the holy People of God, to offer the Body and Blood of Christ to the eternal Father at the supreme moment of the Mass. The great "Amen" of the Holy Sacrifice associates the sister, her apostolate, her life in community, with Christ, so that in all things the Father is adored, the precious Blood glorified, and all the People of God, redeemed by the Blood of Christ, are made unto Him a kingdom. 2. The Other Sacraments Let each sister come to know the joy of salvation in being redeemed again and again for God's kingdom by the Precious Blood. While the sin of a member marks the whole body, God's forgiveness reestablishes the sin-ner within the community. Let the sister love the sacra-ment of forgiveness and its sacramentals: the acknowl-edgment of, and sorrow for sin as she approaches the Eucharistic sacrifice, the mid-day spiritual renewal, the evening contrition for the day's failures, the chapter of faults. Let her celebrate the paschal fast and other penitential days of the Church or of her Community with voluntary earnestness as circumstances allow, both alone and in community, that the rich graces of baptism and penance might continue their formative work in her. In sickness and physical debility, it is her privilege to be supported by the sacrament of holy anointing. 3. Prayer The sisters are to go with gladness to the hours of Divine Office, to be united to the Son of God, to the whole Church, and to their fellow sisters in. singing the praises of God. For Lauds as morning prayer and Vespers as evening prayer are the two hinges on which turns the Church's daily praise of God.1~ Let them sub-mit lovingly to the discipline of voice and movement which this address to God requires. Let their perfect manner be the vessel in which the incense of their praise as the community of God's holy people is offered. Holy Mother Church has enriched this congregation with the glories of the adoring, redeeming Blood of the Savior. It is most fitting, therefore, that each day, as a community, the sisters join one another in special adora-tion of the Precious Blood. And since all of salvation history is permeated with this Precious Blood, they are Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, n. 89. + ÷ ÷ Liye Charter VOLUME 25, 1966 579 ÷ ÷ + Sisters Angelita and Mary Agnes REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 580 to search the Scriptures .diligently and prayerfully for this treasure. In this way their adoration will become more aware, their commitment more complete, and their life in community enriched from this living stream in which they all share,x4 Let there be freedom in private devotions, but let the first of these be friendship with the Son of God in the Eucharist. Here are to be found that necessary support and fulfillment of a life of consecrated love, pledged to God by vows. Here the sister learns to express her unique personal response to God for His goodness to her, her oneness in fellowship with the saints, and her genuine concern for the holy People of God on earth. A life of prayer that is full and sincere is one of hum-ble creative love. It is ready compliance with hard work, the .willing exposure of oneself to pain to be the faithful servant of God. A sister's penance is her daily care for the Church of God, and the incessant outpour-ing of all her energies for its welfare. Let the sisters come to know and to follow Christ in His hidden and public, life among us in the world today; to be ready and open to fellowship in His sufferings; to learn through personal assets or limitations, achieve-ments or frustrations, the power of His Resurrectibn in I.IS. Renewed daily in the Holy Spirit through mental prayer, let the divine presence penetrate all of one's being. The sisters are to foster inward quiet and the outward silence in which communion with God is most surely experienced. Let each give her fellow sis-ters the support of her regard for the other's personal encounter with God; and let her be most careful about disturbing the neighbor by word, manner, or action. Let the sisters Strive for that joyous composure of mind and body which walking in the presence of God will effect in them when whatever they do in word or in work is done in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to the Father through Him in the power of the Holy Spirit. PART III. THE COMMUNITY OF REDEEMING LOVE CHAPTER VI. THE APOSTOLATE The Church presents Christ to the world daily in His ministry of love through her religious who have placed the kingdom of God and its needs above all earthly con-siderations by their vows of poverty, virginity, and obedience. Though not of this world, the faithful of Christ, and First Constitutions o] the Congregation, 1857 (preface). especially religious, are to be the light of the world, to glorify the Father before all men through their life of charity in the apostolate and through their united wor-ship of the Father. An authentic apostolate is the charity. of Christ poured forth into and from our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Let the Sister Adorer find in the Precious Blood the exemplification and wellspring as well as the vitality and reward of her life of charity in serving the People of God. For the Precious Blood in the Mystical Body of Christ, as the blood hidden safely in the framework of any li~¢ing body, exists by its very nature to be of service: first of all to form and renew itself daily for its mission, and then to nourish and to build, to cleanse and to safe-guard, to heal and restore, to calm and relieve distress, to enhance with wholeness every smallest unit in the entire living body. Let the sisters esteem this infinite treasure and learn from the hidden, self-immolating, life-giving seiwice of the Precious Blood of Christ in His Body, the Church, what their own mission within the Church is to be, as member shares with member in this living stream. Let them find in whatever work of mercy they are serving, some aspect of the Precious Blood for their contempla-tion, love, and imitation. God has given the congregation in its holy foundress, Maria De Mattias, a woman endowed for all times with a profound dedication to the divine Blood, with zealous love for her fellow man redeemed by this Blood, and with intense loyalty to the Church and her needs. Let the sisters carry on the spirit of dedicated apostolic cooperation in the work of redemption bequeathed to them by their foundress and be united in fellowship with one another, ". for no other purpose than the welfare of souls which cost the Son of GOd so much blood, and to promote the glory of His Church by means of this Institute . ,, 1.~ Let the sisters find encouragement and guidance in what Maria regarded as essentials, for the apostolate of her sisters: to be led by holy obedience, to act with purity of intention and with humility, to work with tireless industry, to be united to Christ in loving gener-ous sacrifice for the salvation of souls redeemed with His Precious Blood~ Above all, let the sisters glory in the Eucharistic cele-bration where the Precious Blood becomes trhly present and is shared by all the faithful, both as their light and Letter of Blessed Maria De Mattias to Bishop Annovazzi, May 2, 1838. ÷ ÷ ÷ Life Charter VOLUME 25, 1966 581 strength in the apostolate and as its joyous fulfillment and reward. In the life of the Sister Adorer, it is the triumph of the Precious Blood in herself as well as in those whom she has served, that will give her holiness its unique splendor as the paschal mystery reaches its ful-fillment in her. + + + Sisters Angellta and Mary Agnes REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 582 I. The Apostolate of Domestic Work Our Blessed Lord prepared for the years of His public life by the quiet, holy years of Nazareth as He worked with His hand.s toward the upkeep of a home. Closest to and most needed by the religious Community for its daily maintenance is the lowly apostolate of domestic work, sanctified by the Holy Family, and exemplified so well for sisters in our Blessed Lady herself who spent her life in the hidden unassuming duties of a home. Every sister has some domestic duties to perform each day; and for some sisters it is a full-time assign-ment, whether that be in a small mission convent, in a hospital, home for the needy, seminary, episcopal resi-dence, or one of the large houses of the congregation. ¯ Let the sisters see in these humble tasks a reflection of the activities in the home of the Son of God at Nazareth. The sisters who have the privilege of working with our Lady in this apostolate create the atmosphere of quiet contentment needed by the sisters to renew themselves physically and spiritually for further work in their re-spective assignments. If the sister, while doing domestic work, has taught herself to do her work lovingly, with some recollection, centering her thoughts now and then on the things of God, she will radiate peace and cheerfulness to her fel-low sisters, so that their reunion in community after the varied scenes of their scattered activities in the apostolate will be a truly welcome Community experi-ence. It should be possible for the sister doing full-time do-mestic work to enrich her life in 'many ways. Some gogd reading, arts, crafts and skills, the creative use of her hands, some share in a form of social apostolate in her environment will give her opportunity to serve others in different ways as well as to broaden her own experience. The sister at work in full-time domestic duties is at the heart and center of the convent home or the institution. Her services, her prayer and concern follow her sisters and those for whom her assigned work is done. What sh~ prepares and does for them endears her to them a hundredfold. If her works of mercy seem limited in scope, they are enriched in depth of meaning: she is a maker of the religious Community-family. 2. Catechesis . °/"'Our life is an ap~st01ic life, to bri~ag the good news to the people . 10 Do all the good you can for those who are waiting for the brehd of Christian doctrine" ~(Ble~sed Maria De Mattias).17 The imparting of Christian doctrine is the work most cherished by Maria De Matfias and 'the cong~egatior~ which she founded. As a member of the Church obedient." to the Holy Spirit; the sister is a witness to the faith that is'in her ag she educates the faithful in the things Of God. °Her greatest requisitd, therefore, is her own' personal holiness,'° fostered' through the sacramental life of the Church who directs her activities: /'Through o!~aptism ~nd ~nfirma~ion all are ~commissioned by the"Lord'Him-self to p~rticipate in the salvific mission of~he Church. Through Holy Eucharist that "charity toward God and man which is the soul of the apostolate is communicated and nodrished." In'fiddlity to the" living Church, the sister is to present Christ who is her message With' all the integrity, clarity, and intensity which her every word and action can con-vey. I.n g~eat charity and with all human competence, she is to adapt the divirle'~mess~g~ to the level of understand-ing of her h~arers, of whateCer age or condition they m,a~, be, ia'nd find,meanifigful' ways for them in which to express tSeir 'resp6.nge in faith, hope, and love to the word of God.' Mindful of the Church's word to her that "the aim and ~object "of"the apoS'tolat~ is that all who are made sons of God by faith and baptism should come together to~ praise God in* the midst of His "Church, to take part in the sacrifice, and t~ eat the Lord'~ supper," ~ the sister will do all ih he~ power to make the worship of God the climax'0f her endeavors. The Community is to use every means and every ef-fort to prepare the sisters well for the teaching of Chris-tian doctrine. Let it be the aim of all in the Comhaunity to be as closely associated as pos.sible with the sublime commission of bringing the light of the gospel and the gifts of the li'tu~gy to all the People. of God. Ttie siste~ is to ~egard it a~ a special i~Hvil~ge to pro-mote and to assist with retreats~ According to the Con-st~ tution 6n ~h~ Church, all' th~ Christian life and to the perfection of charity." ~ to Frequent saying of the foundress. x¢ Letter of Blessed Maria De Mattias to Vincenta Ferri, Oct. 20, 1855. . ~ ~s COnstitution on the Church, n. ~. ~ Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, n. 10. ~ Constitution on the Church, n. 40. + + + Li]e Charter VOLUME 25, 1966 ÷ ÷ ÷ Sisters Angelita and Mary Agnes REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 584 Lay retreats for women offer these persons an oppor-tunity to study the!r relationship with God and neigh-bor, to weigh and to measure, and to grow in Mary-likeness to the full stature of Christian womanhood. As a prolongation of the apostolate of Blessed Maria De Mattias, the Sisters Adorers of .the Most Precious Blood welcome these, their sisters in the Mystical Body, and by a joyous serf-giving hospitality provide the leisure they need to walk and to talk with Christ. With great faith, let the sisters give themselves more intensely to prayer and penance at this time so that the retreatants may be receptive to the graces which the Holy Spirit wishes to impart to them. The' sister who shares wholeheartedlyin the retreat work ~ontributes toward the spread of God's kingdom on earth, for a saintly mother is a lamp burning in the sanctuary of the home, a saintly woman in other walks of life is the salt that savors the earth. Both by their kind-ness and goodness exert an apostolic influence; both en-hance the glory of the Most Precious Blood. 3. The Apostolate of Education Because grace builds on nature and all wisdom and knowledge is a reflection of the wisdom and knowledge of God, because the Church has a need of educated mem-bers, because it is the will of God and the desire 0f His people, the sisters are to undertake works of general edu-cation at all levels where they can give competent serv-ice. Let the sisters remember that they are called through their educational commitments to assist the great body of laity in the Church to become her apostles to the secular world, to permeate it with the spirit of Christ in justice, charity, and peace. Moreover, the laity, by their competence in secular training, by their activity ele-vated from within by the grace of Christ, can vigorously contribute their effort so that created goods may be per-fected by human labor, technical skill, and civic cnlture for the benefit of all mankind according to the design of the Creator and the light of His word.2x . As teachers of the laity, the sisters need to be and to remain through continued inservice education in the forefront of knowledge and culture in their generation, if the holy People of God whom they educate are to be helped in carrying out their commission to restore all things in Christ. The sisters are to be well prepared for their work, first of all through a broad cultural education and through whatever specialization of subject matter or Constitution on the Church, n. 36. method they may need in special instances. They are to meet and to maintain, even surpass, the current stand-ards of secular evaluating agencies, ~onsid.ering the greater excellence of the purposes which Catholic educa-tion has over the purely secular. In their association with the laity---children, youth, faculty members with whom they work, lay professors whose classes they attend, parents of the youth whom they teach and counsel, business men and employees-- the sisters are to extend the charity and courtesy of Christ, to give splendid and striking testimony of how the world can be transformed and offered to God through the spirit of the beatitudes32 Encouraged by the spirit of Blessed Maria, let the sisters bear in mind their more immediate aim in edu-cation, "that after having pursued these studies a young person is well trained to go through life holily and with dignity," as well as the ultimate~ divine purpose in this "most extensive field the Lord has confided to us, the fruit of which is the salvation of souls redeemed by the divine Blood." 28 4. Care o[ the Sick Human suffering has always been of deep concern to the Church, for she sees in her stricken members the image of the suffering Savior. From Christ her founder she learns compassion for the afflicted and seeks to al-leviate their need, whether of body or of soul. The Sisters Adorers of the Most Precious Blood, iden-tifying themselves with the Church, share this same com-passionate love. Let the sisters, therefore, whose gifts and training enable them to care directly for the sick per-form their services with the greatest kindness and un-derstanding of the patients' needs. Their professional services are to be of the highest excellence in that they are seeking not only to meet ac-cepted standards of performance, important as these are, but to communicate to their charges, along with pa-tient care, the peace and comforting of Christ. As the opportunity or the need arises, let the sisters convey to the sick a loving solicitude for their spiritual needs, without however undue insistence or pressure, par-ticularly with patients of some other faith. The sisters are to respect the religious convictions of all and in a truly ecumenical spirit be cordial and helpful to minis-ters and rabbis who come to visit and care for the spirit-ual needs of the members of their congregations. Let the sisters associated in any way with services to Constitution on the Church, n. 31. First Constitutions o] the Congregation, 1857, p. 53. ÷ + ÷ Li]~ Charter VOLUME 25, 1966 ÷ ÷ ÷ Sisters Angelita and Mary Agnes REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 586 the sick, however lowly and hidden .their tasks may seem to be, realize that they are making important ~con: tributions to the welfare of the whole, and that without their support some. more nearly related activities of pa-tient care would be seriously hindered. In unity and charity alofie can there be that cooperation which en-ables the members of the community, to work harmoni-ousl~ to carry on so complex a work." of the apostolate in a spirit of joyous service. In the numerous inter-related, departments of the health institutions which the sisters operate, care should be taken lest the machinery o[ organization overwhelm the person, and human values and needs be lost in the name of efficiency. On the other hand, it is necessary that each assign~ ment of duty b.e promptly and conscientiousl); fulfilled, since the activities and procedures of the whole institu-tion are so highly inter-related thht °they affect one an-other's operation. The ultimate value involved is the hu-man life' of.a sick person, a life that is 'often dependent on a matter of, minutes for survival through a crisis. 0 The sisters in the hospitals work closely with large numbers of the laity at various levels of authority: doc-tors, nurses, administrators, employees. It may be that at times sisters will have to show a readiness in Christian obedience toward lay persons in authority, Let the sis-ters'be the first to set an example of loyalty and coopera: tion, of diligence and a sense of resp6nsibility for the promotion of the general good. Let the close association of these laity'with the sisters reveal nothing in the latter except the pure charity Christ, evident in the sister's dedication, her gentleness, her courtesy even when she must be.~ finn, her poise in word and manner. Let this also be'evident to'visiting relatives and friends of the sick person. 5. Care of the Aged In their desire to serve the Mystical:Body more com, pletely, the sisters extend their apostolate to the care of the aging, men and women of an older gen.eration who come to,spend their declining year~ in their home for the aged. : ",. The.sisters chosen.lfor this work will deem it a privi-lege to be associated Closely with the aged and infirm, seeing in therh the presence of Christ and reveren~cing them for their wisdom, experience and merits, their sacrg rices and perseverance. They ,will be influenced in their appreciation of theelderly by God's own respect for a long life as exemplified in the beautiful biblical exam-ples of old age. . ; , " , ., In their care for the aged, the sisters, imbu6d' with a humanism based on Christian values, will accept thegn fully as persons, even though their physical, mental, or emotional limitations may ~nake them dependent on others for their needs. Let the sisters be carel~ul to help these people main-tain their sense ot~ personal dignity by utilizing their remaining abilities to the full. Elderly people have a need and a right to freedom in making their own choices and decisions in their life situations. All staff members have the corresponding duty to respect that right and to help the residents use all their resources of personality for as long as possible. It is faith in God and a tender compassionate love for His holy people which enable the sisters to give ,their services generously to the care of the aged. To do so in a competent manner, the sisters are to receive adequate training and preparation for their work. Their cheerfid and encouraging manner toward the aged, their helpful-ness to them, their regard for them as persons beloved of God, will create an atmosphere of peace and contentment in the home. Knowing that their residents are on the threshold of eternity and that for most of them this is their last home on earth, the sisters should make their lives as meaning-ful as possible, encouraging them to love God faithfully and.to look forward to meeting Him in heaven. 6. Care o[ Orphans The love and care of children, so dear to Christ in His earthly life, has a special appeal for the sister. The natu-ral endowments which fit her for motherly care of others is here given expression in a work which has in it the highest supernatural possibilities; Let the sister who is assigned to this work give herself to it with great kindness and sureness. Her first task will be to win the love of the children through the physical care which she gives them so that she will then be. able to carry out the more difficult task of social, moral, and re-ligious training. The sister should try in every way possible to under-stand her charges. Frequently these children have had disturbing experiences which have exposed and deepened certain natural weaknesses in them. Consequently their training will require greater patience and tact in helping them grow into good Christian men and women. Besides a broad generhl education, the sister engaged in this work needs to have some acquaintance with child car~ and child psychology.to enable her to care for prob-lem children. She herself must be emotionally mature and able to withstand and control a great deal of emo-tional irregularity in them. Li]e Charter VOLUME 25, 1966 587 ÷ ÷ ÷ Sisters Angellta end Ma~y Agnes REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 588 Their religious formation is her greatest concern, and it will be the quality of the sister's own religious convic-tions rather than the quantity :of her instructions which will effect the greatest good in them. She will lead them to love the Church through her feasts and celebrations; and as they are able to absorb it the sister will explain to them the meaning of: the great mystery of redemption. She will bring them to love the word of God and to understand the significance of the incidents in salvation history which reveal the greatness and goodness of God to His people. As they grow older, the sister will see to it that the children understand and practice their moral obligations to God, to themselves, and to one another; she will need to acquaint them with the problem of evil-in its many forms and with the Christian's way of dealing with it. Lastly, in a practical way, the older children will have to be prepared to be self-reliant and self-supporting to the best of their abilities. And even after they leave the sisters, it will remain a part of the sister's duty and privi-lege to follow them through the years with her interest; her prayers, and her wise counsel when they return to her periodically. 7. The Apostolate o[ Social Work While social work formally so called is a profession with its own particular requirements of preparation and operation, in its more general meaning social work re-fers to the non-institutionalized form of charity which is open to one and all on an individual to individual basis. The sisters frequently have the opportunity tO bring the charity of Christ to the needy of body and mind in their homes or wherever they may be found. Personal kindness and concern for another is at the heart of this apostolate, and here the sister can experi-ence in a simple basic way what it means to help the neighbor. An institution by its nature has to accept the person on its own terms and fit him into its operation. In the direct apostolate of social work the attention is wholly on the needy person, and the solution of the problem does not come ready made; it calls for the lov-ing initiative of the apostle. Most frequently this apostolate is found among the very poor, the underprivileged, the mentally distressed, whether in large cities or in remote rural areas, Let the sisters who are able to engage in this work do so with humility and simplicity, accepting the needy and their condition with understanding of the ihuman dignity be-hind the impoverished circumstances. With tact and gentleness, let the sisters offer their services as to Christ, remembering that their very pres- ence should speak of faith and confidence in. a loving providence, of love for one's fellow man. Let the sisters be careful not to impose their own standards or preconceived form of charity on whomever they contact, but with sensitive regard for the person fill the need as the person would like to have it filled, as much as possible. This work of mercy frequently rises out of the initia-tive of the sister, who besides fulfilling her duties in her assigned work will find in this added form of charity a way to enrich and motivate her daily routine. It is for her a more direct way to contact Chris( in His needy ones. As she goes about this work, the sister brings the mes-sage of the gospel vividly to people. She .is literally a witness that the kingdom of God is at hand, that the Church is the Church of the poor, that in the charity of Christ there is genuine human concern for the well-being of another, and that each person is precious before God. The sisters should expect rebuffs and opposition on the part of those who have been embittered against re-ligion or who have grown indifferent to it. It will be the sister's cheerful patience with, and genuine goodness to them which will dispel [ear and distrust and open the way for the love of Christ once more to come into their lives. CONCLUSION Through baptism, God has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light. Through the Eucharist-covenant, sealed in His Pre-cious Blood, He has made us a kingdom unto Himself. Within this kingdom we His purchased people, Sis-ters Adorers of the Most Precious Blood, vow to 'Him our consecrated love: In poverty--to use the things of this world as if we used them not; In virginity--for who shall separate us from the love of Christ? (Rom 8:35); In obedience--for He became obedient for us unto death, even to death on the cross (Phil 2:8). Wherefore, redeemed not by silver or gold, but by the Precious Blood of Christ, and in union with His Church, we sing for all time and for eternity, "Come, let us adore the Son of God, who has redeemed us with His Blood." ÷ ÷ VOLUME 25, 1966 589 JOSEPH F. GALLEN, S.J. Practice of the Holy See ÷ ÷ Joseph F. Gallen, S.J., resides at St. Joseph's Church; 321 Willings Alley; Philadelphia, Penn-sylvania 19106. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 590 This article gives; from January 1962, the practical points of the practice of the Holy See concerning the reli-gious life" from rescripts, replies to quinquennial reports, and approvals of changes in articles or of general revi-sions of constitutions. Nature and Federation of Religious Institutes The evident fact that lay religious institutes authentb cally cooperate in the mission of the Church is stated simply in the constitutions of a missionary congregation of sisters: In approving the Congregation and its special end as it is stated in the. Constitutions, the Church gives to the Congrega-tion, and through it to all its members, the mandate of collabo-rating in her missionary apostolate. A no less evident and fundamental principle of the con-tinuation of the apostolate of Christ is reasserted in the same constitutions: "Let the Sisters care with preference for the poor and the outcasts no matterwhat their misery or deficiency may be." The Holy See has approved a closer association of some religious institutes of men and women, as is exemplified in the following approved articles of the constitutions of two missionary congregations of sisters: The Congregation is associated with the Cong3"egation of the. [a Congregation of priests and brothers] in view of the mutual help they will give each other in spiritual matters as well as in missionary activities. Each Congregation, however, shall keep its juridical and financial independence. -- The general purpose of the Congregation is to promote the greater glory of God and the honour of the Blessed Virgih,. by the sanctification of its members and by their co-operation in the apostolic work of the Chur~:h in the Missions, preferably the Missions of the Fathers of . (Cf. REwEw for RELm~oos, 17 [1958], 251-2; Questions on Religious Life, q. 150). The Redemptoristine Nuns, Monastery of St. Alphon-sus; Liguori, Missouri, received permission from the Holy See to resume solemn vows and introduce major papal enclosure. The solemn vows were pronounced on June 27, 1965. The instruction of the Sacred Congregation of Reli-gious on the apostolic constitution Sponsa Christi stated in number XXIII, 4: "Confederations of regional federa-tions can be allowed if need, or great advantage, or the traditions of the order recommend them" (Bouscaren- O'Connor, Canon Law Digest lor Religious, 351). By ~i decree of January 4, 1964, the Sacred Congregation sup-pressed the confederation of Visitandine Nuns. The federations remain. The pertinent parts of'the decree are: In consideration of the historical'origins of the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary and the. spirit with which its Holy Founders have animated it but more particularly on account of the explicit declarations made by them to prevent the formation of a central government in .the Order, the Con-federation of the Visitation of Holy Mary has been suppressed together with all its canonical effects. On the other hand, in conformity with the original traditions, the entire group of monasteries with their Federations will constitute the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary . The present group.ing bf the monasteries into federations will be revised and a~lapted in a way that will render them more homogeneous, both from a disciplinary and a geographic viewpoint. If necessary, the Sacred Congregation will contemplate the creation of new federations within the present organization. On May 15, 1965, the Mother McAu!ey ConferenCe of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas unanimously adopted the following resolution: Be it resolved in accordance with the wishes of the' Church as expressed through the propositions on the religious life of the Second Vatican Council, definite steps be taken towards a World Federation of Sisters of Mercy; that as one such step this Mother McAuley Conference be formed into a Federation of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas; that in such a federation the autonomy of each congregation be preserved. The officers of the federation are Mother M. Thomas Aquinas Carroll, R.S.M., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, presi-dent; Mother Mary Regina Cunningham, R.S.M., Bethesda, Maryland, vice president; Mother Mary Bernard Graham, R.S.M., Merion, Pennsylvania, secre-tary; and Mother Mary Patrick McCallion, R.S.M., North Plainfield, New Jersey, treasurer. The goals or purposes proposed to the McAuley Con-ference were: (a) to promote unity and stability of the institute and preserve the spirit of Mother McAuley; (b) to intensify the spirit of unity in the apostolic labors of the Sisters of Mercy in order to fulfill their mission in the Church; (c) to advance the cause of canonization of Mother McAuley; (d) to draw on the resourcefulness of all members of the institute in order that continuous + + + Practice Holy See VOLUME 25~ 1966 ÷ ÷ + $oseph F. Gallen, $.7. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 599 development and. improvement be made in the works entrusted to the institute; (e) to cooperate in the planning for the promotion of the spiritual, intellectual, profes-sional, and apostolic growth of the sisters in formation, sisters in service, and sisters assigned to the apostolate of prayer. The functions discussed were: (a) to serve as a channel of communication to all member communities; (b) to recommend consultants in specialized areas when re-quested to do so; (c) to provide a source of information for creating in the mind of the major superiors an aware-ness of areas in need of study, necessary adaptations, and changes warranted in keeping with the mind of the Church; (d) to make recommendations that will promote excellence in the works of the institute, project a Mercy corporate image capable of attracting desirable candidates to the institute, and bring about unity without uni-formity in community living, emphasizing the virtues of charity and mercy. Any community of Sisters of Mercy in the United States, Canada, or Latin America may become a member, with formal application to be made after community approval. Active participation was to be had in federa-tion meetings either in the person of the major superiors and assistant major superiors or by proxy. On July 2, 1965, the following petition was addressed to the cardinal prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Religious: The Major Superiors of the Congregations of the Sisters of Mercy of the United States and Newfoundland,. both the in-dependent and those of the Union, have been meeting regu-larly since 1955 as the Mother McAuley Conference for mutual consultation on matters pertaining to their Institutes. At the meeting in Hooksett, New Hampshire in May, 1965, the matter of federation was discussed and accepted in principle. Thereafter major superiors of the Religious Sisters of Mercy, representing approximately 15,000 sisters, with the deliberative vote of their councils, have indicated their desire to federate as the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas and their Missions. May we through the Sacred Congregation of Religious peti-tion the blessing of His Holiness, Pope Paul VI, on this initial step towards greater excellence in our apostolic endeavors? In a letter of August 12, 1965, to the president, Mother M. Thomas Aquinas, R.S.M., the Sacred Congregation replied as follows: This Sacred Congregation is most pleased to have the news which you sent in your letter of July 2, about the desire and intention of the Major Superiors of the Religious Sisters of Mercy of the United States and Newfoundland to federate. This is preminently in line with the views of the Holy See and, as you know, has been the desire of this Sacred Con-gregation for some time. We thank you, Reverend Mother, and all the Major Superiors of the Religious Sisters of Mercy who have been taking part in the meetings, and we express the hope that you will be able to draw up in the near future a workable set of Statutes to govern the Federation, to be submitted to this Sacred Congregation. Sending you a special blessing for all the Major Superiors of the Religious Sisters of Mercy and their subjects . The aim will be to join eventually with federations of the Sisters of Mercy in Australia, Ireland, and so forth, to form a world confederation. A meeting looking towards this end will probably be held in "Pittsburgh in June, 1966. This federation can obviously be of interest to similar institutes, and we have already received inquiries about it. For that reason we have described this federation of the Sisters of Mercy very fully and have also prev.iously submitted the description of the federation to Mother M. Thomas Aquinas for her approval and correction. Members, Precedence, and Titles One congregation of sisters abolished the class, of lay sisters. In a general revision of its constitutions, a con-gregation of sisters omitted the article on precedence. The revision was approved with no animadversion on the omission. Two other sets of constitutions contain the fol-lowing sentences on precedence: In formal assemblies, for the sake of regularity, the follow-ing order shall be observed as to precedence.--The Sisters follow no order of precedence when approaching the Com-munion Table and the Sacrament of Penance. Personality development and fulfillment are obviously not to be attained at the expense of the common good and without regard for the interests of other individuals. Some customs of the religious life can unreasonably obstruct the sense of individuality and the development and fulfillment of the individual. I have often suspected this in the submergence of the family name by that of a saint. I admit that I have not seen any sign whatever of a universal agreement with this opinion. However, a congregation of sisters, in a revision approved May 12, 1964, changed its practice as follows: "The postulants shall wear a plain dress, different from that of the novices. They shall retain, even as professed, their family name." Religious Habit Several congregations of sisters included in a revision of Prmrtice of their constitutions or secured from the Holy See a faculty Holy See of the following tenor: VOLUME 25, 1966 Where the climate or the work of the Sisters may require some modification in the form or the color of the habit,, these 595 ]oseph F. REVIEW FOR RELIGi~)US modifications may be determined by the Superior General with" the consent of her Council. The inclusion of such an article in the constitutions is understandable, but it is to be remembered that the permission of the Holy See is necessary only for a sub-: stantial, permanent, and general change in the color or form of the habit (R~w~w FOR P~LIGIOUS, 18 [1959], 80- I; 13 [1954], 298; 21 [1962], 409). The Sacred Congrega-tion of Religious showed itself more liberal than one congregation by approving a change in the habit, "pro-vided the headband and veil were reduced somewhat." The Sacred Congregation approved a description of the habit~ in the constitutions that leaves a wider field of choice to the particu!ar institute. ,The pertinent articles are: " A habit suitable to the times and conformable to religious dignity, reserve, modesty, and poverty shall be worn by the members of the Congregation. The veil of the professed Sisters' is o.f bl.ack material and light in weight. The veil of the nowces ~s white. The coil is of white material. A rosary is - carried in the, pocket. A cincture of suitable material is worn. , The constitutions of this congregation had formerly stated: "Postulants shall wear a modest black dress dif-ferent from that of the novices." The revised article reads: "Postulants shall wear a becoming dress different from that of the novices." Canon 540, § 2 requires only that the dress of the postulants be modest and different from that of the novices. It may therefore be secular but modest; special and" uniform, but this is not of obliga-tion; religious, but different from that of the novices. Constitutions ordinarily merely state canon 540, § 2 in describing~the dress of the postulants and therefore, as the revised article given above, permit all the variations just listed. The Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith has recently and at least twice approved a descrip-tion of the habit in the constitutions that gives a much wider power to the particular institute. The only article on the habit in one of th~se congregations is the follow-ing: The Sisters wear the religious habit, in order to make~ manifest their total belonging to God, and also to safeguard themselves more easily from the spirit of the world. This religious habit shall be simple in style~ adapted to the climate and the customs of the country, as also to the activities of the Sisters. The veil, the crucifix, and the ring shall be the symbols of their religious consecration. The second congregation has only the two following articles: " The distinctive dress worn by a religious sister identifies her as a woman consecrated to God and belonging t.o a particular religious community. The habit is visible testimony of the sister's response to Christ's elective love and witness to His .presence in the world as One who serves. The religious habit is a reminder to all men of supernatural realities. Accordingly, the sisters shall wear a simple habit and veil expressive of their dedication. For a serious reason they may be excused by the mother general, or in urgent necessity by the local superior. The material in habit and veil shall vary according to the climatic conditions under which the sisters live and must be approved by the mother general with the advice of her council~ Major daanges or modifications of the habit may be made by the general chapter to meet the needs of the times. The habit is to be a symbol or sign of the consecration to Christ. The traditional form of the habit is not a natural sign of this consecration, as smoke is of fire, nor is there anything whatever in revelation on the religious habit. Therefore, the traditional form of the religious habit is a symbol of the consecration to Christ only from use. It follows with equal clarity that other forms of dress and other insignia can by use become expressive of the same consecration. Vatican .Council II stated: The religious habit, as a symbol of consecration, is to be simple and modest, poor yet becoming, and also in keeping with the demands of health and adapted to the circumstances of time and place and to the requirements of the apostolate. The habit of both men and women that does not conform to these norms is to be changed. The council has thus pointed out the obvious fact that the dress of religious men is not exempt from the necessity of adaptation. This very evident fact has often been disregarded in discussions on the religious habit. The council has also given general norms for decisions on the necessity and type of adaptation. There has been constant discussion on the religious habit but it may not be amiss to emphasize again that the retention of the dress and externals of past ages, by religious men or women, can project more of an image of quaintness and even eccentricity and strangeness than of consecration to Christ (Cf. K~wEw for R~i.iGiotJs, 18 [1959], 345; 14 [1955], 315). Dowry ÷ The dowry should ordinarily be actually given before ÷ first profession, since the institute is obliged by canon 549 to invest the dowry after the first profession. How- l'rvxt~e ever, in some recent approvals of constitutions, the Holy See Sacred Congregation of Religious has added that the dowry may be paid in parts, that is, in installments, and without limiting the time within which the installments VOLUME 25, 1966 595 ÷ ÷ ]oseph F. Galgen, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS were to be completed. The pertinent sentences in two sets of constitutions read: The Superior General, with the consent of her Council, may permit for just reasons that the dowry be paid to the Congregation by the family of the postulant in ~nstallments at determined times, o~ even after the death of the parents, proyided that meanwhile the interest is paid.--The dowry must be turned over to the Congregation before the taking of the habit, "or at least its payment must be assured by an act in ~due form valid in civil law, and in this case it shall be paid not later than the first profession. However, the prioress general with the deliberauve vote of her council may grant permission to the aspirant to pay the dowry in installments or after the death of her parents. (And see I~EVIlZW FOR RELIGIOUS) The modern practice of the Holy See in approving con* stitutions is to leave the determination of the amount of the dowry to the general chapter, which can change the amoun~t for different times and also impose a different amount for various countries. The chapter may also delegate the m6ther general with the advice or consent of her council to change the amount when this is judged necessary or advisable, and such a delegation is found in some constitutions. One set of constitutions approved by the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith in 1964 reads: "Let the aspirants bring the dowry determined in the Provincial Chapter and approved by the Superior General and her Council." The Sacred Congregation of Religious permitted one congregation to abrogate the dowry completely. The rea-sons of this congregation were: a) The amount of money concerned is insignificant; b) in certain countries, the fact of asking for a dowry is not under-stood and very unfavorably interpreted; c) in a few countries, tl~e candidates cannot even pay that small contribution; in other countries, exceptions are not rare, and in these cases, the Province has to make up the amount of the dowry; d) the dowry constitutes a dead capital; e) the sum of money that the parents spend for the education of their daughters constitutes in itself a dowry. " The Holy See has frequently approved constitutions that contain an article of the following type: The higher superior [or mother general or mother provin-cial] with the consent [advice] of her council may remit in whole or in part the dowry of those who lack financial means but possess academic degrees, teachers' or nurses' certificates, or special abilities which can compensate for the dowry and make them especially useful to the congregation. The admissible equivalent for the dowry in such cases is much more widely expressed in many constitutions recently approved by the Holy See. These give the power of remitting the dowry in whole or in part: According to the rules established by the General Chapter --because they lack the means or because of other special reasons--of a candidate who lacks financial means or because of special reasons--those who are unable to furnish it--for just reasons--if the applicant .has an education which, ac-cording to the judgment of the superior general and her council, is useful for the congregation. Finally, one set of constitutions approved in 1964 states simply: "The Superior General with the deliberative vote' of her council can remit, in whole or in part, the dowry of a postulant." Admission of Candidates Recently approved constitutions frequently contain this article: "Only the Holy See or those who have received the faculty from it can dispense from the im-pediments listed in articles . " These are the diriment and merely prohibiting impediment~ of common law to entrance into the noviceship (hat are enacted in canon 542. Bishops and the superiors general of pontifical clerical institutes flow possess the faculty of dispensing from the diriment impediment of canon 542, 10: "Those who have renounced the Catholic faith and joined a non- Catholic sect." Because of this recently granted faculty, a clause has been added to the article of the constitutions on d!spensing fromthe impediments of common law, that is, "or who have received the faculty from it . " Profession and Canonical Examination The canonical examination commanded by canon 552 is proper to religious women and is made by the local ordinary or a priest delegated by him at least thirty days before entrance into the novices.hip, first religious profes-sion, whether temporary or perpetual by privilege, and the final perpetual profession, whether solemn or simple. A congregation of sisters was granted the following indult by the Holy See in 1963: "If necessary, and as an excep-tion, the sisters may take the canonical examination for perpetual vows a few days before the beginning of the retreat." By the law of their constitutions, these sisters make an eight-day retreat before perpetual profession. Anticipated Renewal of Temporary Pro[ession The same sisters have six years of temporary vows divided into three annual and one three-year professions. Accordin~ to the norms of canon law, temporary profes-sions are to be renewed on the anniversary day (August 15, 1965-August 15, 1966) and their renewal may not be anticipated by .more than a month (July 15, 1966). The revised constitutions of this pontifical congregation, ap-proved in 1962, read: 4- 4- Pro~t~e o] Holy See VOLUME 25, 1966 ,597 ÷ ÷ ÷ ]oseph F. Gallen, SJ. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS According to an indult of the Holy See the sisters, regard-less of the date of their first profession, renew their temporary profession on the feast of the Epiphany, January 6. It is not permissible to postpone the renewal of profession beyond the day of expiration of the vows. Anticipation of Perpetuai Profession Canon 577, § 2 grants the permission to anticipate the renewal of a temporary profession, but this does not include permission to anticipate perpetual profession nor to abbreviate the time of temporary vows established either by the Code of Canon Law or the particular con-stitutions (R~vmw for RELIGIOUS, 12 [1953], 262--3; 16 [1957], 379-80; Questions on Religious Life, q. 43). The same revised constitutions, however, contain the follow-ing faculty: By virtue of a special induh of the Holy See the superior general can, for just reasons, permit the taking of perpetual v.ows up to thirty days before the legitimate date; this profes-sxon, however, becomes effective only on the sixth anniversary of the first profession; and anticipation for a greater length of time., can take place only with the special permission of the Holy See. Poverty and Civil Will Apparently in an effort to bury the "envelope" system or to prevent its inception or resurgence, a congregation has included the following norm in its constitutions: "No sister may deposit a sum of money, be it great or small, under her own name in the bursar's safe." Since the pradtice of the Sacred Congregation of Religious re-quires that the will commanded by canon 569, § 3 be civilly valid, some congregations are expressing the article on the will substantially in the following form, which is taken from a recently revised set of constitutions: Before profession each novice shall freely dispose by will of all the property she possesses or which may accrue to her. She shall observe, as far as possible, what the civil law requires for the validity of the will; and, if prior ~to her profession she does not yet have the capacity of making a will, she shall make one as soon as possible after profession. (And see REview roa RrL~c~oos, 20 [1961], 222-24.) . Renunciation o] Patrimony An article of the revised constitutions of a congrega-tion of sisters, approved in i961, reads as follows: If there be question of giving away her patrimony or any notable part of it, that is, about one-third, the permission of the Holy See is required. For any amount less thafi one-third of the total, the permission of the superior general is suffi, cient . The permission of the Holy See is also required in case a notable.part of the patrimony of a religious is donated to the Congregation. (And see REv~.w fOR R~L~cxOUS, 12 [1953], 258-9; "16 [1957], ~I1, 21 [1962], 410.) The apostolic delegate has recently received the follow-ing faculty: "to allow a "donatio inter vivos' (e.g. as in the ¯ case of Sisters who wish to donate from their patrimony to the community or their parents)." Vatican Council II has enacted the following: "The constitutions of reli-gious congregations may permit that the members renounce their patrimonial property, whether already acquired or to be acquired in the future." Obedience Several more recently approved constitutions contain the following articles: In virtue of this vow the sisters are obliged to obey under pain of serious sin only when the lawful superior expressly commands anything in virtue of holy obedience in conformity with the Rule and the Constitutions. -- This obligation be-comes grave when the Superior commands in virtue of the vow, in the name of Jesus Christ, in the name. of holy obedience, or with similar expressions. -- This obligation binds under pain of serious sin only when the legitimate Superior expressly commands "in virtue of holy obedience" or ".under formal precept" or by any other equivalent expression. -- The Sisters are bound to obey in virtue of the vow of Obedience whenever a lawful Superior gives an order dealing directly or indirectly with the observance of the Rule and Constitutions: This obligation becomes grave when a Superior ives a formal command in virtue of holy Obedience. -- Bygthe Vow of Obedience the Sisters assume the obligation of obeying all commands of their lawful Superiors in everything that con-cerns, directly or indirectly, the observance of the vows, the Rule, and the Constitutions. A formal precept, which obliges under pain of mortal sin, is given only when the lawful Superiors command expressly in virtue of holy Obedience. Not all constitutions approved by the Sacred Congrega-tion of Religious, even at the same period of time as the above, contain the new wording; nor did I find it in the constitutions recently approved by the Sacred Congrega-tion for the Propagation of the Faith that I have read. The new wording, in congregations that have it, more clearly permits a precept under venial sin to be given by reason of the vow of obedience. Such a power is obviously to be most rarely used. To effect a precept under venial sin, the superior must give a precept that obliges im-mediately under sin, even though he is not required to state that it is in virtue of the vow of obedience. The reason is that the proximate matter of the vow of obedience, that which brings the obligation of the vow into actual existence, demands at least the strict command of a lawful superior. A strict command is the express imposition of an obligation immediately in conscience, immediately under sin, to do something, to omit some-thing, or to fulfill a punishment. The superior must manifest clearly the intention of obliging in conscience, e.g., "I command, order, forbid you in conscience." A VOLUME 25, 1966 599 ÷ Joseph F. G~en, S4. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS strict command is not the mere good pleasure of a superior (It would please), a desire (I would like), a counsel (It would be better), an admonition (Do not do that), or a merely penal precept, that is, a precept obliging only under a punishment for its violation. The superior may oblige under mortal or venial sin in serious matter but only under venial sin in light matter, since such matter does not admit a grave obligation. See Raus, De sacra obedientia, Lyons: Vitte, 1923, nn. 109-11; Ver-meersch, De religiosis institutis et personis, I, ed. 2, Bruges: Beyaert, n. 296; REv~.w for RELIO~OUS, 22 (1963), 586-7. One congregation added the following sentence to its constitutions: In keeping with the ~,irtue, the sisters should be encouraged to discuss with their superiors ideas which they think would contribute to the common good of the institute or further its apostolic work. Such an article obviously does not diminish the authority of the religious superior. Vatican Council II was not lessening the authority of bishops in counseling them: Wherefore, for the sake of greater service to souls, let the bishops call the priests into dialogue, especially about pastoral matters. This they should do not only on a given occasion hut at regularly fixed intervals insofar as this is possible. The council affirmed the same principle with regard to religious superiors: "Superiors should in a suitable manner consult and listen to subjects in matters that con-cern the entire institute." Another statement of the council explicitly safeguards the authority of superiors: Superiors should therefore gladly listen to their subjects and encourage their cooperation for the good of the institute and of the Church, but the authority of superiors to decide and order what is to be done remains undiminished. Penance More recent constitutions have frequently phrased the article on the frequency of confession: "The sisters will usually go to confession at least once a week." The norm in one set of revised constitutions approved by the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith in 1964 is: "The Sisters will go to confession every week or at least every fortnight . " REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, 18 (1959), 161; 16 (1957), 116-7; Questions on Religious Life, q. 90. Divine 01~ce and Spiritual Reading Several congregations of sisters have obtained approval from the Sacred Congregation of Religious of a change to Lauds, Vespers, and Compline of the Divine Office from the recitation of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary. One has Lauds, Sext, Vespers and Compline, another Lauds, Terce or Sext, Vespers 'and Compline of the Divine Office. REwv.w FOR RwLIG~OUS, 24 (1965), 473- 4; 20 (1961), 304-6. On July 27, 1964, the Sacred Congregation of Religious approved a revised article of a congregation according to which the sisters make each day, if possible, and without strict obligation, a short spiritual reading. Once a week all must make a longer spiritual reading in the course of their weekly free half day. A similar article approved in May, 1964 reads: Every day: a part of the Office of the Blessed Virgin for morning and evening prayer, a half hour of mental prayer, holy Mass, spiritual reading, visit to the Blessed Sacrament, particu-lar and general examination of conscience, recitation of ofie third of the rosary. This article does not determine the length of the daily spiritual reading. Another congregation of sisters had fifteen minutes of spiritual reading and another half hour of mental prayer in the afternoon. This was changed by the congregation to the following: ". the sisters shall make a private spiritual reading which will be continued in prayer according to the needs of each. The spiritual reading and prayer shall in all be for an hour." Chapter of Faults One congregation omitted this chapter in its revision as proposed, and the revision as approved contained no correction on this point. Another congregation asked that the frequency of the chapter be reduced from once a week to once a month. The Holy See replied that it was to be held twice a month. Another recently approved set of pontifical constitutions reads as follows: Four times a year, preferably during the Ember Weeks, the local Superior shall hold a chapter of affairs with the members of her Community. At this chapter she shall give public ex-hortations which will help improve the spirit of the house and eliminate abuses which may have crept in; she shall discuss matters of discipline and of the apostolate with all the Sisters of the house; she shall recommend to the prayers of the Sisters the requests of petitioners and the welfare of benefactors. At this chapter, if any Sister should wish to confess an ex-ternal fault against the Rule, Constitutions, and Customs, she may do so. The Superior shall impose a moderate and discreet penance. Separate chapters shall be held for Sisters in the Juniorate and the Novitiate. Cloister: Associated Topics Companion. The Holy See continues to approve con-stitutions stating that sisters are ordinarily not to go out 4. 4, 4- Holy See VOLUME 25, 1966 601 ÷ ÷ ÷ ]oseph F. Gallen, ~, SJ. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS go~ without a companion. The Sacred Congregation of Reli-gious approved also the following two forms of the same article: Sisters are permitted to make visits and to leave the house without a companion when, in the judgment of the superior, there is a just cause for doing so. -- No Sister shall go out without the permission of her Superior, who should if possible send~a Sister or some trustworthy person as her companion. The 'Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Eaith approved a wide form of the same article: "Particu-lar circumstances or the customs of a country may require that the Superior assign a companion to the Sister who goes out." Going out at night. One set of constitutions approved by' the Holy See in 1964 enacts: "With permission of the higher superior, the sisters may attend evening meetings and programs of a religious, professional, or educational nature." Excessive remoteness from seculars. The excessive remoteness from conversation and contact with seculars inculcated in many constitutions and customs was the reason that motivated one congregation to request that the italicized words in the following article be deleted. The request was approved by the Sacred Congregation. Finally, in order to observe chastity more perfectly, they shall keep the rules of modesty and enclosure exactly, shun familiarities, abstain from conversation with seculars as much as possible, and frequently pray to God that their hearts, being filled with divine grace, may be kept pure and pleasing unto Him. ' A liberalizing,o[ the following type of custom is evi-dently in accord with reasonable norms of adaptation: The Sisteis are permitted to eat with others when this seems feasible. Sisters from other religious communities may b~ invited to eat within the enclosure. -- If refreshments are offered to visitors, the Sisters shall not eat or drink with them. Mee(ing o[ Discalced Carmelites The superior general of the Dis~alced Carmelites made the following petition to the Sacred Congregation of Reli-gious: Many Monasteries of Discalced Carmelite Nuns in the United States have mani[ested the desire o[ an Assembly o[ Prioresses, which would afford them the opportunity of an ex-change of ideas on the more urgent and actual problems of cloistered, Teresian life, especially what refers to the forma-tion of young Religious. In consideration of which and in compliance with the common desire of having the Superiors of the Order to direct the undertaking, the said Superior General requests: 1. authorization for all the Superioresses of the Monasteries of Discalced Carmelite Nuns in the United States to attend the proposed Assembly with a companion, provided such an attendance be freely accepted; 2. authorization for the Superior General to preside over the Assembly personally or by means of a Delegate. The Sacred Congregation replied: In virtue of the faculties granted by His Holiness, the Sacred Congregation for Religious, taking the above into account, benignly grants the favors as requested, provided the Local Ordinaries to whom it pertains have no objection and n. 23 of the "Inter Cetera" is to be observed. The Nuns are to observe the law of enclosure in the place, where they assemble, in as far as possible. Afterwards a report of the proceedings is to be sent to the Sacred Congregation for Reli-gious. Junior Pro[essed The ~ollowing article is pertinent to the frequent dis-cussion on an excessive separation of the junior professed: The junior professed Sisters are under the supervision of a Mistress in a separate section of the house. They are not, how-ever, to be totally segregated from the senior professed Sisters. Indults o[ Secularization The Sacred Congregation of Religious has, in some cases, replied to a petition for dispensation from the vows that an induh of secularization was not expedient, and has substituted an induh of exclaustration, e.g., for one or two years. See REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, 24 (1965), 475-6. The wording in the latest indults of secularization is the following: "This rescript has no validity if not accepted by the petitioner within ten days from receiving communication of it." And see REWEW VOR REL~GIOt~S, 15 (1956), 231--3. Charitable Subsidy The Sacred Congregation of Religious, is wont to cor-rect the wording on the competent local ordinary in the article on the charitable subsidy to the following: If any professed sister who leaves or is dismissed was received without a dowry or with an insufficient dowry and cannot provide for herself out of her own resources, the congregation is obliged in charity tO give her what is necessary to return safely and becomingly to her home, and to provide her, accord-ing to natural equity, for a certain period with the means of a respectable livelihood. This is to be determined by mutual consent, or in the case of disagreement, by the local ordinary o[ the [ormer religious (cc. 643, § 2; 647, § 2, 5°; 652, § 3). In a congregation that does not impose a dowry, the beginning of this article reads: "If any professed sister who leaves or is dismissed can-not provide for herself out of her own resources, the ÷ Prtwtice of Holy See VOLUME 25, 1966 603 4, 4- Joseph F. Gal/en, $.1. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 6O4 congregation . " See REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUSi 15 (1956), 253-6. General Chapter Substitutes [or ex officio members of a chapter. While constitutions frequently, especially if more recently ap-proved, prescribe substitutes for the provincial at the general chapter and for the superior of larger houses at the general or provincial chapter, it is not the practice to enact substitutes for other ex officio members, e.g., for a general or' provincial councilor at a general or provin-cial chapter. Such substitution has been approved in one or two constitutions, e.g.: The superior general with the consent of her council shall provide a substitute for an ex officio member other than a general councilor who may be legitimately prevented from attending the general chapter. If there be question of a general councilor, the general council elects her substitute. -- If it should be necessary to replace an ex officio member legitimately prevented from taking part in the[provincial. ].chapter, the provincial superior shall provide a subsutute, w~th the con-sent of her council and the approval of the superior general with the advice of her council. The following article was proposed to the Sacred Con-gregation of Religious in 1965. The Sacred Congregation deleted the part in italics. Should a provincial superior be unable to attend the general chapter her place shall be taken by the first provincial councilor. In the case of any other ex officio member of the general chapter the substitute shall be chosen by the superior general with the consent ol her council. Ex officio membership [or regional superiors. Several congregations have given regional superiors ex officio membership in the general chapter, which to me is an evidently sound and prudent policy (See REvmw fOR RELIGXOUS, 21 [1962], 414). Delegates for six years. One congregation elects its delegates as follows: The delegates are elected for six years, that is, until the next regular meeting of the general chapter for elections. Once elected they remain as delegates for any chapter which may be convoked before the next regular meeting of the general chapter. Number o[ elected delegates. A few congregations foI-low the principle, of equality in number for their provin-cial or general chapter, e.g.: "There shall be as many delegates as there are members who attend the [General] Chapter by right of office." Another congregation has a similar norm: "The number of delegates to the Provin-cial Chapter will be at least one more than the number of members by right." In another revision approved in 1964 there are five elected delegates from each province: The number of delegates to be elected to the General Chapter is two Superiors and three non-Superiors from each province, or in the case of a Vice-Provincial Chapter, one Superior and two non-Superiors from each vice-province. One large congregation Of sisters has an unusual norm for the number of delegates from each province. The provincial chapter is composed of the provincial superior, councilors, secretary, and treasurer and, roughly, one delegate, superior or subject, for every fifty sisters of perpetual vows in the province but, in houses of less than fifty sisters of perpetual vows, one. delegate for every fifty to seventy sisters of perpetual vows. The provincial chapter then elects delegates according to the following norm of a revision approved in 1964: The Provincial Chapter when meeting for electing delegates to the General Chapter, shall elect by relative majority of votes one-third of its number as delegates and two substitute delegates. The Provincial Superior who is an ex officio delegate is not included in this number. The delegates from the provinces and vice-provinces in another change of constitutions approved in 1964 are: 6. Two delegates from each Province and one delegate from each Vice Province. 7. One added delegate for 200 Sisters and fraction of 200 for those Provinces having more than 300 Sisters. 8. Of the principal Superior of the Motherhouse

Issue 20.2 of the Review for Religious, 1961. ; JOHN B. WAIN, M.D. Psychological Problems in Religious Life In the religious press it is becoming more common to find articles on the psychological problems of the dedi-cated life, but itis unusual to read any contributions from doctors. As one who has been privileged to associate closely with religious and to care for them over many years, this writer feels that his observations may be of some use to the great army of admirable, holy, an_.d well balanced priests, brothers, and sisters when they have to help the small but important group of priests and religious who suffer from nervous disorders. The layman gains the im-pression that psychological difficulties are some of the greatest problems which religious have to face; indeed, unspoken misgivings about this matter may be partly re-sponsible for the shortage of vocations. This may operate in two ways. Parents are willing to let their children face martyrdom at the hands of the pagans, but they have their reservations about the unnecessary crosses to be taken up daily in the community or in the rectory, Children who have suffered injustice from a neurotic teacher will eschew the risk of joining that order or congregat.ion when they grow up. The price of retaining one such maladjusted person in the community without giving him the proper care and attention might be the loss of twenty vocations from among successive classes of pupils and the estrange-ment of an equal number of tentative converts. As a starting point for discussion on the matter, two broad generalisations will be offered. First, there is too much neurosis among religious. Second, much of it is avoidable or preventible. These are merely clinical im-pressions. It is impossible to assess accurately the incidence of nervous disease in any group or nationality; neverthe-less, confirmation of the above two ideas can be easily found in conversations with Catholic doctors and'religious nurses. All such persons agree about the existence of neu-÷ ÷ John B. Wain, M.D., is a ph},sician with man.}, years of experience m treating men and women religious. VOLUME 20~ 1961 8! 4. 4. 4. John B. Wain, M.D. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 82 rosis among religious men and women. One doctor who visits a man's religious institution of thirty members states that in the weekly sick parade there, there are always at least ten with inconsequential complaints. It is a fair observation to say that every community, however small, has at least one neurotic problem to deal with. This situation is most unsatisfactory. The energies of the supe-rior are dissipated in managing the misfit, and the unity of the community is endangered. The saddest task for the doctor is to institute .psychiatric treatment for one who has suffered a nervous breakdown in Christ's service. Sometimes these patients are nursed along for years for fear that their state may reflect badly on the order's way of life. This may be so, but it is a disastrous policy to delay seeking psychiatric help in the hope that the dis-order will remit spontaneously. Sister M. William Kelley1 in a unique article has given the incidence of hospitalized mental illness among re-ligious sisters in the United States. Her paper was notable for its courage in facing up to the problem and for the fact that the main religious mental hospitals refused to cooperate with her in the investigation. This unwilling-ness to submit the problem to discussion is not uncommon, even though such discussion would be productive of great good. The truth cannot harm us. Sister William found that, when compared with women in secular life, religious suffered from a higher incidence of psychotic (particularly schizophrenic) and psychoneurotic disorders, even though because of prior selection they have less mental deficiency, and chronic brain syndromes. She concluded that pre-psychotic personalities may be attracted to the religious life on the basis of what they think it will do for their un-satisfied desires and that the increase of mental disorder among active religious may be due to factors of stress such as overcrowded classes and understaffed hospitals. Two suggestions are made by the present writer for the prophylaxis of this state of affairs. More~importance should be given to p~ychological matters in the selection of seminarians, postulants, and novices; and there could be a systematic reduction in factors causing nervous stress in the lives of professed religious. A common impression is that many of these psychiatric patients enter religion without adequate psychological assessment, Often the family history of mental disease is ignored, or the personal history of previous nervous br2akdown is not taken seri-ously enough. These should be serious contraindications to acceptance, although it must be admitted that Blot ¯ Sister M. William Kelley, I.H,M., "The Incidence of Hospitalized, Mental Illness among Religious Sisters in. the United States," The American Journal of Psychiatry, 115 (i958-1959), 72-75. and Galimard2 give the impression that such unsuitable candidates may sgm_etimes-be,considered for religioys life. - . - It should n~t l~e too difficult to introduce some f~)rm of " psychological testing for all applicants to seminaries.and to religious life. The Califoi'nia ~'~gt of "Mental' ~V~ity;_ the DifferentialApti.tude Test, or the He.nmqn-Nelson test. could be used to gauge general intelligence, while.,~ per~" son~ality profile of the applican.ts.c, ou_ld be achieved by,:~he use of the Edwards PersOnal. Prgference Schedule,~ the Guilford-Zimmerman Temp.eram~enL Survey, _or t,he Mid-_ nesota.Per.sonality Scale. These tests can be .proctored by" persons.with no special tra_i~nin~g alth,0ugh the~,i~erpreta; tion of them should be en~.tr, u~ted to.some0ne with training in, psychology. When" these tests mncover a, Oos's'ib~, sig-nificant_ area Qf defect in the appl!cant, he can be refer.red, to a competent psycho~logis~.fo.r further examination be-fore he is accepted by the seminary or rellgaous lnsutute. Masters and mistre.sse, s of novices should have some specialized tr~fining in psychologiEal work so that they. can recognize early the sy.mptoms, of maladjustment and dismiss such subjects from the community b~'fore they disturb its peace and b'~lance. O~n~ common type. w~ may be mistakenly admitted-is ~the girl ~ho stays on at the convent boardin~school until.the age of nineteen or twenty, unable to make up her-mihd ab6ut°the. future.i This is a serious form of. immaturity,.wh~ose progn6sis, in religign, is poor. The admission~ of youths and girls the age of" sixteen also involves the°risk bf, ac~eptii~g vo-cations which, are_ based.on~,immature co~ncep, ts, while late entrants tend to.be too.,, independent to acce.pt.religi~ous,. obedience. -. ,~,o , - - Much could be done.to reduce the psych,olo.gical stresses which are not an integral par, t. of religious life, the .m. o~,t potent weapon being the fosterin~ of a warm pa#~nta,.1 love between superiors and subjects. Accepting poverty,'chas-~ tity, obedience, and the in'es~apable difficulties d~ common~ life involves sufficient.sacrifice without creating ar'fificial' burdens. In. Oiscu~.s!ng~ .~eligi0tis vows, even-in a st~irit of humility, the doctor ,strays outside his specialty; ~bu~ the mtenuon here ~slto point out thexr medxcal repercus: sion~ in mentally disturbed p~ople. Pov~r~y,, ig iiaainly spirit/aM "concept of defachm~nt° from ear~h'l~ ~hxuri~ but not- the denial of the basic necessftids of-life. Religious. should lead a life-of.lfrugal' omfort,~not one 6f.pehur, y, hunger, and.,privati~;n i~aless~h~ seek these as%specifiC, penances.St. Therese of Lisieuxost.ated that h~r mare cross in the convent was bearing the cold, an indictment of.'tl~e insufficient heating. She died Of t(~berculosis at the ~geof. twent~-foui', when the hot, salt blood welled u'p i~i'to i;i"e~ ~ Ren~ Blot. M.D. and Pierre G~limard, M.D., Medicid Guide to Vocations (Westminister: Newman, 1955). 4. Psychological Problems " VOLUME 20, 196~. John B. Wain, M.D. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 84 mouth~"she was happy to think how soon she would be in heaven. For her it was a saintly death; for her superior it was a comment" on the neglect of the community's health. St. Berhadette also suffered hardships in the convent and died of the same disease at thirty-five. Even now tuber-culosis is a risk for all young people in religion. Is it pos-sible that the vow of poverty has been misapplied? Chastity is the glory of the religious life and nothing can be done to make its acceptance any easier, but efforts should be made to eliminate false standards of purity which degenerate into prudery and unreasonable con-cepts of modesty. Gynecological complaints are often suffered'.for years before medical advice is sought, and maligfl~ant tumors are not reported until they are in-operable. The fact that some religious are not permitted to attend the reception of the sacrament of matrimony is a relic of Jansenism which may give offence to lay people and connotes false apprehensions about the nature of religious chastity. The kingdom of heaven suffers violence and only the violent can bear it away. Those who do violence to their own natures by taking religious vows must expect some repercussions, but these lose some of their force if they are discussed with frankness, tact, and objectivity. The deprivation of the consolations of married love and of childbearing mugt affect sisters particularly; as a result of this inner conflict between natural instincts and the ideals of the religious life, some may unwittingly suffer a suc-cession of functional, as distinct from organic, illnesses. Atypical ~ase will find that she is becoming irritable and depressed; she finds her daily work an intolerable bur- ° den and her sisters' foibles which she previously ignored b~cbme opl~ressive to her. She loses her appetite, becomes thin, sleeps badly, and has palpitations and chest pains suggestive of heart disease. She may have to accept stronger temptations against purity. This is reminiscent of the yceriasriss o wf mhiacrhri emd alinfey, ams ahrarsi abgeeens peoxipn~etr_ie~ndc~ eo uatf tbeyr Labecoluetr ctqe.n8 At this stage in life the first long struggle is over, the couple have rea~he~l financial stability, and' the difficult years of having several babies in tie house have passed. Both partners see the first ~vidences of age, and, realizing that degenerative diseases will start"~within another decade, some will desperately seek the excitement of youth. They must face temptations to ihfidelity, pride, and avarice. In religion some experience a similar crisis. After ten years they reach a stage of achievement and the gecurity that comes from seniority, but they find that youth has im- 8Jacques Leclercq, Marriage a Great Sacrament (Fresno: ~,cademy Library Guild, 1953). perceptibly~ slipped ~away and' they ask themselves if their vocation is really the right way of life. If they can hold on bravely with the assistance of prayer and the syinph-thetic undergtanding of an enlightened superior, they will pass through the storm ~nto the calm and contentment of a well integrated religious life. The menopause brings the game stresses as it does for lay women, and sisters should be advised to expect~ hot flushes, headaches, irritability, and depressions. Many of 'these symptoms can be helped by treatment. Younger sisters can be reassur.ed about the problems of dysmenor-rhoea, and premenstrual, tension. It is probably not uncommon for religious and lay people to experiencd sexual feelings at the quiet_ times of recollecuon anffat commumon. Thxs was referred to'w~th characteristic delica.cy., by St. Te,resa. of Avila when asked for advice on the matter' by hdr brother Rodrigo who was making his first steps~'in the mystical lif$. She implied that she also. had experienced t6~sefe~lings but that th~y disappeared when they were ignqred. "In God's design the happiness of the married life must be a pale shadow of the ecstas~ of the mystical Union~oand similar physiologi~M reactions accompany each. If these factg are uriderstood, there will be less distress for gqddlbeople who liave th~se otherwise d.is.turbing e~pe~iences. Obedience presents so many problems that the only unfailing guides are the'vi'rt~es of prudence and ~ha~ity. It is a necessary vow l~c~use only an austere':discipllne can lead to the full development of the strong personality which will accept sacrifices and will persevere in the re-ligiou~ vocatidn. It is falsely applied, however, if it de: stroys a sense of personal responsibility and initiative and if the command seems'to be an insult to the human dignity Of the subj~.kt. The essence of obedience is the surrender of the will; it is impgssible to surrender the intellect. It is unfortunate that an ekample of Obedience commonly quoted is that of St. Francis of Assisi who planted cabbages upside down. The saint is to be admired but not necessarily emulated. A young novice saw his master of novices scattering his carefully swept rubbish about the yard. When taked with untidiness, his acciden-tally acquired knowledge enabled him to accept the rebuke with apparent humility. If he had protested, his future in religion might have been prejudiced. It should be pos-sible to test virtue without having recourse to methods involving injustice, untruth; or deviations from the rule of charity. The end result of imposing an unre'asonable obedience is the fostering of immaturity in subjects and the formation of a type of religious who is almost inca-pable of making simple decision's or arranging anything outside the narrow cgmpass of his daily life. This is what 4, PPsryocbhloel~ongsical VOLUME 20, 1961 85 ÷ ÷ ÷ John B. Wain, M.D. REVIEW FOR REI.IGIOU$ 86 irreverent clerics refei: to as "holy helplessness." The re-ligious life should ensourage the flowering of the com-plete personality in imitation of Christ and our Lady; it s ould produce'cultured.men and women, full of grace, strength, and inner peace. In this connection it is often stated that in religion men find their personalities while women lose theirs. Why should there be this difference? Many avoidable burdens arise from an undue rigidity of ttfe rule. A certain flexibility is desirable to adapt European customs to hfe ~n~ other geographical areas and-to make allowance for the changes of circumstances that" characterize the twentieth century. A sister I kno~ was unable to read the Confessions of St. Augustine be-cause the rule forbade taking books'from the public li-brary. This typ.e of r~striction exposes religious life t6 ridi-cule. Neither would the dignity of sisters suffer if they were to eat in public and to travel alone. There are certain physiological norms which the average "i~erson must bbey; accordingly, it should be the rule for mgst religious to have a minimum of seven hours sleep and not to work for more than twelve hours a d.ay ~(including in this the time necessary for the proper fulfilment of the prescribed religious and spiritual exer'cises of each da~). ~When recreation is tak.en, some relaxation of the artifi- 'ciality which has obtained in the past would do much good and would not harm the spirit of the 6rder or congrega-tion. Particular friendships ha,~e tr~ditionaliy been pro-scribed, bht this should not exclude those i~atural affinities which are felt by compatible personalities. These if fos-tered are a great consolation" to the parties and would not destroy the unity of the group, nor would they develop into a sinister relationship. Our Lord Himself encouraged a close friendship with St. John. , With the exception of enclosed 9rd~ers, ~ome reasonable access of parents to children "c'ould.~ well be encouraged, especially in times of illness oOr death. A regulation whereby a religious may not go to his~own parent's fun.eral, but may go to anyone else's, could well be rescinded. A1- "though the habit is only a small a~pect of cbnventual life, -somre lessons can;be drawn fro~a.]t. While possessing a certain antique charm, it is indicht~ive. ,of an orientation towards the past; and to those outside thd Ch~:~rch it sug-gests that the wearers do n_ot face up to and take part in modern life. The other n0t_able f~& is tha( the request of Pope Plus XII for modernisation of the habit fell to a grea{ extent upon deaf ears. Apart from some minor ad-justments which are obvious only to the initiate, the dress is unchanged. This is largely because of the innate con; servatism of women and the fakul.{y of fiabituat]o~n;o eact one thinks that members o,f every o.ther community a.nd the Salvation Army~look absurd. The times call for re-jection of the whole concept of what a religious habit should be and the deyelopment of a new dress. Just as clerics have rightly abandoned tonsure, so the cutting of the hair of religious~r~men could be restricted to a token or symbolical gesture, find the headdress discarded. Some nursing sisters with covered' ears are almost unable, to take blood pressure r.eadings Or t'6" i]]te~ to the fetal "l~eart. "Dur-ing the recent war priests in the armed services did not suffer loss of dignity fr6m adopting officer's dress; on the other hand, the pri,est workers"went too far in their adap-tation. In the stress of mc~dern living regular alternation of activity and rest is necessary; therefore annual holidays should be provided for. Only very wooden personalities can go bn for years withoiat variation in their routine of life. Much of the stress of the religious life results from at-tenipting to do too much, working too long, and being sent out on active duties with insufficient training. The Sister Formation Conferences"aim to correct this latter undesir-able trend. Al-though it may cause a temporary shortage of persorinE1, it mustpay dividends in the long run. The laborers have been too few since Christ first uttered th~se words, butrushing r~ligious through their training will not solve the eternal problem. The Church has tradi- (ionally been a bad employer, and the worst sufferers have been religious themselves. Their services are so valuable that they should have better welfare services than other employers progide. In this corine'ction it is both amusing and instructive to recall St. Teresa's chiding 6ur Lord for her misfortunes: "Is it any Wonder, Lord, that You have so few friends when people see h6w badly you treat ~tour chosen ones!" The beneficent influence of good art, even on unsophis-ticated rrlinds, is rarely ~u~ilized; it is common to see a poor standard of iriterior decoration, and pictorial art in convents and rectories, even though church architecture has advanced to a gratifying degree. A reasonable access to secular literfiture would not be harmful if it broadens the experience of religious and gives them some wider a~- preciation of the problems their pupils must face when they leave school. Those assigned to menial tasks should have some e'asily attainable goals arranged for them so that their spirits will not be crushed by monotony and by the lack of any evidence of achievement. ~uperiors have :the additional, worry of finance, ad-ministratiofi, and personnel management, for which they have Usually received no training. With only native common serise as a guide, they must learn with a trial and error method. One way to lift this secular burden would be to provide experienced lay advisers so" that the superior, could concentrate on his apostolate; this would, o~ course, involve som~ surrender of autonomy. A common error is to attribute fieurotic behavior to ÷ ÷ ÷ Psychological Problems VOLUME 20, 1961 '4. '4. ,4. John B. Wain, M.D. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 88 a poor spiritual life~ and by that same token to expect that a more intense spiritual life'wilL cure a neurosis. A teaching brother was seen to change from a happy, agree-able person to one who was morose, withdrawn, and sus-picious. He went 'to the sacraments only infrequently and was given to outbursts of anger with his pupils. He was advised oto pray more, but this was expecting a miracle from grace. His main need was for .psychiatric treatment, which disclosed that his father had died in circumstances which he had always suspected were suicidal. He found himself having strange compulsive feelings when he looked out 'of high windows, and then he became scrupulous about matters of purity which he would normally have ignored. In the dark night of his soul, he felt abandoned by God and his community. With proper psychotherapy he recovered. Is this problem worth making a fuss about? Some would say that the status quo should be preserved; that the trials of religious life are the crosses which God in-tends for these souls; that He chooses the weak and foolish things of this world to confound the wise; that, according to Thurston,4 many of the saints and stigmatics were neurotics; that the command of the superior is God's will for the subject; and that in his handling of the prob-lems of his community the superior is given the grace of st.ate.All these arguments imply that infallibility is a widely diffused gift instead of a very limited one. In ac-cepting everything as God's will, people rarely draw,the distinction between His direct will and His permissive will, and therefore they do not admit that there can be mistakes or blunders in religious decisions. Is it impertinent for the layman to speak when he has no firsthand knowledge of religious life? In the spiritual health of the Mystical Body the layman is vitally con-cerned; moreover he is looking ahead to the welfare of his own children if and when they perceive a calling to enter religion. An investigation into the religious psy chological environment on a diocesan basis would produce fruitful results, but it would have to be undertaken a~ a cathartic exercise. The best religious, whose opinions, would be of the greatest value, are the very ones who l would count it a virtue to remain silent and unco.mplain-~ ing. How to integrate democratic processes into an author-I itarian governing structure is a difficult problem. C0nsid-I eration of all these factors influencing mental stabilityI renews our admiration for the great numbers of altruistici men and women who gaily sacrifice so many of the goodl things of life to make the total gift of themselves to God.I ~Herbert Thurston, s.J., The Physical Phenomena o! Mysticism (Chicago: Regnery, 1952). HENRY WILLMERING, SiJ. Charles Felix Van Q ickenborne "Father Charles van Quickenborne," writes Father Peter de Smet, "was the first Jesuit priest who appeared in the valley of the Misissippi after the reestablishment of the Society of Jesus. He was a.man full of zeal.for the salva-tion of souls. The conversion of the Indians w~as, impar-ticular; 'the object of his predilection and of his prayers. Long will his name be held in benediction, and his mem-ory celebrated in the places which h;id the happiness of receiving the fruits of his numerous labors,, and of his truly apostolic virtues." This commendation is from the pen of one of the seven novices who accompanied Father van Quickenborne to Missouri in 1823 to establish the nucleus of the Society of Jesus in the Middle West. Two years before, Peterde Smet and six Companions left their' native Belgium secretly to becomemissionaries to the Indians in North America. For this purpose they entered the Society in October, 1821, at Whitemarsh, Maryland, where shortly before Father van Quickenborne had been appointed master of novices. Unforeseen circumstances brought the group to the Indian country before their period of.probation was completed. The Right Reverend Louis Dubourg, bishop of' New Orleans and Upper Louisiana, had many'Indian tribes residing in his vast diocese, and he was anxiously seeking for missionaries to convert them. The success of the Jesuits in this work before the suppression of the Society prompted him to appeal to the Father General of the Society for ;help. He made a like appeal to the Superior of the Maryland mission and offered as an inducement the gift of a large, productive farm not far from the growing city of St. Louis. With the scanty number of available priests at their disposal, it seemed impossible to promise the bishop any help in the near future. Then Divine Providence intervened. In 1823 the finan, cial difficulties of every house" in the Maryland mission ÷ ÷ The Reverend Henry Willmering, Associate Editor of the REVIEW is stationed at St. Mary'S College, St. Marys~ Kansas. ~ VOLUME 20, 1961 89 REVIEWFORRELIGIOUS became so acute that the superior and his consultors seriously considered clo~ing the Whitemarsh novitiate and dismissing the novices. When told of this decision, Father van Quickenborne reminded the superior of Bishop Du-bourg's offer and of the readiness of himself and his novices to go to the Indian territory and work for the conversion of the natives. Accordingly, a concordat was entered into between the Bishop of New Orleans and Father Charles Neale, Supe_rior of the Maryland Province, to establish a novitiate of the Society at Florissant, Missouri, on condi-tion that, after the no,~i~es finished their spiritual and theological training, they would devote themselves to the apostolate of the Indians. The exodus from Whitemarsh was in the spring of 1823. The party consisted of two priests, seven novices, three lay-brothers, and three families of negro slaves. Two wagons carried the baggage across, the mountains to Wheeling on the. Ohio River. The young mi_ssionaries made the journey on foot across the Alleghenies. In Wheel- Ang they procured two flat boats; on one of them they placed the negroes and baggage, while the other served them as their 'floating.monastery.' They-drifted down the river day and night, stopping only to procure provisions. Religious exercises were. continued during the voyage as circumstances allowed. At Louisville, Kentucky, they landed their baggage, and a local pilot directed their craft over the falls of the river. At the foot of the falls they re-embarked and continued their river trip as far as, Shawnee-town, Illinois, Thence the missionaries made the last 150 miles through swamp land on foot, while a river,s_teamer carried ~their baggage, upstream to St. Louis, where they arrived on the last day of May. The entire trip lasted ,fifty days. " o The-homestead, which they were to inhabit on the, out- ,skirts of the village of Florissant, was a wretched log cabin, with a single room, measuring sixteen by eighteen feet, arid surmounted by a gable roof, so low that one could' not stand erect in,the attic beneath it. At a short distance from the house were ~two sheds, one had served as a pig pen/the other as a tool shed. The newcomers ~ere a bit disap-pointed, to find such primitive quarters, and the hardships encountered during the first few months"proved to,, be too great.for one novice andoaqay-brother~ who left during the summer of 1823. The others adapted themselves to the situation in a truly religious and missionary spirit.,The six noyices and two lay-brothers slept on the floor of the attic, while the single, room below was divided by a cur-tain, ,one side .being reserved as. the domestic chapel, the other as the living room for the priests. The.first shed was by turns study hall, classroom and r~fectory; the second served as kitchen and domicile for the negroes. ,, Much greater~ would .have been~the discomfort of.the Jesuit ,~communit'y had not Divine Providence assisted them through the generosity of~,Blessed Philippine Du-chesne and:her community. °The Religious of the Sacred ,Heart had moved to'Flonssant tliree years earher?~where they condudted a small boarding schbol.Often they de; prived themselves of what little they had to send it to:their neighbors. Furnithre, bedding, cooking utensils~.and~pro-visions were generously offered to the' Fathers and novices during the~,first~evere wifiter. ' "~ To relieve the acfite housing problem, the Jesuits ~be-gan work.immediately by collectin~building'ma_terials. Stone wag procured from a nearby quai-ry, timber,was cut and shaped, and when Ml,was ready a.,second.story, and spacious annex were added to the house. Ttiese hard~,and continuous .activities h~ever interrupted the ~spirituab ex-ercisEs. of the novitiate; but the.cold weather.and frequent snow storms put. a stop~to,~the labor till spring. Tl~e new additions were completed in June, and~ after thednterior ~had been remodelled, life became more bearable. . . -'Th( leader and guiding spirit of~this enterprise was a man,thirty-five years of age. Charles Felix_van Quicken-borne was,born in the village of Peteghem,'twelve miles w~st'of Ghent, on January 21;, 1788. His first studieswere made in Deynze; "then he attended the academy in Ghent, and finally entered the diocesan seminary in thatl city. From the first h.i~ talents and application~merited high praise. He was ordainedto the priesthood in 1812, and was appointed to teach the classics in the preparatory semi-nary of Roeselare: When, shortly after, Napoleon,,closed allthe seminaries in:F.tafiders and drhfted the stu'dents of military age, Father .Charles Was appointed vicar of the large ~Zalloon parish',of St. Denijs near Coutrais. Being guided by the wise counsels of the sain~tly dean, Frans Corselis, whose virtues he often-ext011ed, to'his novices,in later.years, Father Charles, administered the parish .@ith great success, and,the peopl~e were sorry to, see him resign his charge in.order-to enter the newly opened. Jesuit novitiate at Rumbeke. He arrived there on April 14, 1815. A hostile Dutch govei'nment drove the novice~from "this quiet retreat shortly after, but they were" given shelter by'the highly esteemed Bishop of Ghent, Maurice de Broglie, who placed his episcopal.residence at DistOlber-gen, on the outskitts of Ghent, at their disposal; and there Father Charles finished his two years 6f probation.:~He pronounced his first .vows as a Jesuit in April, A817 . ' Having read the account of .the Reductions of Paraguay, the'young Jesuit~ was eager to go to North America and de-vote his life to the conversion of- the Indians/Even as a novice he begged Father General, Thaddaeus';Brz0zoW-ski, for this~mission. Instead he was assigned~to teach othe Henry W il imering, $.~. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 92 classics in th~ academy~of Roesalare, which appointment he received with resignation to the divine will. Then, un-expectedly, he was given permission to go to America. He. lost no time in making his preparations, and during the last week of October, 1817, he set sail for the United States and arrived, in. Baltimore towards the end of December. His first year in America was spent learning English at Georgetown College. Then came the appointment as master of novices. We can imagine with what trepidation he assumed this responsible office, he who but two years before had completed his own novitiate. He realized.fully his inexperience and knew that he was better fitted to do missionary work. But once again he resigned himself to God's will and trusted that help from above would not be wanting to him. In November, 1819, the novices were moved from Georgetown to Whitemarsh, Maryland. There, in addition to being novice master, Father Charles was the superior of the community, manager of a large plantation and of the negroes who worked it, missionary to the surrounding communities, carpenter, mason and builder. He erected a handsome stone church on the no-vitiate grounds and built a brick church at Annap01is, At the latter place, he said Mass every fortnight. He was known to visit regularly the sick and poor of the vicinity and devoted considerable time to the instruction of the negroes. For a while he attended to these multiple duties alone, but later he received a faithful helper in the person of Father~ Peter Timmermans, also a Belgian, and a most amiable and humble priest. He came to America with Father Charles Nerinckx in 1817, and entered the Society of, J~sus that same year. Father Peter took charge of the novices whenever Father Charles went on. one of his many missionary expeditions. In 1821, Father Nerinckx re-turned after a second trip to Eurbpe with another group of Belgian students, seven of whom entered the Society at Whitemarsh, and were the group who migrated to Floris-sant, where they pronounced their first vows on October 10, 1823. On finishihg the novitiate, they immediately began the study of.philosophy. One of their number, Peter Ver-haegen, had nearly completed all his seminary studies at Mechlin before coming to America. Accordingly he was appointed to assist Father van Quickenborne as instructor. Due to a lack of textbooks, the course in philosophy was rather superficial and was brought to a close with a public disputation in August, 1824. Two months earlier, on Mgy 31, Father Peter Timmer-marts died. This left Father Charles as the only priest at the Florissant mission. The multiple duties he had taken upon himself at Whitemarsh were again thrust upon him. Here, ~too, he was superior of the.community, chaplain and confessor for the,Religious of the Sacred0Heart, pastor of foti~ parishes, those of Florissant, St. Charles, Dardenne and Portage des Sioux, instructor of philosophy, manager of a large farm, and buildSr:"N0 wonder that~ h~ was prostrated by repeated spells of sickness. 'Yet he never spared himself, and when duty called, he went out, no matter how bad he felt. Many urgent calls for help were sent to Rome and Maryland; yet it was only after a year and five months, when the superior was near death,~ that help came in the .person of Father Theodore de Theux. In October, 1824, the scholastics began the study, of theology. The superior .had no choice but to appoint~ Peter Verhaegen instructor of dogma, and John Elet in-, structor of Sacred Scripture, while he reserved for himself, the courses in moral and pastoral theology. Needless to say, this arrangement was very :unsatisfactory to all con-cerned. After the arrival of Father de ~heux, matters im-proved a little since he took over the courses.in dogma and scripture. The first to be ordained, early-in 1826, were John Baptist Smedts and Peter Verhaegen. The following year the superior of Maryland visited the mission, where he held a comprehensive examination of all the candidates in theology, after which the remaining four were ordained just before the Christmas: holid_ays, in 1827, by Bishop Joseph Rosati, in the church at Florissant. The last period of a Jesuit's training, the third year of probation, wa_s made by all during the first half of 1828. On the eighth.of January they began the thirty day retreat under the direction of Father van Quickenborne who, in the peculiar circumstances, was~both tertian and tertian master. The retreat closed on February 7, and a few days later each tertian was assigned to give ,a retreat, a mis-sion, or take charge of a parish for one month. On their return .to Florissant, Father, Charles explained the Con-stitutions of.the Society, commented on the decrees of gen-eral congregations, and pointed out the approved methods of giving the Spiritual Exercises. One of the tertians praised very highly the quality and practical nature of these instructions. The tertianship ended on July.31, feast of St. Ignatius Loyola. Meanwhile, their purpose in coming to the West was by no means forgotten. True, the promise to send mission-armies to the Indian country within two years could not be kept, due partially at least to the untimely death of Father Timmermans, and more particularly to the fact that no additional priests came from Europe or Ma.ryland. A be-ginning, however, was made-when in 1824 Father Charles opened a school for Indian boys and Mother Duchesne started one for Indian girls. These two schools continued for a period of nearly seven years, and the progress made Fan O.uidumborne VOLUME 20, 1'961 ÷ ÷ ÷ Henry Wilimering, SJ. R~:VIEW FOR RELIGIOUS by the pupils~in Jearning :and piety merited favorable comments from visitors and also from :the Indiafi agents. But when' the pupils ,returned.to their tr.ibes; the.y wer~e deprived of all 'spiritual help and were' exposed to the superstitions and immorality' of (heir, people, and thus~ much of the ti'ainingo received at school was lost, To forestall this~'danger, Father Charles formulated a~ plan, patterned on the famous Reductions'of. Paraguay, of establishing Catholic Indian villages. Congress would be asked to appropriate a sum that would buy six thousand acres of land on the. outskirts of an Indian' settlement. Boys who graduated from 'the Jesuit school should' marry girls trained by the nuns. These couples would be given house and farm in the proposed village. The Indian agent should furnish the agricultural implements. One or two missionaries would live in the viIlage,' and care for the spiritual needs but al'so supervise the work done. The plan was approved by the president, but not by' Congress; so it was never realized b~ Father van Quickenborne. . .The failure of the Indian schools discouraged a number of the community, but not Father van Quickenborne, nor Father de Smet, Father Charles made two exploratory visits to the Indian country, the first in 1827; the second in the following year. On these journeys he addressed a num-ber of Osage and Iowa chiefs, baptized many infants, and made inquiries about starting missions among their peo-ple. When he ~found them favorable to his plans, he promised to send them. priests in the near future. He was eager to undertake the establishment of the~first mission himself, but another event intervehed whith thr'eatehed to delay the ope_ning of a.permanent Indihn mission for several years to come. -'o. Bishop Dubourg had opened a college in St. Louis 'in 1818, which had: a~ver~ precarious existence. No sooner had the Jesuits arrived in Missouri than an offer was made to'them to staff"the college; yet, until the six schoiastics were 6rdairied, this.was out of the question: In 1826 this college held its last session. At this point Bishop gosati; who had befriended the community gt Fl'orissant' from the start, again" urged that a new college be built and managed by the Jesuits, for which purpose' he offered ~a suitable plot of ~round just outside the city;' which had been donated to the bishop by Jeremiah Connors. As soon" as Father van Quiekenborne obtained permission from Rome,~ he started :building; and even before the structure was completed,' classes opened .on' November '2, 1829~ Father Verhae~e'n was appointed the first president, who with ~two other Fathers and afew externs (aughtten~ boarders .and thirty day scholars; but~within a few weeks' gime, the boarders increased "to thirty a~id the day scholars to 6ne hundred and twenty; During th6 first two years, the courses offered were those of a grammar school: In 1830,~.a course in Latin was added, and in 1832,.one in Greek. Father van Quickenborne _taught the Latin clas.s, Father de Theux, the Greek. When,the faculty was re-inforced by several priests and sc~holastics from :.Maryland, the school _quickly reached college lev~el, and in 1832, Father Verhaegen obtained,°by special act of the.Missouri legislature, a~ charter for the school un.der the title of 'St. Louis University,' with all the rights and prerogatives of a university. According to the terms of the concordat,of 1823, the Jesuits of Florissant were entrusted with the spiritual care of all Catholic families living in ce.ntral and northeastern Missouri. In 1828, Father Verreydt °was assign~ed, to. this work, which he carried.out witti~exemplary zeal. But.~n 1.830, Father van Quickenborne was~succeeded as superior of. the Missouri mission by Father de Theux; and' for the first time Father Charles seemed free to~ carry out his favorite project, to start a permanent mission among the Indians. Instead, he was told to take over Father Verreydt's missionary work. The reason for this is given by Father Garraghan, in The Jesuits o[ the Middle West: "The truth is that ~good Father van Quickenborne,' as his .Jesuit associat_es were fond of characterizing him, was a difficult_ person with whom towork. His zeal was boundless, with much about it of the heroic; his devotion to the cause of the In_dians, unflagging; , his personal piety, obvious to all;,but along with his in certain respects surpassing equipment as a missionary went limitations of temperament that unfitted him in,many ways to work successfully by the side of others. In° the social virtues he was often d%ficient. Silent, secretive, depressed and often gloomy in countenance, with a tendency to melancholy, despising personal com-forts an.d refusing them to others, difficult and exacting in business relations, not inviting confidence and, seldom winning it, he stood in many ways isolated from his fellow workers, a somewhat lonelyfigure in tl~e little Jesuit world in which he moved.''1 So great was his desire for living with. the Indians, and so persistent his'requests to his superiors, that finally in 1836:he was permitted to open a mission among the Kicka-poo. The previous summer he had made an :exploratory~ visit to the ~various tribes living nearest~the western bor-o ders of Missouriand0had come to the conclusion that the Kickapoo were the most eager., to embrace Christianity. In the fall,.he journeyed to Washington and contacted the 3ecretary of War, Lewis Cass, who authorized himto start 1 Gilbert J~ Garr~aghan, S.J., The Jesuit~ "of the Middle Unite~l $tates (New York: Anierica Press, 1938), Vol. I, p. 384. Van ~/~,o~ VOLUME 20, 1961 95 ÷ ÷ ÷ Henry Willmering, S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 96 a~school among the Kickapoo and promised a subsidy of $500 a year to maintain it. After making a begging tour the 'East, which netted about $1500, Father Charles was ready to open a mission a few miles above Fort Leaven-worth. He was assisted in this project by Father Christian Hoecken, and three lay-brothers, Andrew Mazella, Ed-mund Barry, and George Miles. The missionaries met with a cordial reception from the chiefs and people. A French trader, who lived with the tribe, put his house at their disposal, until they should build their own. Hardly had they settled down in their new quarters, when both priests were stricken with ill-ness. Father Charles had to stay in bed for a month. Worse yet, the Indian agent, Richard Cummings, would not permit' the Jesuits to build in the Kickapoo village. Not until General Clark sent word from St. Louis that permission had been given by Secretary Lewis Cass build ~a school among the Kickapoo, could the Jesuits erect a school, chapel, and residence. The head chief of the tribe, Pashishi, professed great eagerness to have the missionaries instruct the children and work for the conversion of his people. His influence, however; was considerably less than that of a notorious 'prophet,' named Kennekuk, who claimed to have received authority from the Great Spirit tostart a religion of own. For a while he manifested some interest in the teach-ings of Christianity but soon roused his followers to un-friendly demonstrations. He had so firm a hold on the minds of his people that once he took a hostile attitude toward the Jesuit missionaries, all hope of converting the tribe vanished. Two years of unremitting toil made very little impression on the Kickapoo, and neighboring tribes were so eager to have the missionaries teach their children that the former mission was abandoned and new one opened among the Pottawatomi, which proved eminently successful. But Father van Quickenborne was destined to have no part in it. His failing health and rigid disposition caused his superior to recall him in July, 1837. After a brief stay at St. Louis University, he went to Florissant to make his annual retreat. Next he proceeded to St. Charles and thence to Portage des Sioux, a village situated a few miles, north of St. Charles and near the junction of the Missouri~ and Mississippi rivers. Here he exchanged places with Father Verreydt, who went to the Indian country, while Father Charles became pastoy of this small parish. He had been only a few days in Portage when a bilious fever seized him. The last sacraments were administered to him, and on August 17, 1837, he breathed his last. His body, ac-companied by many parishioners, was interred in the cemetery in St. Charles but was later removed to the novitiate cemetery in Florissant. Father van Quickenborne was in a true sense a pioneer missionary, who labored zealously during fourteen years for the spiritual interests of both whites and Indians. Those who knew him intimately comment on his clear and orderly mind, his fluency in several languages, his accurate knowledge of theology, his eloquent discourses. He never spared himself in his efforts to assist others, and despite the rigorous attitude he at times assumed towards others, he was loved and admired by all who knew him. Since he trained the first members of the Missouri mission all by himself, he can justly be called the founder of the Jesuit establishments in the Midwest. The mission which he started became a vice-province in 1840, a province in 1863, which was divided into two provinces in 1928, and both: were again subdivided in 1955. These four provinces today have a total membership of more than 2500. They administer seven universities, ten colleges, twelve high schools, and eight retreat houses, and there are more than three hundred members in foreign mission work. John Gilmary Shea, the great historian of the North American missions, says: "To Father van Quickenborne, as founder of the vice-province of Missouri and its Indian missions, too little honor has been paid. His name is al-most unknown, ~yet few have contributed more to the edification of the white and the civilization of the red man, to the sanctification of all.''~ ~John Gilmary Shea, History o] the Catholic Missions among the Indian Tribes o] the United States, 1529-1854 (New York: Edward -Dunigan and Brother, 1855), p. 466. + + + ~'an Qugckenbome VOLUME 20, 1961 97 JOHN E. BECKER,S. J. We Have Seen His Glory: The Prologue to St. John ÷ ÷ .÷ John E. Becker, S.J., St. Mary's Colleg.e, St. Marys, Kansas, ~s an assistant editor of the REVtEW. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 98 In the beginning God created, heaven and earth In the beginning was the Word God's immense knowledge includes within itself His own infinite nature and all of the reality which He has given us and with which He surrounds us. Yet it is but one eternal and unchanging truth in God's mind. And when-ever He speaks, He speaks that one truth, Himself. But it is impossible for God to speak this immense truth, in the simple way He understands it, to our poor time-bound minds. We cannot grasp things in simplicity. We need more than to hear a truth. We need to be taught it, to have our minds brought up to it, educated to it. This is true of each of us individually. Over and over, we must be told the truths about God. We must be taught them at each point in our growth. Finally they begin to dawn for us in our minds as our own secure convictions. But the education that we as individuals go through depends upon another education which is just as impor-tant, and without which we ourselves would never have learned ab6ut God. This bther education is the education of our race, the race of men. We have learned many things about nature, but we have learned them together, the giants of the past teaching the giants of today, and they in their turn handing on their knowledge to tomorrow's giants. Our knowledge is passed on in ever-increasing rich-ness from generation to generation. Simply the mere pass-ing it on occupies many thousands of men and women for whole lifetimes as teachers, and the learning of it fills all the years of our lives, in school and out. This need man has to be educated through centuries of time is a part of him that he cannot escape. The great- est genius can only teach men what their minds have been prepared to grasp. And God, who made us this way, ~must speak to us, too, and teach us in tl~e gradual way that He has made necessary to us. So His divine revelation is a progressing and developing education of the human race. It bridges over the immense gap .between our time-bound and intricate minds and God's timeless simplicity. By His own choice He speaks eternal and immense thoughts to us in fragments communicated throughout time and space. It is a lesson in God's fatherly care for us to know that He has done it with such infinite and careful patience. How has He done it? Among a chosen people at the beginning of the story of our salvation, He planted,a seed of a thought: "In the beginning.God created heaven and earth." The thought is the thought of the one God who made all things. And these people fought and died, sub fered, rejected the truth, and repented through centuries: of history to pres.erve that seed and foster its growth. And through centuries God builds on this tiny germ of truth, constantly stretching the faith of His people by new reve-lations, always prep~aring them to accept the full flowering. of .that seed in~ the great, final revelation of Himself that will take place in the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Then, when the fullness of revelation had come down to the earth and walked it, a~s a Divine Person, God inspired St. John to begin the record of this marvelous event with a magnificent poetic vision showiiag us how God had~been patient all these years, patiently teaching, correcting; educating, stretching faith to accept this cli-mactic revelation of the immense truth about God. By beginning his gospel with the ancient words of the book of Genesis, St. John shows us that through all these cen-turies of revelation God has spoken but one sentence. And though his gospel is to be a record of new and ultimate revelations.made by Christ our Lord, still how careful St; John is to show us that each new truth that appears is really nothing new or changed about God. Rather, it is a new insight and a richer knowledge of that immense and inexhaustible reality which is the one God who begins His Sacred Scripture and who brings it to an end. In the beginning was the Wor, d And the Word was with God And He was God, this Word He was at the beginning with God How did God go about this marvelous education of the Jews? How did He prepare them, and what was it He pre- ~a~ed them to accept? We have alw~iys known that throtig~ those long years of threats and tender promises God nurs~ed in them the knowledge that He was One, the God ÷ ÷ ÷ Prologue to St. lohn VOLUME 20, 1961 99 + + ÷ gohn E. Becket, S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ]oo of all nations, the God that had no rival gods. But there: was more to His teaching about Himself than this. We had to know more than His oneness, or we could never ap-preciate the redemption by which He was to save us. We had to be able to accept the reality of Another, alsoGod, the same God, in order to recognize the infinite love that God would show in coming to be one of us. Even in the Old Testament God was preparing us to accept the su-preme mystery of the most Blessed Trinity. Over centuries of time God prepared mankind, with hints and mysterious intimations, to accept this other per-son. First, He taught His people the Law. But He taught it in such a way that it became for them, under the guid-ance of their inspired teachers, more than just a rule of life. They thought more and more of the Law as another being, ordering and governing the whole universe, some-how existing in its own right. God's inspired writers spoke too of Wisdom; and again His people, receiving with faith the guidance which God gave them through their teachers, began to think of this divine Wisdom as something distinct from God, sent by Him upon the earth: "The Lord possessed me. in the beginning of his ways. I was set up from eternity., the depths were not as yet, and I was already conceived. Wisdom is with thee, which knoweth thy works. All wisdom is from the Lord God, and hath been always with him. I came out of the mouth of the most High. From the beginning and before the world, was I created . " In two texts of Scrip-tures especially we can see how God led His inspired writ-ers toward the culminating simplicity of St. John's revela-tion of the Word: "While all things were in quiet silence, and the night was in the midst of her course, thy almighty Word leapt down from heaven from thy royal throne, as a fierce conqueror into the midst of the land of destruc-tion. With a sharp sword carrying thy unfeigned com-mandment, and he stood and filled all things with death, and standing on the earth reached even to heaven"(Wis 18:14-16). And even closer to the full clarity of St. John was this from Isaiah: "As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and return no more thither, but soak the earth, ~tnd water it and make it to spring., so shall my Word be, which shall go forth from my mouth: it shall not return to me void, but it shall do whatsoever I please, and shall prosper in the things for which I sent it" (55:10). Our Lord's life on earth took place during an age of intense religious uncertainty and desperate religious quest. But it is strangely enough true that almost every groping philosophy of the time centered around a principle called the Word. It was almosta magic formula. To the Stoic it meant the mind of God whose strong sunlight was divided into little sparks which were the minds of individual men. To Philo, a Jewish gentile philosopher, it was a person who pervaded all God's activity, and all the creatures of God's activity. To all the philosophers it was the one principle of order in the chaQs o~f. the world.~ Of, course, the Jews knew that God had made all creation by His mere word. God's ~word had always been an infinitely powerful thing in their minds. Now when St. John calls Christ our Lord the Word, he proves the validity of God's long and careful education of the human race toward faith,in the Word of God. It is a sad and fr_ightening realization for all of us that so maony of God's,chosen race failed to respond with the faith God had so carefully prepared" them for. In a probing vision of faith, St. John realized that the pagans with their philosophies Of the Word meant, if they could but see it, Christ;. that the Jews with their devotion to the Law, to Wisdom, to God's almighty word, had been educated to know the eternal Word. Because of this deep insight of supernatural faith, the abstract, eternal, and unchanging i'eality demanded by the minds of the pagan philosophers and the concrete, changing, and temporal reality forced upon their senses were reconciled into one truth. St. John's gospel stands alone for seeing the eternity, the infinity,, the timeless immensity of God walking in the finite flesh of our Lord. The single human actions of His life are put into a story in which we can also see that these are eternal ac.tions, of eternal worth, universal and eternal in mean- .ing. All history becomes in this vision not so much a thing of time but a phase of eternity. We see through the lens of an inspired faith that human life takes place in more than material dimensions. Christ's daily life is the eternal God teaching by action the eternal truths in the tiny dimen-sions of time. Our life becomes, in spite of its abrupt be-ginning and abrupt end, an eternally rewarded effort to learn and put into practice these eternal truths. Through the lens of this vision we see that the impor-tant beginning of this history of salvation was not in time, was not on a hillside of Nazareth, Bethlehem, or Calvary. The real beginning of the life story of Christ our Lord and of the life of man in God was not His.virginal conception, nor His birth in a cave, nor His baptism at the Jordan, but eternity with God: He was in the beginning with God. Everything was made by Him, And without Him was made nothing. Even when we recognize that the beginning of our sal-vation is back in the far reaches of divine eternity, in the Word who was with God, and even when we see that God has been preparing us for centuries to accept this fact, we 4. + + Prologue to St. John VOLUME 20, 1961 10] John E. Becket, $.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS have yet to appreciate how intimate a part this divine Word has played in the very creation of our world, and even in the divine education which wehave received. God fixed His eye on the eternal Word as He spoke the words of creation. All God's creatures were ordered according the Word's divine ordination: All the laws of their were made on the pattern of the Word. This is much the case that when we study the divine order creation, the laws of molecular structure, of the develop-ment of phyla, its supremely rich but ordered abundance, we are studying the natural phrases and sentences of God's eternal Word. Without Him was made nothing; nothing escapes His ordering power not even the man who sins. We would think that the sinner, having deliberately stepped outside this divine order, would have lost the privilege of participating in the guidance of God. though we may sin, we cannot step aside from God. The original sin of Adam and all that sequel of human which ratifies that original disorder sewn in our nature Adam, furnishes but the occasion for the Word of God be spoken ag~iin. Through Him all 'things were made. Now, on account of sin, He is spoken in a new way that binds Him even more intimately to his now sinful crea-tion, for: That.which was made in Him was li[e, And the life was the light of men, And the light, in the shadows, shown, And the shadows did not put it out. As once all things were created by the Word, now a new thing is created in Him: That which was made in Him life. Man has sinned, and so the Word becomes the source of a new life for him: and the life was the light of men. The Word is not renewed. The old is not revived. But the Word is respoken in a new creation that more fully ex-presses it. Men find in Him now, not only the pattern their existence and their perfection, but the source of new life, a life which always existed for God, which was once given to them and lost, but which now exists again a reality for them. And the light, in the shadows, shown, and the shadows did not put it out. This new life which a light for men wins the Victory over man's darkness. We can follow th~se-threads of life, light, and darkness throughout the gospel of St. John. They are dominant colors in his message. God has'outdone His first gift us, natural created life, made by His Word, with a super-natural creation, with .a supernatural life also produced, but in His Word.~Adam's sin,made our human life shadowy life of undirected uncertainty and groping. Think of the vague yearnings of the Jewish people, and they were under the educating guidance of God; even' more, think of the pathetic religious foolishness of the pa.gan world whose nature religions could never free themselves from the orgiastic worship of the sex power. But our world, lost in the shadows of sin, is not lost to God. Rather than destroy,.it and' produce ~a n.ew, un-shadowed, sinless world through His Word, God builds a new life for us within the lost world. We live now in the Word. We find only one meaning of lile in St. John; the life of God communicated to men. Christ our Lord com-municated God's life to us by becoming one of us and remaining God. That is the story of St. John's gospel, of all the gospels. Christ assumed humanity to be able to suffer for our redemption, to be able to produce a new life for men. The flow of Divine Life which He injects into us is also, because of His teaching about God, a stream of light within us, who would otherwise be' groping in darkness toward an unknown deity. He has shown us clearly who the God is whom we must seek. And so the shadows on our uncertain consciences are dispelled, and we find ourselves on a clear road towards God, filled with confidence. Our human nature has been taken into the divinity, and God has produced for us there within Himself the new life which saves us from darkness and sin. There is no poem in English with such compleie sim-plicity of expression. Yet in these five verses we have dis-covered the whole history of God's dealings with us. They present us with an immense, vision which extends from the first moment of creation, through the Incarnation, to the end of time when men living in Christ will be gathered to Christ in the fullness of life. The whole history of our race is involved, yet we see it all from the vantage point of God'.soeternity and catch sight of what it means to call God's knowledge infinitely simple. It is all one eternal speaking of the Word by God: It first bears fruit in the creation of our material world; then in a new act of union with this world a new life is produced in it; this new life of supernatural union with God is finally to conduct us all to our final union with God in heaven for et.ernity. In this vision of faith, all history is a moment of eternity, a moment containing creation, divine union with man, and man's final reunion with God in eternity. There appeared a man sent [rom God: his name was John. He came [or a witness, to witness concerning the Light, so that all might believe through Him. He was not, this man, the Light, but [or a witness con-cerning the Light. Christ's precursor is but a man, rooted in the obvious dimensions of human time. He "is not near the stature of Christ. He happens, he appears; Christ is. He is not ÷ ÷ ÷ Prologue to St. ]oh.n VOLUME 20, 1961, 103 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ]04 the light but only its witness. This brief, blunt, and prosaic interposition of a man within' our vision of eternity is an admonition to us, and a sign to us of the way St. John views reality. This simple prose in the midst of the poetry of eternity reminds us that we are never to let the human reality and the divine reality become separated in our minds. The life of Christ has fused the two for all eternity, and St. John is writing the story of that life. The simple historical surroundings and activities of Christ's life are making history, yet they go beyond history. The time-bound precursor of Christ is, by the decree of God, an eternally necessary, eternally important actor in God's redemptive drama. He is a sign to us that we too are eternally important, because we live with the life of the eternal Word. He was the true Light, Who enlightens every man Coming into the world. First there was God and the Word; then it is clear to us that the Word is God. The two are one. After all things are made through the Word, then supernatural Life is made in the Word, and this life is Light for men. Now again we reflect and realize that all these truths are drawn together into one truth in God. Life and Light, that which is produced in the Word, is really the Word; and the Word is God Himself, the source and goal of all our human life, natural and supernatural, the source and full enlightenment of all our knowledge, natural and su-pernatural. How does God, the Word, who is Life and Light in Himself become life and light for us? By coming into the world. We are fused with divinity when Christ takes human flesh so that the inaccessible light of eternity speaks in human words to Jews on the hillsides of Pales-tine and to all of us in the gospels; and the inaccessible life of eternity gives life to human tissues nourished from the body of Mary. And this divine-human talking and living is not over with. That once-and-for-all coming of the true Light into the world was the beginning of an unlimited number of comings. He comes now to each of us who will accept Him. He gives light, the teachings of His Church; and life, the sacramental life force which comes from His body through the ordained priesthood that He left behind Him. Light and life are in the Word because He is God; but light and life are given to man because that same Word has become man, made Himself available to man, placed Himself before us so that we may choose to unite ourselves to Him. There is no answering the question Why. We can only point to the strength of God's love. But if we ask why, we are uncovering, perhaps, false thoughts in our- selves. Have we ever realized how fully the Word had already involved Himself in the history and materiality of the world before He took this final step that brings Him visibly into the world? Why should we ask why to this last step? We should ask why'~t0 everything, not just to the Incarnation. God's eternal love has joined Himself to every moment of the world's existence. The Incarnation was simply the climax: In the world He was, And the world was made by Him And the world did not recognize Him Into His own He came And His own did not receive Him In the world He was from the first moment giving that moment and every succeeding moment its reality. The steady and balanced revolution of spinning worlds, and the quiet and inexorable change of seasons from death to life 'and.back to death and another life are His work and His teaching. He is the concurrent force, giving foufida-tion to the thoughts of the earliest'men and effectiveness to all their desires, holy or perverse. But the forceful message of all this rich physical reality is not heard. Though anything, simply because it exists, speaks of, the presence of God the creator, the fa~t Of creation failed to penetrate the darkness of immorality and sin that kept men "from recognizing the world as the words of God's eternal Word. God's Word speaks in a new way, trying by a new means to attract man's wayward attention. He chooses a man, Abraham, and tells the man he will beget a people. The Jewish race is born, and becomes God's own: I will be your God and you will be my people. And as this people grows through crisis, sin, and exile, the Word of God con-tinues to speak to them, residing in their Holy .of Holies, dictating their Law, guiding their history, inspiring the poetry of their kings and prophets. But all of it leads over and over again to relapses into idolatry and paganism, into infidelity and' hardness of heart, and finally into the degenerate Pharisaism that will not accept Him no matter what means He takes to speak to them: Into His own He came and His own did not receive Him. But all those who received Him He gave them power to become children o[ God, To those who believe in His name He who neither oI blood, nor (o[ a desire) o] the l~esh, (nor ot a desire ot man), But of God was generated. Not all o~ His own rejected Him, and between those who did and those who did not, a new dividing line is ÷ ÷ ÷ Prologue to VOLUME 20, 1961 105 gohn E. Becket, S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS drawn. Once "it had been drawn by God between the Jew and" the idolatrous gentile. Gradually it shifted, so that it divided the Jews themselves. Only a faithful remnant was loyal to God and would receive the benefits of the Mes-sianic kingdom; the rest were Jews in blood and name only, This division started to break up the Jewish world even before the actual coining of Christ in human form. But this breakdown of Jewish unity was turned to,our good by God. it was the way God purged His revelation of Jewish nationalism, and it became the foundation for a new way of thinking among .those.Jews who accepted Christ. God's careful, educating hand was still at work, showing them that no longer was it important to be a Jew. Now all that is important is to accept Christ. For all who receive Him are God's people; Jews and gentiles become one people when they become Christians. Everyone who bears the human nature tbat Christ assumed~may now re-ceive life from Him. And receiving our life from God means becoming God's children. There is a difference, though, in our being tbe children of God and the children of h.uman parents. We received the life of our parents all unconscious of the gift. Christians, .even though they receive Baptism as infants, must eventually assent to their divine childhood consciously and willingly by ac-cepting the W~rd, Christ our Lord. It is one more proof of God's infinite wisdom that He need not interfere here with the nature He has created in us when He gives us new life. Rather tban rebuild our nature so that they l.ive automatically with divine life, He stands by His own primeval decision to leave us free. We may live a hum;in life that is dead to God. Or we may accept God's~offer; we may choose to receive Christ and become the .cbildren of God. Still, though He, has not remolded nature, Hhat He ¯ has dgne is miracle enough. To be God's child means to live with the life of God, just as to,be a h~uman child means to live with the human life of our parents. When We choose to accept Christ, by that very fact we make oui'- selves one with Him. One with Him, grafted on to Him, we live with His life. His life is the life of a Son; and so we, united to Him and living His life, live the life of sons, the life which, the only-begotten Son has received from His Father. Christ is so perfectly God's Son as to be God: I am in the Father and the Father is in me. United to the Son of God in a real oneness of life, we too are made sons. Our divine childhood is not a childhood of the flesh, be-cause Christ's sonship is not a sonship of the flesh. He who gives us power to become the children of God is He,who, neither of blood, nor o~ a desire of the flesh, nor of a de-sire of man, but of God is generated. Our own fathers, in a single moment, by the act of married love which gen-erates us, are only at that moment acting upon us with a real activity which is properly fatherhood. The action is over in a moment. ~But Christ, the. Son of God, is being eternally generated of God'. Our mothers beai" us in their bodies for nine months during which their bodies are ceaselessly active nourishing and protecting our growth. Btit even in that time of intimate and complete depend-ence we are separated from them. Physically our mother surrounds,fis. But she is not us. And her physical mother- ~hood is soon over. But Christ, the Son Of God, is so inti-mately one with God that together they are but one God; and the action of giving and receiving divine life between the Father and the Son never ceases to be a dynamic and intense activity. Christ is always the Son of the Father, not because the Father once launched Him forth into sep-arated existence, but because He is always being gen-erated by the Father and never is separated from Him. All fatherhood on earth is named fatherhood after this eternal fathering forth o~ the Son by His divine Father. Earthly fatherhood, momentary and fleeting, is its weak reflection. And just as Christ the Son of God is the eternal recipient of divine life, we, because we are grafted onto His life, are eternal recipients of divine life. By a ceaseless activity that never leaves us to separate and independent existence we are God's sons--unless we break the bond that seals us to Christ. But in knowing all this we know only the beginning. There is greater depth to the divine sonship still. Christ is the Word of God, as well as His Son. To find out what this implies about His sonship, we submit ourselves to the careful teaching of God again, through His inspired representative, St. John, who named Christ the"Word. A word is the product of a mind. And the mind is spirit. We must free our idea of fatherhood, then, from the fleshly concepts that could obscure it when we apply it to God. God's eternal wisdom is in the, Father as in an eternal mind. But it is in the Son as a thought contained in a word. But, like human fatherhood, human words are momentary, vibrations of sound or mental flashes.of un-derstanding. Christ, however, is not a momentary flash of God's knowledge. He is the eternal container of the thought of God, the eternal expression of the mind of the Father. And so eternal generation is more like the eternal production of an eternal word which contains all the divine and infinite nature of God. Christ's sonship is a spiritual sonship like that which exists between a word that perfectly expresses a mind and that needs no flesh to be real. It is no wonder, then, that Christ's sonship of the Blessed Virgin Mary~ though it is a sonship by which He derives His flesh fro,n her Prologue to St. John VOkUME 20, 1961 107 ./ohn E. Be~/~, SJ. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ]08 body, should be a virginal sonship, free of the desires the flesh. Christ's infinite spiritual generation in heaven expressed in his virginal generation on earth. We are once more witnesses to the imprint of eternity on the events of time which characterizes the plan of our salvation. This second vision of faith, which St. John has projected in verses six to thirteen, has carried us again into the depths of eternity. This time it shows us that before we received the s0nship of the Word as our own life, we had been prepared by the very presence of this Word in the Law and the poetry of the Old Testament. Even before these things there was the presence of the Word in creation itself, though men failed to see Him there. Finally, before all the activity of the Son in the creation of the world and its redemption, was His eternal conception in the mind the Father as an eternal Word who contains all the divinity of the Father. And all that has happened in time, from the creation to the present moment, are but different ways in which God speaks His eternal Word to us, ways which develop and move forward with the growth of our power to appreciate God in ever clearer and more explicit realiza-tions until the ultimate climax when God no longer con-fines Himself to forming the universe through His Word, but clothes His Word in the very material of the uni-verse: And so the Word became [tesh And He made His home among us And we have seen His Glory Glory belonging to the only Son (coming) from the Father, .Full o[ grace and truth. God, in this last speaking of His Word has destroyed the distances between us. There is more, now, than com-munication between us. There is intimacy. The infinitely self-contained and perfect divinity projected the world and mingled with it to preserve its being. He intruded into world history to choose a people. With the Jews God took up His residence. He pitched His tent among them, as they delight to say over and over in their songs of praise to Him. His unseen glory was present in the ark. This was part of the covenant He made with them after He guided them by day and night from Egypt to the promised land in a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire. At the dedication of their great Temple, God's glory filled the Holy Holies. But now this eternal ,Word, who sought out Abra-ham and made His promises to him, who spoke in the Law and the Prophets, in poets, historians, and storytellers of the Old Testament, is no longer satisfied to speak through others. He speaks in His own Person. All the di-vinity of the Word which had manifested itself in these ways through centuries, now resides in this human flesh, not as a mere inhabitant, but as one person with it. The body of Christ is God's new home among men. That unspeakable glory of God which filled the Holy of Holies fills now the flesh of a man and makes it the flesh of. the Son of God. And the invisible glory of the only-begotten Son, when it comes from the Father into human flesh, is no longer invisible, but seen, Men have seen His glory. We might expect glory to be a word connected with the miracle of the transfiguration which took place before St.John's eyes on Mount Tabor. But whenever we find St. John using this word, we find the passion and death of our Lord: "The time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified" (12:~3). When Judas leaves the supper to betray our Lord, He says, "Now the Son of Man has been glori-fied, and God has been glorified, through him, and God will through himself glorify him; he will glorify him immediately" (13:31-32). And in His last discourse to His disciples our Lord says: "Father, glorify your son that your son may glori.~y you (17:2). I have glorified you here on earth, by completing the work which you gave me to do. Now, Father, glorify me in your presence as I had done me there before the world existed (17:5). I have given them the glory that you gave me, so that they may be one just as we are, I in union with them and you with me, so that they may be perfectly unified, and the world may recognize that you sent me and that you love them just as 'you loved me. Father, I wish to have those whom you have given me with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me, for you loved me before the cre-ation of the world" (17:22-2'1). The glory that is His Fa-ther's love for Him becomes the glory of the love of the Father and the Son for us when Christ suffers for us to make us God's sons. Passion and death are things that would have been impossible to God unless He had taken upon Himself a human nature. But when it is done, we see a new and startling vision of the glory of God, a new vision which is a paradox; the invisible'and awesome glory that filled the Holy of Holies is brightened to a climax at the time of God's suffering and at the moment of His death. If there is paradox here, there must also be meaning. Paradox is a challenge to our deeper thought. If passion and death are the climax of God's glory, its fullest ex-pression, what can God's glory be or mean? There is cre-ation. When we think of its immensity, the hugeness of the forces unleashed in the exploding universe, we catch our breath and lose track of our mathematical securities. But this is not a full picture of God's glory. It is only a first, rough sketch. When we think of the delicacy of craftmanship that enabled a tiny planet to nurture life, Prologue to St. John VOLUME 20, 1961 109 ÷ ÷ ÷ $ohn E. Becke~, S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 1]0 we may melt at the tenderness that reigns in a theatre of such violent forces, but we know again that it is not the full expression of God's glory. There is the Old Law when this all-powerful and tender God chooses to interfere in our pitiful history, chooses a nomad tribe and guides its destiny through hundreds of years of war and infidelity so that a few men at least will know that He is the God who is, in spite of their stubbornness and disinterest. This infinite humility of the omnipotent God, who cares that man's blindness be cured, speaks more clearly of God's glory but still falls, short of it. What is amazing is that none of this turns out to be any hint a.t all of what the full revelation of God's glory will be. How could we have guessed that the full burst of it would be a criminal execution on a Judean hill? Yet just this fiaeek submission to suffering and this most shameful of all deaths is the climax and full unveiling of the glory of God. God's glory is supremely expressed in His choice to suffer and die, to do those things which are the deepest badge of our sinful and fallen nature. The glory which Christ, the eternal Word, had before all ,time in the bosom of His Father is that extremity of love which leads Him to take up the nature of His sinful creature, suffer for him, and lay, down that life which, because it is the perfect ex-pression of the union of God with us, is the supreme gift which He can give to redeem us. And this glory of God, God's passion, is not for our contemplation alone, or for our deepest meditation. "If I be lifted up, I will draw all men to myself." It is magnetic force, :a force for union. We are drawn to Him, and all of us become one in. Him as the Father in Him and He in the Father. To a certain extent we are here meditating on poetry. In the context of our lives, however, it is more. It is an appeal to us to recognize the unity that exists now between time and eternity, space and divine im-mensity, and especially b.etween Christian and Christian. Little children love one another. We read here truth after truth, and they are many truths. But each separate truth, as it is presented to us, is set back into a mysterious and all embracing unity in God: The Word appears, but He is with God;° He is God. Creation emei'ges, through the Word; but then begins its long and relentless motion back towards God. Why this great return? Because the Word, who is one with God, has come forth from God and joined creation to Himself, pervading it by creative activ-ity, coming unto His own in word' and then in person, producing within Himself a new life for the created world to live in Him, making men God's sons and drawing them all and the creation that is theirs back to the bosom of His Father with whom He is but one. We, of course, must put ourselves back into this marvelous current o,f the life of God which is flowing back to Him. It cannot be ours unless we receive Him, and we can refuse Him. But if we are drawn to Him in the glory'of His Cross as it is renewed every morning at Mass, we will accept Him into our bodies in t~e sacrament of the Eucharist. We become, ourselves the dwelling place of the glory of God;. for we are the dwelling place of the flesh of Christ. All of us, marching back through time to happiness in eternity, become one in this divine life which nourishes us all. The glory of God walks about on the streets. It is in us and about us, We are His holy people united to Him and to each other in the reception of His body, all making up with Him but one body. Our temporal actions, walking the asphalt streets of our own moment of history, are eternal actions; our limited circle of friends and acquaintances is stretched to include all men, and they are all the focal point in time of our eternal love for Christ, because He is in them all. We se~ ii ~veryday in all meri, the glory o[ the onl~-b,e~g'ot~en Son of God, full of grace and truth. Prologue to $L loh~ VOLUME 20, 1961 111 COLUMBAN BROWNING, C.P. Martyrdom and the Religious Life The Reverend Colum-ban Browning, a fre~ quent contributor to the l~viEw, is sta-tioned at Saint Gabriel Monastery, 1100 63rd St., Des Moines 11, Iowa. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 112 Our twentieth century world prides itself on being mod-ern. And to the residents of our twentieth century, mod-ern implies everything that reflects the progress of this century. Efficiency, freshness of ideas, technological ad-vance- such things as these come to mind when we think of the word modern. Even twentieth century religious pride themselves as being modern in the best sense of the word. Since Pius XII inaugurated the movement toward adaptation to the needs of the times, the religious of today cannot avoid being modern unless he wishes to be branded with the stigma of retrogression. The response to the plea of Plus XII al-ready realized gives sufficient proof of the importance of making full use of all that is good in the progress of our age for the glory of God. But we religious can become so absorbed in our mod-ernity that we may forget that the motivation for the re-ligious life must always be the same and that it comes from the time of Christ Himself. This is why Plus always stressed renovation along with adaptation. While the approach may vary with the changing times, the mo-tivation is unchangeable. And for this motivation we must return repeatedly to the very sources of Christianity. The sources of Christianity are found primarily in the life and teaching of our Lord, a teaching enshrined in the Church that He founded. But also in the application of Christ's teaching in the early Church is found a very real source at which to learn the spirit of Christ in action. In those early days when the spirit of Christ was in the fresh-ness of its youth, we can find ideas to help us in our day to be better followers of Christ. One such idea that can be especially fruitful to this end is found in the historical fact that the religious life evolved in the Church as a sub-stitute for martyrdom. 1. Martyrdom and Christian Per[ection Martyrdom became a practical necessity in the early days of the Church. The infant Church soon came face to face with the persecution for~t,o, ld by Christ. Espec!ally in the Roman world did this 15ersec'u~ion reach the' pitch of fury. Beginning with the Emperor Nero in the first century and continuing for two and a half centuries, it was con-sidered unlawful to be a Christian. One who professed the faith of Christ, if detected, was given the alternatives" of apostasy or death. The story of the heroic courage with which so many thousands stood firm in the face of death is too familiar to retell. The resemblance of the death of the martyrs to that of Christ was evident to the early Christians. Just as Christ died a violent death in testimony to the truth, so also did the martyr. It is but natural, then, that martyrdom was seen as a dying with Christ. Just as logically, the martyr was considered the perfect imitator of Christ or the per-fect exemplificatibn of' Christian perfection. It is not sur-prising, therefor-e, that'we find the pastor~ and writers of those times exhorting the Christians to martyrdom as the means to perfect union with Christ. One need only study the example and the writings of St. Ignatius of Antioch to see how firmly rooted this thought was in the early Christian mind. During the reign of Trajan, this great Bishop was sentenced to death and sent to Rome to be thrown to the beasts. During his journey to Rome as a prisoner he wrote seven letter~ to the churches of the territories through which he passed. These letters reflect the burning desire of his soul to be perfectly united to Christ by martyrdom. His sentiments are most forcefully expressed in his letter to the Romans in which he writes as follows~ I am writing to all the Churches and state emphatically to all that I die willingly for God, provided you do not interfere. I beg you, do not show me unreasonable kindness. Suffer me to be the food of wild beasts, which are the means of making my way to God. God's wheat I am, and by the teeth of wild beasts I am to be ground that I may prove Christ's bread. Better still, coax the wild beasts to become my tomb and leave no part of my person behind;once I have fallen asleep I do not wish to be a burden to anyone. Then only shall I be a genuine disciple of Jesus Christ when the world will not even see my body . Forgive me, brethren; do not obstruct my coming to life-- do not wish me to die; do not make a gift to the world of one who wants to be God's. Beware of seducing me with matter; suffer me to receive pure light. Once arrived there, I shall be.a man. Permit me to be an imitator of my suffering God. Since martyrdom and perfect union with Christ meant one and the same thing, life itself was looked upon as a preparation for martyrdom. All asceticism was considered from this point of view. It was by dying to one's passions ÷ ÷ ÷ Martyrdom and Religious Li]e VOLUME 20, 1961 llS ,4, ÷ ÷ Columban Browning, C.I'. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 114 that one most resembled the martyrs and best prepared oneself for the supreme challenge. Origen expressed this in these words: "Those who have prepared themselves for martyrdom can even already be called martyrs, even though they may never undergo it." Time came when the pcrsecutions diminished and fi-nally ceased wi~h the Edict of Milan in 313 A.D. With tffe ,essation of persecntion actual martyrdom was no longer a possibility, but the ideal of martyrdom remained alive in the minds of the faithful. Since martyrdom by blood was no longer possible, a new emphasis was placed on asceti-cism which was looked upon as a martyrdom without blood. Martyrdom was still considered the ideal of per-fection; and those who most reSembled the martyrs by death to self, or ascesis, were considered the most perfect. II. Martyrdom and Virginity Among the practices of asceticism, that of ~irginit'y was held in an especial high esteem. The practice of virginity had been a high ideal and ~vas actually practiced from the beginning in imitation of our Lord and His Blessed Mother. But when persecution ceased, virginity received a new status as one of the foremost means of dying a .rnartyr's death without the shedding of blood. The virgin was con-sidered as wedded to Christ by a mystical marriage through grace. By complete death to the urgings of the body, the virgin, like the martyr, achieved a complete surrender to Christ, died with Him and became a perfect imitator of Him. St. Jerome expressing this thought said: "Virginity is a holocaust to God. Complete chastity is a victim to Christ." Thus, the white martyrdom of virginity, by a process of evolution conditioned by history, succeeded to martyrdom by blood as the equivalent of Christian per-fection. Living a virginal life in the midst of a wo}ld that still contained much of the pagan spirit obviously had its difficulties. As something of a moral necessity, therefore, those consecrated to God by the vow of virginity began to, band.together for mutual support. ~They often lived in common, prayed together and by mutual encouragement helped each other to their common g0al of perfect union with Christ. In this practice we have a foreshadowing and a natural preparation for the religious life. III. Martyrdom, Virginity and the R.eligious Lile The ground had been prepared for the birth of monaS-ticism, or organized religious life. Toward the end of the third century whefi the persecutions were beginning to lose some of their force, the practice of the eremitical life began in Egypt. In the year 320 (only seven years after the Edict of Milan), St. Pachomius founded the first monastery of the common,life, Some forty years later S.t.,Basil estab-lished the same form of life in the Eastern Church. With the virginal spirit already so high in honor and with so. many in fact already living the~eremitical life, it is not surprising that th.ese :m0~n.aster.ies flourishe~l.;Those. who desired perfect union with Christ and for whom martyrdom was,no 19nger possible flocked to these monas-teries. T~here, united in pra~er, these generous men and women were able to find a kind of native atmosphere in which to realize their ambition of perfect union with Christ by the "living martyrdom,' of the religious life. With the origin of monasticism there began a new epoch of Christian history, one that is still unfolding today. This is the history of the religious life. From one or two monas-teries, the fire of zeal that started them spread until it gradually covered the entire world. The organized life of consecration to God has gone through many stages of evolution, all of them prompted by the changing events of history. All through the ages the religious life has been adapting itself to the needs of the times until we find the greater percentage of religious today extremely active, whereas the religious of those early days were largely con-templative. But the religious of today are nonetheless branches of the same tree and the essential motivation of the religious life remains the same. IV. Practical Application Plus XII frequently urged religious to return to the sources of their life. Along with adaptation to modern needs, he stressed with equal insistence the need for renovation. The Holy Father realized that it is only when the spirit of zeal and fervor is pregerved and deepened that we can safely and sanely adapt, bringing the best effort to bear on the needs of the times. In striving to achieve this purpose, the religious of today would do well to endeavour to capture the spirit in which the religious life was founded. When we see the religious life as an outgrowth of and a s,bstitute for martyrdom, what a difference it can make in one's approach to the religious life. One sees clearly that the goal of religious living is perfect conformity to Christ, a wholehearted dying to self and complete living with and for Christ. The sacrifices inherent in the religious vows, resistance of the spirit of the modern world, the pressures and frustrations of daily activity in the life of the modern religious--all will be seen in a new.light when one realizes that these are but aspects of that death with Christ which leads to union with Him. It is by these daily sacrifices that the religious of our day are called to the same con-formity with Christ that was the goal of the martyrs. ÷ ÷ Martyrdom, and Religious Liye VOLUME 20, 1961 Lack of Sufficient motivation is ordinarily one of the greatest hindrances to the progress of a religious. It may help religious to ponder the fact that the vocation of the religious is essentially the same as that of the martyrs. The manner of realization may differ according to circum-stances. But the goal is identical--the wholehearted giving of self to Christ, dying with Him in order to live with Him. ÷ ÷ ÷ Coluraban Browning, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS llfi PAX The Call of God There have always b'een, and.always will be, voclttions. One has only to run through the pages 6f both Old and New Testaments to see that Goff has always called souls to consecrate themselves to Him or to serve Him or to come.back to Him. The call of God's mercy, for it is always that, may be heard at any time and in the most unexpected places, as witness the parable of the prodigal son, who was called to mercy in a pigsty. God is of an infinite adaptabilityl From the beginning of Genesis, We find God calling Adam and Eve back after their fall. Truly God's ways do not change, for His "I came to seek and to save that which is lost" is true from the beginning. So, t0b, God calls Cain after hig murder of Abel tO give him a spark of hope even in his punishment. Noah is called with all his family and is set apart by God for His service and his own salvation. But the first spectacular vocation in the Old Tegtament is that of Abraham. Leave thy country,, thy~kinsfolk And thy father's house, And come away into a land That I shall show thee. Here is the usual conception of a vocation, the leaving of all for God; and already there is the promise of what might be called a millionfoldl "I will bless thee and make thy name renowned., and in thee shall all the races of the world find a blessing." Abraham's might be ~alled a late vocation, for he was seventy-five years old when it came! His wife and his ,~ephew were called to accompany him, and God con- ~tantly encouraged him: "Have no fear. I am here. thy reward will be great ind~edl" St: Ambrose remarks that ,t is the privilege of the saints to receive a new name from God. God changed Abram's~:name to Abraham; and his wife's to one meaning "The Princess." She too was blessed, ,vho had been sterile, and bore Isaac~"the son of laugh-oero" + Pax is the nora de plume of a cloistered Benedictine nun whose monastery is located in Belgium. ~VOLUME 20, 1961 11~ REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 118 Vocations bring suffering, as Abraham discovered by the terrible test of his f.aith, when God bade him offer up Isaac in sacrifice. But God stayed that obedient hand at the last minute saying, "Abraham, Abraham, for my sake tfiou wast willing to give up thine only son." It is as if God is in ad~niration of this. sturdy faith of Abraham's, just as Jesus later was when faced with the dauntless faith of a woman, "Womfin, great is thy faith! . Thine only son," cries God; and in promising Abraham the reward of a countless posterity, through which all nations should be blessed, God is promising him no less than His own Son, who would save us all. We see the parallel with this situation in the words of St. John: "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." God's love for Abraham and Sarah did not prevent His care for their bondmaid, Agar. Sh6 too is called and consoled in the desert by the finding of water .for her dying child and the promise of a wonderful future for him. It is no wonder then, that Abraham died contented. He had spent a hun drdd years in the service of God, and God had blessed him in all his doings. "God," a slnall boy onc~e remarked, "has some very funn) friends.", Jacob is,perhaps one of these, for in spite of St A_ugustine's lenient "not a lie, but a mystery," he appear., as "a t3vister"; but God who be.holds the heart saw hi., capacity for tenacious fidelity.and love. All God's dealing., with him are mysterious. Perhaps-He saw in Jacob, whc had, to put it politely, borrowed his brother's name, birth right, and blessing, the figure, o~. us all, of all mankind who would shelter:behind the name of His first-born Son Jesus, and in that Name and disguise, steal His blessin~ and the right of inheriting the Kingdom of Heaven. Nora of us can, then, throw stones at Jacob! He was called by God, in his sleep, from a ladder reach ing from heaven to earth, the passageway of countl~'s. angels (a ladder which has greatly intrigued the saints ant the fathers of the Church) with a free promise, with n( conditions! "I am the Lord, the God of thy father Abra ham, the God of Isaac, and tl~is ground on which thor sleepest is my gift to thee and thy posterity. Thy race shal be as countless as the dust., thou shalt overflow th, frontiers, till all the families of the earth find a blessing i~ thee and this race of thine. I myself will watch over the~ ¯. all My promises shall be. fulfilled." What a wonderfifl vocation Moses, the great contempla rive, had! From babyhood God endowed him with sucl grace and charm that he es~]ap.ed~death when Pharoa! killed the baby boys.o~ Israel. He, was saved by the ruler' daughter, who hired his, own.mother to nurse him. Got watched over him till the day when in the desert He caller him from out the burning bush. God often calls contem platives in the desert, for as St. Ambrose says: "The food of heavenly grace is given, not to the idle, not in the city . nor to those accustomed to worldly things, but to those of the kingdom of God." It needs contemplative eyes to see a bush aflame with God and ac0ritemplative tieart' to hear God's calling from so lowly a setting. How beautiful a name becomes when God pronounces it! "M6ses, Moses!" called ~God. "Moses" means "a rescuer," a saviour. Every contemplative is a rescuer of souls. Moses at once entered into the deep mysteries of God. "Take off thy shoes, for thou standest on holy ground. I am the God thy father worshiped, the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob. Up! Thou art to lead My.people out of Egypt." Moses is reluctant to accept this errand. His hu-mility tries to escape, from such high honors. Contem-platives often are tempted to wonder if their vocation is not presumption. Other people seem so much holier and more fitted for God's great designs. Moses is, like most con-templatives, a strange mixture of. timidity and audacity. God truly has ~strange ways of choosing His tools, of picking His elect! "Who am I, and Who art Thou, O my God?" cry the saints. "I'm not at all the person Thou needest"; and in the same breath, as it he hadn't listened to God's introduction, "Who art Thou?" Blessed humility, and blessed audacity of Moses, since! they gave us the splendid name God, "I am the God who is." Besides this amazing condescension of God to Moses, God gives His chosen one the gift of miracles to help him in his mission. But Moses in his modesty persists in pro-testing his incapacity for his vocation. He pleads his love of silence, his lack of facile speech. Contemplatives are often painfully aware of how inarticulate they are, how ineloquent when talking of what surpasses speech. The ~aints are sometimes regarded as fools by reason of this tongue-tiedness of theirs. Moses' vocation is fairly typical of God's call to con-templatives. He often accords them, at the beginning, a ~oretaste of "what eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor ,ath it entered into the heart of man to conceive." He puts heart into them; perhaps otherwise they would lever have the courage for the long march through the .vilderness that will inevitably lie before them. God brushes away Moses' doubts and fears and gives tim a spokesman in Aaron, whom Fie calls to the priest- ,ood, to the preaching of His message and to obedience. 'Aaron will receive my commandments from thee, and re- ,eat them . " And despite the desert, they could scarcely loubt God's abiding presence with them on the way since -Ie made it clear in their darkest nights by the column of ÷ ÷ ÷ The Call o] God VOLUME 20, 1961 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS fire and the very cloud showed Him. there by day, to say nothing of His extraordinary care for them, so that neither shoes nor clothing woreout, and bread was sent them from Heaven. "Nothing lacks to those who love God." Most contemplatives can vouch for this amazing care of their heavenly Father at all times. An odd vocation is that of the soothsayer Balaam, whom God served in his own coin, so to speak, and led by con-tradictionsl He is like the sort of dirig6 who makes clear to his director along what lines he expects to be directed, in the way of his, own choosingl Balaam almost obliges God to let him have his own way, and God uses it to humble him mightily, by letting his donkey know His will for Balaam, and furthermore announce it, backed up by an angel! For this honor the poor ass paid dearly. One might note in passing that God seems by the witness of both Testaments to have a weakness for asses, human and otherwisel That is, if we dare use a human expression and talk of the "weakness" of God, as St. Augustine dare., do, of Him who is the Strength of the Strongl "Why hast thou thrice beaten thine ass?" asks Godk, angel. "I came to intercept thee, because this errand ot thine is headstrong and defies my will. If the ass had not turned aside. I should have taken thy life and spared hers." "I will go home again," decides Balaam. "No," say., God through His angel. "Go, but be sure thou utterest nc word, save what I bid thee." Magnificently, too, Balaam does that, to Balac's indignation; and despite his efforts a! bribery, Balaam blesses, instead of cursing, Israeli "Son, of Israel, countless as the dust, race of Jacob past al numbering, may death find me faithful as these, and be m) end like theirs." The grace of God suddenly floods him, as it has a way ot doing when we are obedient. "My errand is to bless," h( cries. Headstrong Balaam then humbly confesses tha "from being blindfold, he saw, heard the speech of Goc most high, had a vision of Him, and learned to see right.' This passage recalls that in the New Testament of th( blind man of Bethsaida, who was also" slow at learning t( see, who also had a vision of God, and at His touch learnec to see rightl Children are called, too, by God. Samuel was choser before he was conceived in his mother's womb. He was th~ fruit of the long suffering and many tears of his steril mother, blessed by Hell, the priest, to whom she declare( her vow of offering him to God "all his life long." Sh. brought him to the temple as soon as he was weaned and "evermore the boy, Samuel, rose higher in God' favour," One night, while he was "sleeping in the divin~ presence where God's ark was," he thought he heard Hel calling him and ran to him with charming obedience sa.) ing, "Here I am!" Heli sent him back to bed three times, then realized that God had called the little boy. He told him that if God called again, he must say, "Speak on, Lord, thy servant is listening." How lovely the account of Godls coming ag~iin in Holy Writ. "The Lord came to his side and stood there waiting." So often He does, and waits so long, so patiently before we Samuels recognize His voicel It was a fearful message for a little boy to have to deliver to Heli; but Heli, hearing it, made the admirable answer, "It is the Lord. let Him do His will." Saul and David both had kingly vocations; the first failed, as alas, vocations sometimes do. The second bore the hundredfold of fruitfulness. Both were rooted in humility, for neither seemed at all likely to become king. Saul scarcely expected to be called by God to royal honors and duties when he set out to hunt for his father's lost donkeys, any more than the little boy David expected to be king when he was shepherding his father's sheep. David kept his humility and so God exalted him; Saul lost his, and by disobedience fell from God's favour. Both fell, but David speedily confessed his sin. As St. Ambrose says: "He sinned as kings often do, but he did penance, he groaned, he wept, as kings are not wont to do. He con-fessed his fault, he sought for pardon., he wept over his misery, he fasted, he prayed, and publishing his grief abroad, he left a witness of his confession to all poster-ity,. To fall into sin comes from the weakness of nature. To confess the sin comes from virtue." '"l~he Lord loves obedience better than sacrifice," Saul was told. Disobedi-ence is revolting against God, and almost inevitably pre-pares the loss of a vocation. We have seen a few of the calls of God in the Old Testament; what shall we say of the vocations in the New Testament? St. John the Baptist links, as it were, the two Testaments; and the Church applies to his voca-tion the magnificent passage from .Jeremiah, whom God told: "I claimed thee for my own, before ever I fashioned thee in thy mother's womb. I set thee apart for myself." Each New Testament vocation is splendid in its simplic-ity. Jesus captivates hearts by a look, a word, a smile, or simply by His presence. St. Augustine has a delightful description of the beginning of St. Andrew's vocation. "They wished to see where He dwelt., to be instructed in His precepts. He showed them where He dwelt. They came and were with Him. What a blessed day they spentl What a blessed night. Who is there who can tell what they heard from the Lord? Let us, too, build in our heart and make a house, whither He may come and teach us, and talk with us." The Bible account itself relates best the story of all the The Call o] God VOLUME 20, 1'961 ~2! 4- REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS splendid New Testament vocations; of our Blessed Lady, of St. Joseph, of.~St. Pe.ter, St. John and the rest of the disciples. How many others there are of which we would gladly learn more, like that of the little boy who gave his bread and fishes to feed 'the multitude, or of Jairus' twelve-year-old daughter, who heard Jesus' Talitha cumi, "Little maid, arise." Who could doubt that she followed, seeking Him as eagerly as the bride in the Canticle of Can-ticles? There are vocations of ad~nirable people like St. Luke, the doctor, of St. Paul, the fiery zealot; of businessmen like St. Matthew; of thieves like Dismas, who stole heaven; of sinners like St. Mary Magdalene or St. Photina, who at Jacob's well, drew forth such streams of living water from the Sacred Heart! And that of Zacheusl When he could see nothing, he climbed a sycamore and saw the Lord passing by. Now the sycamore is sometimes called "a foolish fig tree." Little Zacheus, then, climbed the sycamore and saw the Lord. Thus they who in humility choose the things that the world deems foolish have a keen insight into the wisdom of God Himself. The crowd prevents us from seeing the Lord because the tumult of worldly cares oppresses the human mind and keeps its gaze from the light of Truth. We climb a sycamore when we attend to the "foolishness" (as the world deems it) of God's commandments, refraining from recovering What, is taken from us, yielding our goods to robbers, never inflict-ing injury for injury and bearing all with patience. The Lord bids us "climb a sycamore" when He says, "If one strikes thee on the cheek, turn to him also the other." Through such wise folly, we may see the Lord, and in contemplation catch a glimpse of the wisdom of God. So says St. Gregory the Great. "No one," says St. Ambrose, "can easily see Jesus, if he stay on the ground! One must climb above one's former faults, and trample on one's vanity. So it was that Zacheus came to receive .|esns as a guest in his house. And rightly did he climb a tree." St: Bede says that Zacheus, to see the Lord, had to abandon earthly cares and climb the tree of the cross, embracing thus the."folly" of Christ. St. Maximus has an entertaining sort of spiritual ledger account of the hardheaded businessman Zacheus' conver-sion. "Za.cheus," he says, "opened the gate of heaven to the rich by showing them how to buy heaven through the very means that once kept them out of heaven--namely, their possessions! He bestowed a treasure on them which would enable them to be rich for all eternity; he truly made a good bargain by showing them how to dispense their riches to the poor and so be eternally rich." Zacheus heard and answered our Lord's call with jo'y, unlike the other rich man who went away sorrowful "because he had great possessions." What shall we say of all the other humble and anony-mous vocations of the New Testament, of a deaf and dumb man, of how many blind, and lame~ and dead? Like all these, if we are very little in our own eyes, we act as a magnd~ for the love-of God'and for the grace of His turning to look on us and to say, "Come and seel" Better: still, like Zacheus,: we m.ayhear Him say, "Today I must dine in thy house-." Besi~ of all, we may hear Jesus' promise, "If a man has any love for me, he will be true to my wor~.l; and then he?will win my Father's love, and we will both come to hin~, and make our continual abode with himl" ÷ + The Call o] God 123 SISTER MARY JANET, S.C.L. ¯ Proposal for Small Missions: Taped Conferences ÷ Sister Mary Janet, S.C.L. is stationed at Saint Mary College in Xavier, Kansas, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS This is simply an idea. It concerns a possible spiritual service that the priest and the religious community in with a modern gadget might offer sisters living small, "spiritually impoverished" mission houses. The spiritual service is the conference; the modern gadget, the tape recorder; the "spiritually impoverished missions," those which receive little or no spiritual from a priest during the course of the year. The idea might be summed up as Taped Conferences on the Spiritual Life. There is no one way in which such an idea might realized. Sketched here are three possibilities. In one plan a religious community with a number smaller mission houses that do not enjoy the privilege regular conferences from a priest might secure the services. of a priest expressly to prepare a set of taped conferences for these houses. A distinct advantage of such a procedure would be that a priest could be selected who is well ac2 quainted with the particular community, its constitutionsl and customs, and its works. Furthermore, the community, could engage a man of proved abilities. Consider, for how a good retreat master could in this way follow up and amplify his original instruction, providing a spiritual focus and direction for souls over a con-siderable time span. How many conferences would he tape? This might vary according to the time the priest could give to such a proj-ect and to the number of conferences from one source community-might want. In general, six to eight confer-ences would seem ample, or perhaps enough for the re-, treat SUndays of the year. Probably--at first anyway-~' conferences in a series (where one is dependent on prem-ises set up in a preceding one) would seem less practical than autonomous conferences. Separate conferences would also simplify the distribution process. The subject of such conferences might well be deter-mined by a discussion between the priest and the religious superiors or even perhaps bysuggestions from ithe sisters themselves. The length ortiming 6f the tapes, too, might be suggested by superi6rs to fit into some. specific order of the day, as, for instance; a conference on the monthly day of recollection. Generally a half hour might be pro-posed as a relatively prudent length. For one thing, most Iape~ run one half hour; a longer donference would neces-i~ ate changing tapes--and there are distractions enough without mechanical onesl Too, we can only listen with maximum profit for so long. A half-hour is a safe average estimate. In this connection, it might be observed that the ;peaker can no longer rely ori gesture or facial expression ~r the command of his presence. He will need to compen- ;ate for these by careful use of illustration, examples, and ~enerally concrete, specific language. Once a set of conferences is taped, it could be dupli-zated to meet whatever demand there would be within the community. Note that five reproductions of a six-con-ference set of tapes wouldmake a conference on the,spirit-aal life available to thirty mission houses.After a tape had ;erved its purpose in one house, it could be sent on im-aaediately to another house, much in the manner we are !amiliar with in handling orented movies. Some initial planning in the form of a schedule for each tape would make distribution a minimum .chore. In communities which have a loan library, the tapes might well be added .o the materials these libraries make available to the sis- .er$. If the initial project proved valuable, the religious :ommunity could then enlist the aid of other priests and ~adually build up a considerable library of conferences or its sisters. A continuous program of new tapes--per-haps two or three sets a year--would seem ideal. A more ambitious project would originate with the )riests themselves. Here a diocese, an order, or a province )f an order of religious men might prepare and make ~vailable to sisters taped conferences on the spiritual life. Fhis, as I see it, would.be somewhat comparable to the ,ery real service religious orders of men are now perform-ng in publishing such magazines as the Sponsa Regis and he Review for Religious. This notion has fascinfiting possibilities. Think of the )riests in the cloister, older priests and those physically 11, priests,committed to work in seminaries and chancery ffices--for all of these, the tape is a possible pulpit. Tapes ould annihilate distance and a sister in New Mexico Ta~d Conterences VOLUME 20, 1961 ÷ ÷ ÷ Sister Mary Janet, S.C,L. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS could listen to Dom Hubert yon Zeller. They could bring the greatest spiritual thinkers of our generation into the most humble convent and they could preserve those voices for the next generation, Perhaps more ambitious yet: some large central agency concerned with the welfare' of religious--such as the Con~ ference of Major_ Keligious Superiors of Women's Insti-tutes or the Sister. Formation Conference might under-take such a project on a large scale, establishing a library of tapes for circulation among member communities. A small membership fee for each house or a larger one for a commu_nity would, I believe, cover the expenses of the project. ~ ° ~" Of course, the three outlined plans are not mutually ex-clusive. Indeed, they might well supplement each other and so offer .the sister "an embarrassment of riches~' in helping her gr6w in the spiritual life. Objections there would be certainly~ and it would be unrealistic to bypass therefor to pretend they could all be obviated. Such a project, for instance, would make a new demand on.already overworked priests. A certain, amount of expense and organization and book work would be in-volved:. What of the: .process of obtaining 'ecclesiastical approval? Some 'people simply"do not like being "talked at" by a machine, Furthermore, just. what advantage would the tape have over the,book? There are ,no real 'anSwers to the problems of time and taste. But there are some answers to other questi.ons., Ec clesiastical permission could no doubt be worked 6ut in side already existing channels. And, although th~ book is probably superiOr to the tape, objectively, still theteache, who uses the record or the tape can tell you that ther~ are times when the spoken word is more powerful and moremeaningful than the written word. More positively, jus~ wh;it purpose would such a projecl serve? A number of uses come to mind: for novitiates;' fo, sisters under temporary vows, :for ,sister,formation groups for the bedridden and .those, such as surgery supervisors who are unable to be :at community exercises, for prepa ration in renewing vows. But the most general use is on~ that can perhaps be illustrated by what is not, I think, ar undomm6n., experience among religious women in thi country today. It is principally why I think of this as ~ proposal for small missions. .'., ' A sister is missioned in, a parochial school in a fair-sizec town for nine or ten months out of every year. Here, ex cept for the Sunday sermon' in the parish church and th~ occasional and very generalized exhortation of her con lessor, the sister receives no formal spiritual instruction Her community may try valiantly to supplement this die during, vacation periods by institutes, tertianship pro grams, and so on. And fortunately for the sister, the Church demands the annual retreat. For very many sisters this is the only spiritual oasis in the year. Making good, solid spiritual conferences available to such a sister would be, I submit, 'a major act of super-natural charity. Too, it would "lengthen the arm" of the priest--or better, extend his voice~ which is, after all, the voice of Christ. + ÷ + Taped Conleren~es VOLUME 20, ,.1761 127 R. F. SMITH, S.J. Survey of Roman Documents ÷ ÷ ÷ R. F. Smith, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 128 The documents which appeared in Acta Apostolicae Sedis (AAS) during October and November, 1960 will be surveyed in the following article. Unless otherwise speci-fied, all page references throughout the article will be to the 1960 AAS (v. 52). Allocutions and Messages On August 24, 1960 (AAS, 817-19), the Holy Father addressed the athletes gathered in Rome for the Olympic Games. He told the group that the purpose of athletics is not the winning of prizes but the proper development of the human body. However, he added, athletics not only affect the body by producing health, vigor, agility, grace-fulness, and beauty; but they also produce constancy, courage, and habits of self-denial in the soul. Hence he urged the athletes to fulfil in themselves the old saying, "A sound mind in a sound body." He concluded his al-locution by calling upon the group to observe the city of Rome closely and to see the role that Rome has played in the spread of the salvation and the charity that stem from the Gospel. Five days later, August 29, 1960 (AAS, 819-29), the Pope spoke to the officials and administrators of the Olympic Games. With this group he stressed his intense interest in world peace on the basis of the brotherhood that exists among all men. He also recalled to his listeners the rues sage of St. Paul that they should strive for a prize that higher and more durable than any earthly prize (1 Col 9:25). On August 28, 1960 (AAS, 829--30), the Vicar of Chris~ sent a radio message to the people of Peru on the occasior of their National Eucharistic-Congress. He pointed ou to them that the unity and brotherhood of men find thei~ origin in the fatherhood of God and are nourished at th~ Eucharistic table where Christ is received who died the salvation of all men and who is the principle of supernatural life for the entire human race. On September 16, 1960 (AAS, 821-24), the Holy Father delivered an allocution to the Fifth Thomistic World Congress. In the remarks that he made to th~ Congress, Pope John emphasized that the moral teaching of St, Thomas is always directed to the attainment of a super-natUral final end. He also said that the explanation and solution of moral problems according to the principles of St. Thomas will lead to remarkable results in. the way of peace for the Church and for the entire world. Hence, h'e continued, if his listeners succeed in presuading both man-agement and labor to know their respective rights and responsibilities, they will at the same time be leading them to follow Christ who is mankind's protector in this Hfe and its reward exceeding great in eternity. This, he said, will require a diligent study of the works of ~St. Thomas; and he called for a constant increase in the numbers of those who derive their light and learning from the works of the Angelic Doctor, This increase, he noted, should not only exist among priests and scholars, but also among all those interested in the humanities and especially among the young members of Catholic Action. To this end the Pope also urged the wider distribution of St. Thomas' writings in vernacular translations. On September 24, 1960 (AAS, 824-27), Pope John XXlII talked to a group of heart specialists in the hope, as he put it, of giving them a knowledge of the dignity of their profession in the light of Christian revelation. The Bible, he said, stresses the preeminent place the heart has in the human person. It is the heart from which come forth holy thoughts, wisdom, and virtue; it is the heart which leads man to rectitude, simplicity, and humility; it is with our whole heart that we are commanded to love God; and when the Son of God came to live among men, it was His Heart that he proposed to men as an example: "Learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart" (Mr 11:29). Hence, he told his listeners, while a superficial view might think that a heart specialist is dealing only with a problem in human anatomy, in the eyes of faith and in reality he is concerned with a whole world of moral and religious values. Moreover, faith will show the doctor the beauty of his efforts as a scientist in quest for truth; at the same time the same faith will teach him how humble he must be in the face of the limitless immensity of God, Finally, faith will show the scientist the image of God in his fellow men and thereby transform all his relations with them. This effect of faith, the Holy Father added, is especially apparent in a profession like the medical one which is entirely devoted to suffering human beings. Hence in their work the doctors should recall frequently that what + + ÷ Survey ot Roman Documents VOLUME 20, 1961 ÷ ÷ R. F. Smith, S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 130 they do for their patients they do for that Christ who will one day say to them: "I was sick, and you vi.sit,ed me" .(Mt 25!36). On October 1, 1960 (AAS, 827-28), the Pope received the King and Queen of Thailand and delivered to them an allocution of welcome and good wishes. A similar allo-cution was given by the Pontiff when he received the Prince and Princess of Liechtenstein on October 8, 1960 (AAS 828-29). On October 20, 1960 (AAS, 893-95), the Vicar of' Christ visited the new building of the Beda in Rome and spoke to the English seminarians in residence there. Since the Beda's new building is near the Basilica of St. Paul he urged his listeners to recall frequently the woi'ds of St. Paul: "By the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace in me has n0t been fruitless" (1 Cor 15:10). He went on to say that vocations are a tangible sign of the presence of God in the world; when God calls, a young man gives up family traditions, ambition, and earthly advantages and seeks only the glory of God, the sanctification of His name, the coming of His Kingdom, and the fulfilment of His will. He concluded his address by telling his listeners that each nation has its own treasure of traditions and of native virtue that can and must be transfigured into a precious instrument of the apostolate. Hence he urged them to take the well known English traits of humanity, gentlemanliness, and reflectiveness and transform them in the priestly activity they are called to engage in. On the same day the Pope also visited the new building that had just been completed to serve as a generalate and international house of studies for the Trappists. In the allocution that he gave for the occasion, the Holy Father t61d his listeners that the contemplative life constitutes one Of the fundamental structures of the Church; it has, he said, always been present in the two-thousand year history of the Church, constantly fruitful in virtue and con-stantly exercising a mysterious and powerful attraction for the loftiest and noblest souls. In praise of their vo-cation, Pope John cited to the Trappists the words of Plus XI (AAS, 26 [1934], 106) at the canonization of the Carmelite St. Teresa Margaret Redi: "It is these very pure and very lofty souls who by their suffering, their love, and their prayer silently exercise in the Church the most universal and most fruitful apostolate." He concluded his allocution by asking for the prayers of his listeners and of all the contemplatives of the world for the success of the coming ecumenical council. On October 25, 1960 (AAS, 898-903), the Holy Father spoke to the judges; officials, and lawyers of the Sacred Roman Rota. He told them that the dangers that weaken the institution of the family are accentuated at the present time, and he called the attention of all men of good will to the serious problem of the sanctity of marriage. In the first part of the allocution the Pope emphasized the need today for the instructi6n of the faithful r~egarding the dignity and the obligations of conjugal life. Marriage, he told them, is not only a natural reality; it is also a sacrament, a sign of grace and of that sacred reality, the espousal of Ch

Issue 19.1 of the Review for Religious, 1960. ; Review For Religious Volume 19 1960 Editorial O[[ice ST. h~ARY'S COLLEGE St. Marys, Kansas Publisher TIlE QUEEN'S WORK St. Louis, Missouri EDITOR R. F. Smith, S.J. ASSOCIATE EDITORS Augustine G. Ellard, S.J. Henry Willmering, S.J. ASSISTANT EDITORS John E. Becker, S.J. Robert F. Weiss, S.J. DEPARTMENTAL EDITORS Questions and Answen Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Woodstock College Woodstock, Maryland Book Reviews Earl A. Weis, S.J. West Baden College West Baden Springs, Indiana Published in January, March, May, July, September, November on Ihe fifleenlh of Ihe monlh. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is Indexed in Ihe CATHOLIC PERIODICAL INDEX. Act of "Dedication of the Human Race to Christ the King Sacred Apostolic Penitentiary IOn July 18, 1959 (Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 51 11959~, 595-96), the Sacred Apostolic Penitentiary issued a new text of the act of dedication of the human race to the Heart of Christ the King. The text has been revised according to the directives of John XXIII who has also accorded a number of indulgences to the revised prayer. The following is a translation of the new text of the prayer together with the indulgences granted for its recital.I SWEET JESUS, Redeemer of the human race, look do~vn upon us humbly kneeling before Your altar.~ We are Yours and Yours we wish to be; but in order to be still more firmly united to You, today each one of us freely dedicates himself to Your most Sacred Heart. There are many indeed who have never known You; many others have rejected Your commandments and have repudiated You. Be merciful to all of them, 0 kind Jesus, and draw them all to Your holy Heart. Be king, 0 Lord, not only of the faithful who have never abandoned You, but also of the prodigal children who have left You; bring them back quickly to their Father's house lest they die of misery and hunger. Be king of those who have been deceived by erroneous ideas or have been separated by discord; bring them back to the harbor of truth and to the unity of faith so that soon there may be a single fold and a single shepherd. Bestow upon Your Church, 0 Lord, security, liberty, and safety; give to all nations the tranquillity of order; and grant that from one pole of the earth to the other there may ring out the cry: Praise to the divine Heart which brought forth our salvation; to It be glory and honor forever. Amen. July 18, 1959 His Holiness, John XXIII, after abrogating the prayer as given in the Enchiridion Indulgentiarum [Manual of Indulgences], 1952, n. 271, graciously granted the following indulgences: 1) A partial indulgence of five years to the faithful who devoutly recite the above act of dedication with contrite heart. 2) A plenary in- 1When the prayer is recited outside a church or oratory, "in Your presence" should be said instead of "before Your altar." ACT OF DEDICATION dulgence once a month, if they have recited the prayer devoutly every day for a whole month, provided they go to confession, receive Communion, and make a visit to a church or a public oratory. 3) The faithful may gain a partial indulgence of seven years if on the Feast of Christ the King they are present in any church or oratory, even a semi-public one (in the case of those legitimately attending it), when the act of dedication tn the Sacred Heart of Jesus according to the formula given above and the Litanies of the Sacred Heart are recited before the Blessed Sacrament solemnly exposed; moreover, they may gain a plenary indulgence if, besides fulfilling the above conditions, they have gone to confession and Communion. All contrary provisions not withstanding. N. Card. CANALI, Major Penitentiary L. ~I, S. I. Rossi, Secretary Living /aters Frederick Power, $. J. pius XII in his encyclical Haurietis aquas on devotion to the Sacred Heart urges us to"-study diligently the teachings of Scripture, the fathers, and the theologians--the solid founda-tions on which devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus rests." For the Holy Father is "firmly convinced that we can rightly and fully appreciate the incomparable excellence and inexhaustible store of heavenly gifts of this devotion only when we study its nature in the light of divinely revealed truth." The encyclical itself begins with a text from Isaiah: "You shall draw waters with joy out of the Saviour's fountains" (Is 12:3). A few lines further on the Holy Father returns to the idea of the "Saviour's fountains" when he refers to the scene in the Temple at Jerusalem on the Feast of Tabernacles as recorded in John's Gospel, Chapter 7:37-39. The words of our Lord on this occasion are numbered among the principal te~ts which establish the biblical foundation of the devotion. A closer study of this text will be most rewarding and will reveal the appropriateness of the text as the general theme of the encyclical. When the Feast of Tabernacles was at hand, our Lord had declined to go to Jerusalem with His relatives but afterwards went up by Himself "not publicly but as it were privately." The Feast of Tabernacles was held towards the end of Sepo tember after the grain harvest and the vintage and the gathering of the autumn fruit crop. Originally an agricultural festival in-stituted to give thanks to God for the fruitfulness of the soil, it later included the commemoration of the forty years spent by the Hebrews in the desert. In memory of the latter event all Jews of free status except the sick, women, and children lived for the week in huts made from the leafy branches of trees. These huts reminded them of the tents or tabernacles pitched in the wilder-ness of Sinai, a period kept ever fresh in their minds as one in which God gave them the great gifts of the manna and of the water from the rock. The desert ever afterwards remained in Jewish tradition as the place of God's protective presence. Two elaborate ceremonies added to the gaiety of the feast: the procession to the fountain of Siloe and the torch-light illumi-nation of the Women's Court. It is the first of these ceremonies that is of interest for the present article. FREDERICK POWER Review for Religious Each morning the multitude organized into a procession. The people lined the route leading to thepool of Siloe and crowded into the Temple and the surrounding courtyards and porches. Then a procession of priests and Levites descended the valley as far as the pool of Si|oe. Those assisting at the ceremony held a citron fruit in the left hand and in the right a palm branch twined with shoots of myrtle and green willow. The Levites chanted the group of festive psalms called the great Hallel; and the multitude, keep-ing time with the refrain, vigorously waved the fruit and palm branch in token of joyfulness and triumph. The officiating priest carried a golden ewer, and at the pool of Siloe he filled it with water to carry back to the altar of holo-causts. This liturgical act was both a commemorative symbol and a dramatized hope. It recalled the miraculous water that gushed forth from the rock of Horeb beneath the rod of Moses, and it was a figure of the outpouring of graces proper to Messianic times. As the celebrant drew the water of Siloe, the choir repeated the verse of Isaiah: "You shall draw water with joy out of the Saviour's fountains" [12:3), a verse which refers to the blessings promised for the days of the Messiah. This symbol of a spring bursting forth and of water flowing from a fountain was well known to those present, for it is one of the most frequent in the Bible; and in a land afflicted by drought and water scarcity, it was a readily understood symbol of divine blessings. Accordingly, the miraculous event in the desert, when Moses struck the rock with his rod and water gushed forth, was remembered with gratitude in the people's liturgical ceremonies. Moses himself had prayed before the Ark of the Covenant: "O Lord God, hear the cry of this people and open to them thy treasures, a fountain of living water, that being satisfied they may cease to murmur" (Num 20:6). In this text and elsewhere in Scripture "living water" is water flowing from a spring as opposed to the stagnant water of cisterns. It was this symbol of living waters that the prophets used to signify divine blessings. Jeremiah even calls God the fountain of living waters: "For my people have done two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and have digged to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water" (Jer 2:13). In the last part of the book of Ezekiel, the prophet describes the vision of the holy waters issuing from all sides of the Temple. The desert through which they flow becomes extremely fertile; the trees on their banks have healing power and bear fresh fruit January, 1960 LIVING WATERS monthly. Such is the virtue and dynamism of Yahweh's holy presence in the Temple that it radiates0grace and blessings over the land. Zechariah, too., in speakingof the time of the Messiah, remarks: "In that day there shall be a fountain open to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem" (Zech 13:1). The prophets, then, looked on water poured out upon parched land as an image of the new spirit that was to be characteristic of the time of salvation. In .the words of Isaiah: "I will pour out waters upon the thirsty ground, and streams upon the dry land; I will pour out my spirit upon thy seed, and blessing upon thy stock" (Is 44:3). In these texts we see some examples of how the blessings of God and the future blessings of the Messianic era are portrayed under the symbol of living waters, and the passages provide some introduction to the scene in Jerusalem on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles. After the drawing of the water the procession wended its way up the slope from the pool of Siloe, the officiating priest carry-ing the golden pitcher of water, the Levites chanting psalms, and the crowd singing the refrain. As the procession approached the temple, the people became more enthusiastic, shouting out their response of Hallelu-Yah--Praise Yahweh--with ever greater vehe-mence. It wasin this way that they manifested their deep-felt conviction that Yahweh was their own God who had brought them out of the land of Egypt and had led them safely through the desert. The procession went up to the altar of holocausts just at the moment when the parts of the victim immolated that day were being placed upon it. The priest was greeted by the sacred trumpets and was met at the altar by another priest carrying the wine for the libations. While the people continued their enthusiastic shout-ing, the two pitchers were emptied into conduits that led to the foot of the altar. By this libation it was intended to thank God for the two occasions when He made water flow from a rock to satisfy the thirst of His people in the wilderness. By the same rite the attention of the people was directed to the Messianic promise of living waters and also to the expectation of the fulfillment of the promise which was symbolically signified. For the people were expecting a Messiah who would bring salvation and who was to be another Moses. When the liturgical rite was finished and the singing ended, a silence descended over the throng. Our Lord, who had been 7 FREDERICK POWER Rewew for Rehgmus present among the crowd, now took advantage of this opportunity to reveal His true mission. Mounting a step he cried out to the Jewish people: "If anyone thirst, let him come to me and drink; he who believes in me, as the Scripture says, 'From his heart there shall flow rivers of living water.' " By these words He revealed Himself as the one in whom all the abundant graces of the Messianic period are to be found, the object of the Messianic expectation, the Messiah himself. He is the rock from which the water of life flows; indeed, He is the fountain itself. He is the spring from which anyone who thirsts may quench his thirst. The effect of faith in Him would be the reception and communication of living water. This text requires the explanation of two important points. First, the text as a whole has been interpreted in two ways: that the fountain of living water flows from the one who believes in Christ, or that the fountain flows from Christ, the one in whom we believe. The Holy Father understands the text in the second way in his encyclical; this use, without doubt, holds the richest and profoundest sense, one more in agreement with the Old Testament prophecies given above. It is also more in agreement with the theology of St. John. Secondly, an explanation must be given for the use of the word heart in the text. The Latin edition of the encyclical follows the Vulgate version of the text, the literal translation of which would be: "Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." The Latin phrase used is de ventre eius, which literally means "out of his belly." This translation would also be a literal trans-lation of the Greek and Aramaic versions of the text. The trans-lation, however, would not be a correct interpretation of the idea intended. Those who are experts in the Aramaic language agree that for the Hebrews the viscera or the belly was regarded as the seat of the emotions in the same way as we regard the heart. Accordingly a proper translation of the phrase used by our Lord would be "from his heart." Such a translation, though not a literal one, is the proper way to express the idea in terms we understand today. It is what our Lord meant, though He expressed it in the idiom of His own day. It is with this understanding that authorities place this text among the fundamental texts of Scrip-ture regarding devotion to the Sacred Heart. On this occasion of our Lord's revelation of His Sacred Heart, He appeals to Scripture as being fulfilled in His person. He does not refer to one particular text but rather to that whole class of January, 1960 LIVING WATER~ texts from the Old Testament which we considered earlier. The people who heard these ~o.~s could take only one meaning: The man before them was definitely claiming the fulfillment of these prophecies in Himself; He was claiming it and at the same time promising untold blessings to those who would recognize this claim. Certainly St. John is impressed by the words, for he pauses to comment upon them. He tells us that they were prophetic and that they were fulfilled in the final glory of our Lord whicb, for ~John, is our Lord's passion, death, and subsequent transfiguration: "He said this, however, of the Spirit whom they who believed in~ Him were to receive; for the Spirit had not yet been given, seeing that Jesus had not yet been glorified" (Jn 7:39). The Spirit here means the Holy Spirit and includes the abundance of Mes-sianic goods and the gifts of redemption which the Holy Spirit brings to those who believe in Christ. But before the living water would flow, Christ had to be glorified; this was a condition that had yet to be fulfilled. That our Lord's glory was concerned with His passion is seen in His priestly prayer after the Last Supper: "Father, the hour has come! Glorify thy Son, that thy Son may glorify thee, even as thou has given him power over all flesh, in order that to all ,that thou hast given him he may give everlasting life" (Jn 17:2). By sacrificing Himself the Redeemer would cause the Spirit to flow and to open up the "fountain of living water." And this would happen when at the death of the Messiah His Heart would be pierced ~with a lance. The life-giving power of the living waters would find its source in the Blood of Christ as it gushed forth from the wounded Heart of Christ. It is, however, necessary to make here some distinctions between the piercing of Christ's side and the pouring forth of the Holy Spirit. The piercing is not of the same nature as the visible mission of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. Nevertheless there is an ancient tradition, attested to among others by St. Augustine, that the Church was born from the pierced side of Christ. As Eve was taken from the side of the sleeping Adam, so also the Spouse of Christ, the Church, sprang from the pierced side of the dead Christ, the new Adam in His sleep of death being the source of the new Eve, the Church. And this Church is the Mystical Body of Christ whose soul is the Holy Spirit. FREDERICK POWER Review for Religious That the living waters promised to those who believe in Christ spring from the pierced side of the dead Saviour is also attested to by the common interpretation that for John the water and blood are signs of the sacraments of Baptism and the Holy Eucharist. In his encyclical Plus XII puts it this way: "From this wounded Heart the grace of the sacraments, from which the children of the Church draw supernatural life, flowed most pro-fusely . " And the Holy Spirit is included in the sacrament of Baptism, for the new birth to be effected by Baptism is brought about by "water and the Spirit" as our Lord told Nic~demus. So it is that the prediction of John in Chapter 7 concerning the flowing rivers to come after Christ's glorification was fulfilled when on the cross a soldier "opened his side with a lance, and immediately there came out blood and water" (Jn 19:34). The streams of blood and water are certain signs that now have been fulfilled the Scriptural prophecies of Messianic grace. Now the living water has begun to flow; now the Spirit is given, but only in blood; grace is given but only from the pierced Heart on the cross. Unless the spiritual rock that is Christ had been struck, the waters would nol~ have ~ome forth. And John in his Gospel insists that this incident of the soldier declining to break our Lord's legs and instead opening His side was a momentous event. He emphasizes his own role as an eye-witness of the event: "And he who saw it has borne witness, and his witness is true: and he knows that he tells the truth, that you also may believe" (Jn 19:35). And he puts further emphasis on the event by telling us that by it two prophecies were fulfilled: "Not a bone of him shall you break," and "They shall look upon. him whom they have pierced." The first of these prophecies speaks of the paschal lamb. Now in the concluding events of the passion of Christ it is fully revealed that Christ is the true Lamb of God; accordingly none of His bones were broken. This symbol of the Lamb recalls the mag-nificent theology of the Apocalypse concerning the "Lamb who was slain" (Apoc 5:12). In the Lamb we see the Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah who suffers 'and is glorified in His sufferings: "The Lamb . . . is the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings" (Apoc 17:14). The redeemed are the "bride, the spouse of the Lamb" (Apoc 21:9). In the blood of this Lamb the faithful are able to be cleansed--to be filled with the living waters of the Spirit. And from the fact that the rivers flow forth from the 10 January, 1960 LIVING WATERS wounded Heart of the Lamb, we are led to those passages in the Apocalypse which depict the fulfillment of the prophecies of Isaiah and Ezekiel: "For the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them, and will guide them to the fountains of the waters of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes" (Apoc 7:17); ". he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming forth from the throne of God and of the Lamb" (Apoc 22:1). Thus the act of redemption is enshrined, as it were, in a celestial garden and the redeemed are forever made joyous at the Saviour's fountains. The second prophecy, which is concerned with the piercing of our Lord's side, is from Zechariah: "And I will pour out upon the house of David and upon Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of prayers: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for an only son" (Zech 12:10). In this passage God speaks about Himself. As man, He will be the first-born, one for whom they mourn and weep and at whom they gaze although they have pierced Him. God Himself in His human nature brings about the redemption and is the one who gives the living water of the Spirit. He pours forth the Spirit at the moment when the lance opens His Heart. At that moment the Spirit begins to flow and the Messianic work will be prolonged to the end of time when Jesus will come again in glory. In the words of the Apocalypse: "Behold, he comes with the clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they also who pierced him" (Apoc 1:7). Our Lord, then, standing above the throng gathered for the Feast of the Tabernacles, revealed Himself as the long awaited Messiah, the rock of salvation, the fountainhead of all the bless-ings of the Messianic times. For the most part, He was not ac-cepted. A few believed in Him, so John tells us, but only a few. For He is the "stone which the builders rejected." But He is also the rock which will be struck anew for the salvation of the newly chosen people. He will give of His sub-stance to give birth to the new people that He will acquire for Himself. From His pierced side will spring the fountain of eternal life, the rivers of living waters, the Spirit of love, the Church, the new Jerusalem, Baptism and the other sacraments, all the graces of the "last days." The Litany of the Sacred Heart sums it all up in the invocation: "Heart of Jesus, fountain of life and holiness." 11 A Catechism on Obedience of Judgment Paul W. O'Brien, S. J. QWhat are the necessary presuppositions for every act of obedience? A. That the superior has authority and that what he commands is not certainly sinful. Q. Could the superior sin while commanding something not sinful? A. Yes, through sinful motives, for example, envy, injustice, or serious imprudence. Q. What is the formal motive of obedience? A. Authority. Q. Is obedience an act of the will or intellect? A. Obedience of the will is an act of the will; obedience of judgment is formally an act of the intellect, but like faith, is commanded by the will. Q. What is obedience of judgment? A. The conforming of my judgment to the judgment of the superior-because he has authority. Q. To what judgment do I conform? A. Not necessarily to his theoretical (speculative)judgment, that is, something to believe, but to his practical judgment, that is, something to do. The Abbot John did not have to believe that the dry stick would grow into a tree; he had only to believe that God wanted him to water it (for His own mysterious reasons). Q. How would you express this practical judgment? A. Given the order of the superior, I must judge that this is what God wants done (that is, God sanctions with His authority the perhaps mistaken decision of my superior) and that it is best according to the ultimate mysterious plan of God (not necessarily best for the immediate purpose intended by the superior). Q. When I cannot agree with the speculative judgment of the superior and must carry out his practical judgment, how should I obey? A. Not just materially, by merely executing the order (and in such a way as to sabotage the project, emphasizing and dis- 12 O[~EDIENCE OF JUDGMENT playing the weakness of the order, proving the superior wrong); but loyally entering into his, views (without blinding myself to his error), covering up its weaknesses before the public, trying my best to make it succeed. Q. Should I judge the order of the superior to be the will of God because of the reasons of the superior? A. No, but only because he has authority. Q. Then obedience of judgment does not imply that I agree with the reasons of the superior? A. No, it does not imply this. Q. Is it possible to have perfect obedience of judgment and the firm assurance that the superior's order is the will of God for me, while still hesitating over the reasons of the superior? A. Yes. Obedience is specified by authority, not by reasons. Q. Will my obedience of judgment be more perfect in propor-tion as I bring myself into agreement with the reasons of the superior? A. No, though the desire to agree will indicate a more perfect disposition. Q. Then why try to make my reasons agree with the reasons of the superior? A. It helps remove the psychological obstacles to obedience of judgment and chiefly of execution. It is easier to act if humanly speaking I agree with the policy. It is the proper disposition in the face of God's representative. Q. Do I suspend my act of perfect obedience of judgment while I am trying to bring myself to agree with the reasons of the superior? A. No, no more than you suspend your act of faith while you study your catechism or theology. Q. When I have brought myself to agree with all the reasons of the superior, do I have more assurance of doing God's will? A. No. The security that comes from authority (in the line of faith) will always be sufficient and greater than that which comes from the weight of human reasons. (Actually both the superior and I may be agreeing in wrong reasons.) Q. What is "blind obedience"? A. Supposing the two presuppositions of all obedience, I blind myself to the qualities and reasons of my superior, that is, I exclude the consideration of these reasons and motivate my obedi-ence by authority alone. Q. What is the difference between obedience of judgment and 13 PAUL W. O'BRIEN blind obedience? A. There is no difference in the act of obedience. But while obedience of judgment merely states the fact, blind obedience connotes the approach: the exclusion of the consideration of the reasons. Q. Is blind obedience a help to obedience of judgment? A. Yes. It makes obedience of judgment easier and safer for though I could have perfect obedience of judgment while consider-ing, and even while rejecting the reasons, still it is much easier to by-pass these reasons and look simply to authority. Q. Is blind obedience always better? A. No. Even though easier and safer, it is often good and sometimes necessary to consider the reasons of the superior (even while excluding them from the motivation of obedience), for they may: (a) help me to profit by the experience of my elders, (b) enlighten me on the spirit of my community, (c) be necessary to relieve psychological blocks to action, (d) be necessary for the understanding of the mind of the superior in view of carrying out his order more intelligently. Q. What should be my attitude toward the reasons of the superior? A. I should be well-disposed towards them. They are given to help me. I should use them as far as they help. If they trouble me, I should prescind from them and practice blind obedience, But even while using them, I should keep them in second place and unite myself to God through authority. 14 The Theology of Religious Women Yves M.-J. Congar, 0. P. This article was a conference given July 10, 1958, to a convention of French priests charged with the care of religious women. It will ~ppear as a chapter in a book to be entitled Le r61e de la religieuse dans l'Eglise (Paris: Cerf, 1960), a volume in the series Probl~mes de la religieuse d'aujourdhui. The article was first printed in Suppldment de la Vie Spirituelle (1959), 316:42. The present translation is by John E. Becker, S.J. Basic Notions: The Church and the World THE WORLD was set on,its way reality by the creative act. Its story is humanity s quest atos, ,ba e fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it" (Gen 1:28). For all practical pur-poses, the world, the temporal, history, the drive to civilize are equivalent ideas; the reality they have in common is the effort of man to perfect himself by subjecting, for his advantage, the re-sources inherent in himself and in material creation. And this effort has a direction, a direction which is completely dependent on the facts of Adam's existence: he was at one and the same time both image of God and sinner. As Tennyson said very well, it is only at the end of this great adventure that one can say that man is complete. The Church is something other than this inherent movement of the world or of history even if, as is the case, she envelops it and Ultimately guarantees it. For she does not emerge out of the resources deposited within the first creation. She is placed in the realm of reality by a new initiative of God, properly supernatural, that is to say, an initiative in which God commits and gives Himself (this is the meaning of grace). She is an order of sanctity and sanctification positively instituted from above, a creation of the divine positive law issuing from the priestly, prophetic, and redemptive kingship of Christ. Still she has her existence and, as it were, her proper stability within human societies. Divine insti-tution that she is, she herself creates and shapes according to her needs and her spirit institutional forms proper to herself. On the other hand, the Church is not made to be an end in herself. She is made for God and for the world -- even for the world, to save it by the grace which God has given her to dispense: 15 YvEs M -J CONGAR Rewew for Rehgmus "In it [the faith of the Church] is contained union with Christ.''1 The Church is a new creation of God, and a supernatural one; but she has a mission in and for the world. This mission consists in two things: first, to convert men by making them disciples, that is to say by bringing them into herself, giving them in this way the regeneration of a second birth; and then to sanctify them by communicating to them the grace of the Lord, by forgiving their sins, and by teaching them to conform their lives to the holy and sanctifying will of God;2 second, to operate within temporal life itself in order that in accordance with God's plan it may be directed and oriented towards God to the fullest possible extent. The Church here reveals especially the healing power of grace which, by giv-ing back to nature her primitive orientation, conforms her to the will and to the image of God while at the same time restoring her t'o herself. The Church seeks, by all sorts of initiatives and under-takings, to remold the world according to the plan of God, which is neither the pursuit of self nor the pursuit of power nor egoistic hardness of heart, but on the contrary, service, brotherhood, justice, peace, communion, sharing, helping the poorest, combating all the degrading miseries of body and soul. This is why, from one end to the other of her history and growth, the Church has created ministries inspired by charity. Some of them, more involved with the work of the world and its battles, such as the fight for social justice, are more the role of the laymen within her whom she forms and inspires for this work. Others, more strictly pertinent to her spiritual nature and to her primary office of sanctification, can remain more properly eccle-siastical ministries; such is the case in particular with the corporal works of mercy or the spiritual works such as teaching. "As long as you did it for one of these, the least of my brethren, you did it for me" (Mt 25:40). Basic Notions: The Church in Herself One can consider the Church as the great sacrament of salva-tion and distinguish in her two aspects. She is both the reality of grace or sanctity and she is the means of grace or sanctification: reality and sacrament. Images for comparison are not lacking. However, as with every .image, they are very inadequate, and risk losing through excessive schematization what they gain in clarity. 1St. Ir~naeus, Adversus Haereses, III, 24, 1. ~Mt 28:19-20; Mk 16:15 ft.; Jn 3:3 ft.; 20:21 ff.; Col 1:13; etc. 16 January, 1960 THEOLOGY OF RELIGIOUS WOMEN For example, the Church as a holy reality may be considered to be. a tower or a temple; as a means of. sanctification, to have the instrumental power of a pick, a mining car, a windlass, a scaffold, and all of those things which are necessary ~to bring the rough stone from the mines to the finished building where each has its place and its proper finish (see the hymn for the dedication of a church). Does not St. Augustine distinguish the "society of the sacraments" and the "society of the saints," the former being ordered to the latter? Does he not also write: "The architect builds a permanent edifice with temporary machinery"?'~ To see in the Church the holiness already rooted in souls is not only to consider the depths of her life, it is to see in her that which will always be. "Charity never passes away" (1 Cor 13:8). To live through charity the life of holiness is really to live as a citizen of the eternal and heavenly City of God. In heaven, one might say, there will be nothing else but that. That city knows no hierarchy other than that of holiness or of love. The Virgin Mary is at its pinnacle. In the Church of this world she had neither a function nor a hierarchical dignity. It could readily be said of her that she was a member, the first member, of the laity if there were not the danger of belying by this way of speaking her per-fection as a consecrated member of the faithful. Mgr. Journet says well, following St. Thomas, that the Virgin Mary has per-fectly achieved the highest holiness, not the highest hierarchical dignity.~ She is-the type, or better, the perfect personification of the Church, but of the Church as final end, not as means. Mary is the "eschatological eikon of the Church.''~ That which in the Church is "sacrament" in the wide sense of the word -- instrument or means of grace -- is as such related to her as a wayfarer. This is true in the first place of her sacraments properly speaking, but also of her dogmatic formulas, of her organizations, and of her ecclesiastical hierarchy which has the care of all these matters. If it were necessary to point out a type or a personification of the Church here, it would not be the Virgin Mary but rather the Apostle Peter. But this would be to consider 3Sermo 362, 7 (Patrologia Latina, 39, 1615). 4St. Thomas, In I Sent., d. 16, q. 1, a. 2, ad 4; Summa Theologiae, 3, 27, 5, ad 3; Albert the Great, In IV Sent., d. 19, a. 7; Charles Journet, L'Eglise du Verbe incarnd, 2 (Paris, 1951), 422; 441; 456, note 2. ~This striking expression is from L. Bouyer, Le culte de la M~re de Dieu (Chevetogne, 1950), 33; Le trSne de la sagesse (Paris, 1957), 188. See also O. Semmelroth, Die Kirche als Ursakrament (Frankfort, 1951), 176-85. A beautifu] and rich meditation on the theme of Mary as perfect spiritual type of the Church is to be found in H. Rahner, Marie et ~'Eglise (Paris, 1955). 17 YvEs M.-J. CONGAR Review [or Religious only one part of the reality, to reduce the power of the Church as means of grace or of sanctification to "institutions" alone. But as a matter of fact the whole life of the Church in time is a means of grace tending to produce that interior fruit of holiness which will always remain. Still, if the distinction which we have proposed is valid -- it is a classical one -- it is very necessary to guard against pushing it to the point of separation or disjunction. The Church in the concrete, the existential Church on earth is at the same time both means of sanctification and sanctity. In terms of the image used above, we should say that she is at the same time the building and the construction works by which she is built; or, using another image, she is the ear of wheat, full of the grain of which the host will be made, and at the same time the root and stem necessary to bear and nourish the wheat until the harvest time. This is why in the Church holiness and means of sanctification interpenetrate. The sacraments are holy; but also the reality of the interior holiness of the members is a powerful means of leading other members and the whole body either to conversion or to greater holiness. There is a spiritual mothering of holiness, or, if holiness seems too broad, of the life of faith, of prayer, and of charity; and perhaps this mothering is too little studied, theoretically undervalued in the Church, even though it is extremely real, a factor of everyday life. We shall return to this point later. It would also be inexact to make a complete separation be-tween holiness and visibility. Holiness manifests itself. It is even a "note" of the Church, that is to say a mark which "notifies" and permits the true Church to be recognized. As instigator and end of all the visible works of the Church, terminus and interior direction of all the instrumentality of grace, intimate soul of all the historical life of the Church, holiness gathers all of these func-tions together to constitute that sign of the Kingdom of God which the Church must be for the world. During His earthly life, Jesus made men sensible of the approach of the Kingdom of God and unveiled something of its proper mystery by "signs" just as He opened up the ways of the Good News in parables. After the Ascension of the Lord, it is the Church which by the grace of Pentecost is the sign for the world. But the different manifesta-tions of her historical life are signs of the Kingdom of God, signs of the charity of Christ, only because they incorporate and radiate holiness. Otherwise they might be signs of power, of legal right, even of greatness; they would not be signs of the Kingdom of God 18 January, 1960 THEOLOGY OF RELIGIOUS WOMEN and of the charity of Christ. They would not draw the world to the faith. Basic Notions: Religious Life The Church is a body which is organic, organized, and.there-fore composed of different elements. She embraces the infinity of individual differences which are the foundation of the gifts, altogether interior ~and spiritual or exterior and public, of each one: what a variety among men, what a variety in the world of the saints! All this is the rainbow of grace. But there are also larger differences in the Church, delimited categories, groups charac-terized by a particular social structure, even constituted as such by law. These are those major differences of condition which affect Christian life in that profound and permanent as well as public and manifest way by reason of which one may speak of them as states. Christian antiquity and the Middle Ages used the expression orders for any group, and the encyc.lical Mystici corporis of June 29, 1943, reintroduced this idea into its broad theology of the Church as the Body of Christ. Once more it speaks, for example, of the "order of the laity.''~ The fathers spoke of the order of preachers or of prelates, the order of clerics, of monks, of virgins, of the continent, of widows, of deaconesses, of married people. If we consider only the most general divisions of states in the Church, we find ourselves faced with a double distinction, that between clerics and the laity, and another between seculars and regulars or religious (see below, note 50). If we recall what was said above about the Church, we will be able to relate the first distinction more to that ~aspect according to which the Church is means of sanctification, since this difference is between the simple members of the people of God and those members who are destined to exercise some sacred function and are endowed with powers appropriate to the prac.tical application of the means of grace. The second distinction pertains more to the aspect of the Church according to which she is a mystery of holiness; for the "state of perfection," even though it is a means of sanctification, is nor-mally an approach towards a more perfect life in Christ. In both cases, the state ~or particular ecclesiastical position of the cleric and of the regular is a deprivation of the greater liberty legiti-mately given those in the world in view of their conditio.n of life and .activity in the world; the purpose of this deprivation is the better service of God, whether this be more on the plane of per- SActa Apostolicae Sedis, 35 [1943), 200-01. 19 YVES M.-J. CONGAR Review for Religious sonal spiritual life (religious life) or more on the plane of admin-istering the Church's means of sanctification (clerical, priestly state). It would be superfluous to spend time here defining religious life. Let us recall merely the simple and vigorous manner in which St. Thomas Aquinas characterized it in relation to the Christian life of the simple faithful.7 Each member of the faithful is com-mitted by his baptism, to renounce sin as well as Satan and his temptations. By religious profession, a Christian man or woman commits himself to renounce the world as the context of his life in order to belong more entirely, more definitively to God and to His work; for the world is an ambiguous milieu to live in; it is full of occasions of evil; it is engrossing, distracting, and filled with demands which hinder one from belonging to God completely and of temptations which turn one away from Him. This is why it is essential to the religious life, not only to detach oneself from the earthly and to consecrate oneself to God by vows, but through the rule to separate oneself from the conditions of life in the world. A point of view less individual and more ecclesiological might present the same realities in the following way.s The difference between religious and the simple faithful need not be viewed as a difference between the consecrated and the non-consecrated. This opposition exists, of course; but it should be located between the Church and the world, between the people of God and those who are not, between Christians and non-Christians (see 1 Pet 2:10). In the people of God as such, in the Body of Christ, all is sacred. The faithful are consecrated; their whole life as Christians, in so far as it is Christian, is sacred, not profane. All that religious can ambition is to be more consistently, more integrally Christian, and to embrace more perfect means toward this end." Laymen, or the ordinary faithful, live in the world. It is their precise charac-teristic to serve God in the way that is determined by their natural mission into the world.~° But the world is something other than 7Contra impugnantes religionem, c. 1. 8We employ here a suggestion of R. Carpentier, S.J. in his Life in the City o[ God: An Introduction to the Religious Life (New York, 1959). Compare the same author's "Les instituts s~culiers," Nouvelle Revue Thdologique, 77 (1955), 408-12, in particular, 409, 411. ~Since Dom G. Morin's L'iddal monastique et la vie chrdtienne des premiers jours (Maredsous, 1912), it is better known that religious life is merely the Christian life more fully expressed. 1°There is more and more agreement on this positive and theological definition of the lay state: Y. M.-J. Congar, "Qu'est-ce qu'un laic?" Suppld-ment de la Vie Spirituelle, 1950, 363-92; this article is the first chapter in the same author's Lay People in the Church Westminster, 1957). See also K. 2O January, 1960 THEOLOGY OF RELIGIOUS WOMEN the Church. If the Church has its inner consistency and its proper demands, the world has too, Even prescinding from the ambiguity inherent in the enterprises of men and in the tendency toward sin which adheres to the tissue of the world, it is still necessary to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's. For this reason even those laymen who seek only to love and serve God, whose personal lives are surrendered to God, and whose hearts are wholly intent upon Him find it difficult to exert themselves and to carve out their way in that world, a world which is not surrendered to God. "And he is divided" (1 Cor 7:33-34). The life of the Christian in the world is, unhappily, a divided one. The religious is the Christian who, in the desire to belong totally and irrevocably to God,~ leaves the world and enters a life built up and organized for the service of God, something which the world is not. The religious life in so far as it is a social frame-work for living is actually a creation of the Church for the pur-poses of the Church -- the service of God, Throughout the len.gth of her history.the Church has striven to achieve through religious life that which she tried to do as soon as she entered the world" by the grace of Pentecost; it was something that had been tried' be-fore her, for example in the monasticism of the Essenes on the shores of the Dead Sea. Her aim has been to constitute a way of life which responds perfectly, even as a social or juridical structure, to the communal and fraternal demands of the Gospel and which allows one to be at the exclusive service of God. In fact, through-out the whole history of the religious life one finds references back to the tentative attempt at communal living in the primitive Church at Jerusalem.~- Moreover, it is by expressl.y referring to Rahner, "L'apostolat des la~cs" in Nouvelle Revue Thdologique, 78 (1956), 3-32; a digest of this article may be found in Theology Digest, 5 (1957-58), 73-79. ~St. Thomas: "So that he may not turn back" (Summa Theologiae, 2-2, 186, 6, ad 1; see also Contra Gentiles, 3, 131). l~See Acts 2:44 and 4:32. Some references on this point are: F~r St. Pach-omius see L.Th. Lefort, Les vies coptes de saint Pach6me et de ses premiers successeurs [Louvain, 1943), 3, 30, and 65, 25; for St. Basil, see his Regulae brevius tractatae, int. 148, 187 (Patrologia Graeca, 31, 1180 and 1208) as well as his Regulae [usius tractatae, int. 7 (Patrologia Graeca, 31, 933); for St. Augustine see his En~arrationes in Psalmos, 132, 2 (Patrologia Latina, 37, 1729 ff.), his Sermo 355 and 356 De vita et moribus clericorurn suorum ( Patrologia Latina, 39, 1568 ff.), his De opere monachorum (C.S.E.L., 41, 529 ft.), his Regula (see below, note 21), and A. Zumkeller's Das M6nchtum des hl. Augus-tinus (Wiirzburg, 1950), 129 ft.; for St. Ambrose Autpert, see his In Cant. (Bibl. Max. Patrum, 13, 442); for St. Odo of Cluny, see his Occupatio 6 (Patrologia Latina, 133, 572) and J. Leclercq's "L'id~al monastique de saint Odon d'apr~s ses oeuvres," in A Cluny. Congrbs scientifique, 1949, 227 ff.; for St. Peter Damian, see his Opusculum 24, Contra clericos regulares proprietarios (Patrologia Latina, 145, 482-90). From the time of the reform 21 YvEs M.-J. CONGAR Review [or Religious this historical archetype that all reforms, all renewals of the religious life have been carried out. The "type" of Jerusalem, the City of Peace, the city "where all together make one body" (Ps 122:3), the place of God's habitation, has always been, for the various institutes of religious life, a kind of ideal, or "myth" in $orel's sense of the word. The religious life is a kind of earthly anticipation of the City of God. The chief forms of the religious life derive, even in those things which differentiate them, from the following principle com-mon to all: The religious life is a total consecration which is carridd out on the social level and publicly approved by the Church and which aims at the pursuit of the perfection of charity on the basis of a renouncement of that which hinders this totality, and this renouncement is made in such a way as to close to oneself the possibility of turning back. Within the bounds of this essential principle common to all, religious institutes differ from one another according to that pre-. eminent work of charity to which each one specifically devotes itself. A first overall distinction arises, for this reason, between institutes vowed to the service of the love of God alone, in Him-self, and immediately -- the contemplative life, monasticism, the eremetical life -- and institutes vowed to the service of the love of God in the exterior exercise of love and of service to the neigh-bor -- institutes specifically vowed to the works of mercy, corporal (hospitals), or spiritual (teaching), or the two together (the greater part of the missionary congregations).13 Contemplatives or monks also contribute to the salvation of the world, but only from above and in the context of the mystery of the Communion of Saints, from which comes in its secret forms that spiritual maternity which we have already mentioned and to which we shall return. From the point of view of effective activity they seem to leave the world to its damnation.Nevertheless, this is a historical fact: it is the monks who have made Christianity; of the llth and 12th centuries the references 'to Acts increase; see the studies of Ch. Dereine and others. See also J. Leclercq, La vie parfaite (Turnhout, 1948), 82-108. M.-D. Chenu, La thdologie au xii'~ si~cle (Paris, 1957), 227 ff. 13As is well known there exists a third category, that of the apostolic life, which is sometimes given the strange and little justified name of the "mixed life." In this life the superexcellent work of charity is identical with that of that agape which implies service, self-giving, apostolate, mission. It implies living in the light of faith and love to the extent of communicating them to others by means of the apostolate. But this apostolic life is almost exclusively reserved to men; and in its fullness it demands the priesthood of the Gospels. 22 January, 1960 THEOLOGY OF RELIGIOUS WOMEN monasticism has been --it is still, it will continue to be in the future -- preeminently the educator who teaches men not only what it is to be a Christian, but also what it is.to be human. In this way it has been the creator of much that is beautiful. It is impossible to accept grace without its showing its healing power, impossible to seek first the Kingdom of God without all these other things being added on besides (Mt 6:33; Lk 12:31). Religious devoted to the works of mercy enter into the torrent of the world to perform the work of rescue. They participate more strictly than the monks in that which in the Church is not only repose in God but also anxiety for and with men; they participate in the Church not only as a harbor of grace and the inn of the good Samaritan, but as an effective rescue service with the difficult commitment to heal the wounded on a road infested with robbers. In the duality of the Church and of the world, the monks represent essentially the distinction or opposition of the two. The Church is not of the world; and in her monks she says to it: "Do not touch me!" But the duality of the Church and of the world is not only distinction and opposition, it is also a kind of coupling; it implies a dialectical and dramatic point of contact. Not only do the Church and the world coexist in the time between Eden and the Kingdom, they exist in a certain way one with the other and one for the other. The world is, for the Church, not only~ the quarry from which she gets her stones, but also a necessary partner in a dialogue, or better, a sort of separated partner, who opposes and tests her, but with whom she must remain joined in order to try to save it. The Church is different from the world, she is grace and salvation. But in the interim between Easter and the second coming, which is her time of wayfaring and of labor, she is joined to the world as the good Samaritan was to his wounded stranger while he lifted him up and carried him, or as a lifeguard is joined to the drowning person whom he attempts to bring to the shore.~ Basic Notions: The Role of Woman in the Church One can scarcely speak of the laws of God's work, for he would thus risk giving the meaning that rules are imposed upon God extrinsically and as necessities. But one may speak of con-stants which the work itself reveals to us. And one of these constants seems to be procedure by pairs or complementary polarities. The study of tradition throughout Scripture, the fathers, and ancient ~On this point read G. Bernanos, La libertd, pourquoi faire? (Paris, 1953), 267-69; and see H. Urs yon Balthasar, Le chr~tien Bernanos (Paris, 1956), 217. 23 YVES M~-J. CONGAR Review for Religious texts and records, has convinced us more and more that this idea has played a very great role in Christian thought and institutions.~5 Among these unified dualities or complementary polarities, the first is without doubt the division of humanity into man and woman. It reappears in the Church, with the reservation that will be noted later. It is the reason that today's relatively numerous studies of "the second sex" have their counterparts, frequently stimulating ones, in Christian publications which attempt to de-termine the particular role and assets of women and hence of religious women in the Church.~ This role and these assets are connected with these larger values: a) Woman stands for receiving, welcoming, consenting; she is the "spiritual vessel." To speak of passivity would be not quite exact; receptivity is vital and active. Recall the "fiat" of the Virgin Mary, the prototype of acceptance and of the faithfulness of the Church before the God who comes, calls, asks. b) It is also said of the Virgin that "she kept all things in her heart." Man has the initiative in producing life. Woman creates for it a milieu that is intimate and warm, a home. In the home she embodies that humble faithfulness which conserves, waits, wel-comes. Man is devoted to the risks of conflict on the outside; he is the victim of its aggression; he suffers change. But thanks to his wife he has a home where he can recover intact his better self, his inner self: the freshness and poetry of love, the faithfulness to memory and to conscience, the delicacy of attention and of care.'7 Man is specialized by work and by action. Woman is nearer 15The following examples have been chosen at random and hurriedly; nevertheless the meaning and the relationships of this theme of "pairs" were a matter of profound experience in the consciousness and texts of the ancients; they will be understood better if one keeps in mind the duality in unity which is at the basis of all the examples: Man and woman, soul and body, the two sides of the body (two eyes, two hands, etc.), sky and earth, sun and moon (the "two luminaries"), the two powers, pope and emperor, the two witnesses Peter and Paul, Moses and Elias, law and grace, the Church of the Jews and the Church of the Gentiles, head and body, Scripture and tradition, baptism and confirmation [Christ and the Holy ~pirit), com-munion under two species, the two columns of the temple of Jerusalem, the two cherubim of the Ark, etc. ~6For studies by Catholics see Gertrud von Lefort, Die ewige Frau ~Munich, 1935); Maura BSckeler, Das grosse Zeichen. Die Frau als Symbol g6ttlicher Wirklichkeit (Salzburg, 1941); D'Eve tt Marie, ou le destin de la Femme in L'Anneau d'or, 1954; F.J.J. Buytendijk, La femme, ses modes d'etre, de paratt)'e et d'exister (Paris, 1957). A Protestant study is Ch. von Kirschbaum's Die wirkliche Frau (Zurich, 1949). A Greek Orthodox study is: Paul Evdo-kimov, La femme et le salut du monde. Etude d'anthropologie chrdtient~e sur les charismes de la [emme (Paris, 1958). ~TThis role of woman is well illustrated in novels such as the following: Sigrid Undset, Kristin Lavransdatter: Elizabeth Goudge, Green Dolphin Street; A. J. Cronin, Th~ Citadel. See also Alice Oll~-Laprune, Liens immortels. 24 January, 1960 THEOLOGY OF RELIGIOUS WOMEN to the sources of life and of elementary realities, more humbly given over to daily occupations. She has also an instinctive sensi-bility which allows her to grasp things in a more concrete, simpler, more comprehensive fashion, to see things as wholes. She gives herself more simply, and perhaps more irrevocably, in committing herself more thoroughly and totally to these things. In this total commitment of woman there is a value attested to by experience which is expressed remarkably well in the con-secration of religious women. This consecration, for the faithful and even for the priesthood, stands as a kind of oasis, a reserve storehouse of the simple life, of total, unsophisticated faith; it stands for homesteads of inviolate faithfulness softened by a gentle delicacy. There are here, along with a beehive's thrifty efficiency, treasure houses of devotedness and all the strength of an abnegation that is without ambition or defense. We will not delay on this longer because we are not sure that this precisely feminine element is so very important in the religious life. The religious life would represent in the Church rather that condition in which woman becomes most active,, closest to assum-ing initiatives and activities comparable to those of men. So she proclaims in a special way a superiority over the differences of sex and over the other conditions which divide man in his "life in Christ.''~8 If femininity exists at this level, it is that of the whole Church who is, according to patristic tradition and its develop-ment of the indications of Scripture, the New Eve beside the New Adam, Christ. That which, in the Church, represents Christ as Master, Spouse, and Father, is not the male religious institute; it is the episcopacy and the priesthood. It is easy to relate these facts to that which was said above about the two aspects of the Church: that of goal or of holiness, alongside which religious life has its special place, and that of means, alongside which the dis-tinction between priests and simple faithful has its place. The Role of Religious Woman in the Church The religious life is, in the Church, the highest approximation of the City of God. It is, in the sphere of collective realities, that portion which is nearest to being the fruit of lasting holiness (reality), that which most closely pertains to the Church as "Com-reunion of Saints" and eschatological reality. This is what we shall consider first in itself and then in its inherent value as a sign. ~sSee Gal 3:28; Col 3:11. 25 YVES M.-J. CONGAR Review for Religious Religious life is first of all for God. It exists in the Church first of all as an area reserved for God. It represents the first fruits and their special worth as tokens of homage and as free gifts. Sometimes, in a corner of the countryside withdrawn from the traffic of men one finds a religious house which, humanly speaking, vegetates. But when one has become a regular visitor to such a community, one discovers that it is accomplishing an onerous duty of praise or of intercession, far from the notice or even the knowl-edge of men. "To what purpose is this waste?" ~Mt 26:8; Mk 14:4) It is the song of the bride meant only for her spouse; it is that part of the Church seen and known to God alone, to the Father "who sees in secret" (Mt 6:4; 6:18). Above and beyond all its external usefulness and all i~s ordination to extrinsic things, religious life remains a realization of the mystery of the Church or of the mystical body. It is im-possible to'emphasize this too much: before one can cooperate in the building up of the outside of the Church which is for others, it is necessary that it be built up within. A religious community is a cell of the Church; better, it is a Church in miniature.'9 It gives flesh to the mystery of the Church. The Rule of St. Augustine begins with these words, whose fulness of meaning and even whose technical validity arise out of the great Augustinian synthesis on the sacrifice of the "City redeemed as one":2° "A primary purpose for which you are gathered together in one community is that you live in the monastery with unanimity, having but one mind and one heart in the service of God.''~' Members join together in re-ligious life first of all to live the life of charity, to give reality to fraternal union according to the spirit of the Gospel. We cannot meditate too much on this truth, without which our communities will be nothing but a lie and a scandal.'-'~ The great lawgivers of ~On this theme see the valuable study of Dom Emmanuel yon Severus, "Das MSnchtum als Kirche," in Enkainia, ed. by H. Emonds (Dusseldorf, 1956), 230-48; also A. deVogu~, "Le monast~re, Eglise du Christ," in Studia Anselmiana, 42 (Rome, 1957), 25-46. ~'See De Civitate Dei, X, cc. 5 and 6. ~Patrologia Latina, 32, 1738. ~To stimulate reflection on this matter, I permit myself to cite here the two following texts which are hateful and terrible, but important: "Monks are people who bunch together without knowing each other, live together without loving each other, and die without regretting each other." ~Voltaire, L'homme aux quarante ~cus, VIII, Oeuvres completes, xxxiv, Paris, 1829, 60). "The love of God serves them as an excuse to love no one; they do not even love one another. Has anyone ever observed rea] friendship among the devout? But the more they detach themselves from men, the more they demand of men; and one could say that they do not raise themselves to God except to exercise his authority on the earth." (J.-J. Rousseau, Nouve~le Hdloise 6th Part, Letter 8). 26 January, 1960 THEOLOGY OF RELIGIOUS WOMEN the cenobitic life, St. Pachomius and St. Basil, expressly defended the primacy of this life over the anchoritic life on the basis of the fraternal charity and mutual edification (one of the great values in the Gospels) for which it gives the opportunity.~'~ One of the essential articles of the religious life is the achievement of a true fraternal relationship, the condition, complement, and fruit of a true relationship with God. If the Christian is an eschatological man because he is a fellow citizen with the saints, a member of the house of God (Eph 2:19), the monk is all the more truly a Christian. "But our citizenship is in heaven.''24 This is :said and it is true of all the people of God, for they are a people in exile journeying towards their fatherland. We have already received the pledge of the Spirit, the first fruits of our inheritance,2'' but only the pledge and the first fruits. We still live here below subject to the slavery of the flesh and the oppression of the devil, whom our Savior ~calls "the .Prince of this world"; all creation, subject to vanity, groans in the labor of its childbirth hoping for the glorious liberty of the children of God (Rm 8:19-23). The citizens of the heavenly city are, in this life, in the situa-tion of a people occupied by an enemy power. There are those who adjust themselves to it, there are even those who compromise and "collaborate." There are many who do not accept the enemy power, and in the midst of external conditions of servitude, they assert as far as they can their loyalty to their homeland. But some go farther and resist. They escape to the outskirts. There at least they advance With great labor the hour of liberation, they live already a life of liberty and they prepare for everyone the coming of the liberator. If the Church is like the outskirts of the world,'-'~ religious life is so in a more decided way. Religious have left their homes, their parents, their fields, the comforts of normal life, to be unburdened, free to serve the King of the Heavens. They are, by a more meaningful title, the first fruits of the new creation.~7 ~:~See H. Leclercq, "C~nobitisme," in Dictionnaire d'archdologie chrdtienne, II, 2, 3047-3248; 3093 is concerned with Saint Pachomius and 3149-50 with Saint Basil. See also Vie de Pach6me, cc. 3 and 4 in R. Draguet's Les P~res du ddsert (Paris, 1949), 90 ff., and Saint Basil, Regulae fusius tractatae, cc. 7 and 25-31 (Patrologia Graeca, 31,928 and 984 ft'.) and his Letter 295 (Patro-logia Graeca, 32, 1037). See also 0. Rousseau, Monachisme et vie religieuse d'apr~s l'ancienne tradition de l'Eglise (Chevetogne, 1957), 80 ff. 24Phil 3:20; Heb 11:13-16. ~SSee 2 Cor 1:12; Rom 8:1-30; Eph 1:14o ~See Yves M. J. Congar, Lay People in the Church (Westminster, 1957), 101. ~TSee Apoc 14:4, "the first fruits for God and for the Lamb." This idea of 27 YVES M.-J. COUGAR Review for Religious Each religious profession is like a guerilla victory by which the power of the occupying forces is checked; and without doubt Christ contemplates it with the sentiments which he expressed when the seventy-two disciples returned from their mission full of joy that the demons had given way before them: "I was watching Satan fall as lightning from heaven" (Lk 10:18). This idea of the religious life as an eschatological life~8 is fre-quently expressed in monastic tradition by the theme of the angelic life.2~ It is a perfectly valid theme. Whether one actually looks at the religious life under the aspect of virginity or under that of the spiritual marriage, which is fundamentally the same thing, or under the aspect of the perpetual praise of God (see in particular E: Peterson), or under that of the anticipation as far as possible of heavenly life, life in the presence of God, and even if one looks at this life in the details of asceticism such as vigils or fasting -- under all these aspects of religious life the theme of the angelic life is authentic, and we wish in no way to exclude it. We are convinced,, nevertheless, that certain expressions can be very dangerous and ought to be criticized in the name of biblical and Christian truth2° Historically these expressions have been somewhat distorted by influences coming from two areas: first, the assumption, without~ a critical attitude sufficiently inspired by the biblical point of view, of certain Platonic and Pythagorean ideas, in particular the idea that man consists of a soul, that the body is a tomb (a~/~a-~l/~a) from which one should free himself as much as possible with the result that perfection is made to consist in the contemplation (Oe¢op;~) of eternal, transcendent truths; second, the development of a wholly speculative theory concerning Adam and the state of paradise. We know how St. Gregory of Nyssa, for example, transposed, the final liberation from the oppo-the first fruits is especially emphasized by Dom Emmanuel von Severus, "Zu den bibiischen Grundlagen des MSnchtums," in Geist und Leben, 26 (1953), 113-22'; see also the same periodical, 27 (1954), 414 ff. -°SThis idea is developed in D. Thalhammer, S.J., Jenseitige Menschen. Eine Deutung des Ordensstandes, 2nd ed. (Freiburg, 1952); in J. Leclercq, La vie parfaite (Turnhout, 1948); in L. Bouyer, The Meaning of the Monastic Life (New York, 1955); and in O. Rousseau, op. cir. (footnote 23). ~Wexts on this are innumerable. The principal ones can be found in the works listed in the preceding note, to which the following may be added: E. Peterson, Le livre des anges (Paris, 1954); A. Lamy, "Bios angelikos," in Dieu vivant, n. 7 (1946), 59-77; J. C. Didier, " 'Angdlisme' ou perspectives eschatologiques?" in M~langes de science retigieuse, 11 (1954), 31-48; U. Ranke-Heinemann, "Zum Ideal der vita angelica im fr~ihen MSnchtum," in Geist und Leben, 29 (1956), 347-57; Emmanuel yon Severus, "Bios aggetikos," in Die Engel in der Welt yon heute, 1957, 56-70. 3°I hope to treat this problem later and on a larger scale with the needed precisions and justifications. 28 January, 1960 THEOLOGY OF RELIGIOUS WOMEN sition of the sexes (above, note 18) into the creative intention and held that sex had been a ~stranger to the nature of man as God had, or would have conceived of him, if He had not known ia advance that man would sin.'~ The result of this double influence, with which other factors certainly have concurred, has been not so much perhaps to give an orientation toward the recovery of a lost state of perfection, which is an eschatological expectation present in the New Testament; it has been rather to superimpose on (and perhaps to substitute for) the duality between this world and the other which is to come as the fruit of Christ's Passover, a duality between this earthly, bodily world and a celestial, in-corporeal world which is to be imitated as closely as. possible. But is the Christian ideal to be found in the condescension of God who for love entered human history as a suffering servant? Or is it instead an angelic perfection, situated in an ideal world of the spirit toward which the soul must elevate itself by certain degrees of ascension and sublimation thereby withdrawing itself progres-sively from the sensible world? We may well fear lest spirituality seek its place between heaven and earth and turn away from the history of the world and the commitment to be a savior to men's miseries, meanwhile adjusting itself to a theocracy in which the idea of subordination of body to soul ambiguously expresses itself as a basically political program of subjection of the "temporal" to the "spiritual." We find something of this, it seems, in the history of Citeaux at the height of its prosperity. At that very time the "They will be like the angels" (Lk 20:36; Mt 22:30) is transposed from eschatology to the condition of monks on the earth, something which had been completely avoided, for example, by St. Augustine2: But, on the other hand, for St. Bernard, the mysticism of that angelic life which can bear such doubtful fruits as we have just mentioned is balanced by an ardent mysticism of Christ in his humanity and of the imitation of Christ. What is important is to see, as St. Therese of Lisieux very brilliantly saw it and acted on it,'~'~ that the perfection of love con- 3*See De opificio hominis, cc. 16-17 (Patrologia Graeca, 46, 181 and 188-92). On the very subtle thought of Gregory see the Introduction of P. J. Laplace to La crdation de l'homme [Paris, 1943). St. Thomas criticizes this position in Summa Theologiae, 1, 98, 2. 3~See "Eglise et Cit~ de Dieu chez quelques auteurs cisterciens h l'~poque des Croisades," in Mdlanges Etienne Gilson [Paris, 1959) and "Henri de Marcy, abb~ de Clairvaux, cardinal-dv~que d'Albano et l~gat pontifical," in Analecta Monastica, 5 (Rome, 1958). 33See the studies of A. Combes [for example, his Saint Therese and Her Mission INew York, 1955]) and Ft. Heer, "Die Heilige des Atomzeitalters," in Sprechen wir yon der Wirklichkeit (Nuremberg, 1955), 177 ft. From the 29 YVES M.-J. CONGAR Review for Religious sists essentially not in the ascending movements of an increasing spiritualization, but in a descent by the paths and the steps of humble service to the point of emptying oneselfi34 One must come to the cross where the salvation of the world is worked out and where, by losing ourselves, we work out our own salvation also. This is scriptural and it is Christian, more .scriptural and more Christian than the theme of the angelic life, traditional and valid though it may be under the conditions which have just been detailed. This angelic theme is a monastic theme. Many modern con-gregations, as they are called, have little or no contact with the great sources of monastic spirituality. They are not, for all that, safe from missteps analogous to those which the theme of the angelic life risks causing. The spirituality proposed in these con-gregations, in so far as it is legitimate to reduce it to a common denominator, is largely inspired by Jesuit authors (Rodriguez) and by the spirituality of the French school, the great French moralists and preachers of the "Great Century." But these sources, valuable certainly and even powerful as inspirers of the true Christian life, seem to bear the mark of the two following influences: first, a certain stoic influence, of which Guillaume du Vair would be a particularly representative example35 (we do not mention him for any other reason and certainly not as one of the sources). This stoic influence, diffuse as it may be, is not negligible. Many mod-ern spiritual programs depend rather largely on Christian stoicism. Second: even the great spiritual men of the French school betray the orientation of the moralist, an insistence on those themes which aim to make man conscious of his baseness and his malice, an insistence on the theme of original sin and its consequences, on the wickedness of the world and of all its aims2~ It seems that this is far from the theme of the angelic life; but the two rejoin in certain eventual consequences. There are fruitful considerations in literary viewpoint see von Balthasar, Le chr~tien Bernanos, pp. 156, 160-61, 264 ff., 457-77, 484. '~4Phil 2:7. ~See F. Strowski, Histoire du sentiment religieux en France au xvii" si~cle, I (Paris, 1910), 18-125; and P. Mesnard, "Du Vair et le N6o-stoicisme," in Revue d'histoire de la philosophie, April, 1928, 142-66. Du Vair begins from original sin and the feelings of penance to arrive at a "life in God" by passing through the practice of the cardinal virtues. ~"Some remarks concerning the influence of this spirituality on the con-gregations of teaching religious may be found in J. G. Lawler, The Christian Imagination: Studies in Religious Thought (Westminster, 1955), 38 ft. It is also necessary here to refer to the Imitation of Christ with its moralistic and individualistic perspective of the opposition between the movements of grace and the movements of nature. 3O January, 1960 THEOLOGY OF RELIGIOUS WOMEN all these areas, but scriptural monotheism implies another set of values, more thoroughly oriented toward life, toward history, toward the cosmic theme of salvation. The religious life, and more especially the religious life of women, realizes with a particular intensity and purity the voca-tion of the Church to be the Virgin Spouse of the Lord and thus to become spiritually a mother. The application to the Church of these three inseparable themes: virgin, spouse, mother, whose biblical sources are not only abundant, but situated at the heart of the economy of salvation, is frequent in Christian tradition27 To wish to compare them with themes more or less verbally analogous which have been gathered from the history of religions would be to close one's mind to this. Pagan religions are nature religions which transfer to so-called transcendent persons the relationships and needs of men. They sexualise the divinity. The God of biblical revelation is in no way sexualised; He is the living God who unites men to Himself by faith. The whole relationship of alliance and of union which He establishes with man consists in the spiritual relation of faith, and faith includes a total gift, and therefore is not fully realized except by love: "I will espouse thee to me for-ever: and I will espouse thee to me in justice and judgment and in mercy and in commiserations. And I will espouse thee to me in faith" (Hos 2:19-20). That which creates between God and our-selves, between the Church and God, a marital relation is nothing other than this completely spiritual communication in faith. But this communication supposes in us the sole response of a total giving, of receptivity to the coming of God: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to thy word." So faith is the point of contact for an exchange of fidelity. "I will be your God and you will be my people." And therefore it is a point at which a relation of alliance is achieved, a marital union which is at the same time altogether virginal. It is altogether virginal be-cause the union is spiritual. It consists in nothing else than fidelity itself and is preserved by maintaining this fidelity, that is to say, by its very chastity. It is altogether virginal also because in this relationship of faith nothing which comes from the outside or from ~TThe bibliography is abundant; we will cite only the following: S. Tromp, "Ecclesia Sponsa, Virgo, Mater," in Gregorianum, 18 (1937), 3-29; O. Casel, "Die Kirche als Braut Christi nach Schrift, V~itern, und Liturgie," in The-ologie der Zeit, 1936, 91-111; CI. Chavasse, The Bride o] Christ: An Enquiry into the Nuptial Element in Early Christianity (London, 1940); J. C. Plumpe, Mater Ecclesia: An Inquiry into the Concept of the Church as Mother in Early Christianity (Washington, 1943); AI. Mfiller, Ecclesia-Maria: Die Einheit Marias und der Kirche (Fribourg, 1951); H. Rahner as cited above, n. 5. 31 YVES M.-J. CONGAR Review for Religious that which is lower enters in, nothing which breaks or mars its integrity. There is nothing of earthly eros here. Motherhood or fruitfulness comes to this virginal and marital union as its fulfillment. The fathers say and repeat that the Church (or the soul) becomes a virgin spouse by faith, and that she also becomes a mother by faith: virgin spouse by believing, mother by communicating the faith, by engendering men in faith. Again, the relationship is altogether spiritual. It consists in faith and this is why it is superior to every kind of carnal kinship2s Precisely because of this, the vocation of the Church to be both virginal spouse and virginal mother is achieved in all the members in proportion to their fervor. For, according to a theme equally familiar to the fathers and to spiritual authors, every soul is the Church. Nevertheless in so far as God is not fully "all in all" (1 Cor 15:28), the difference between man and woman exists not only as a reality of the world, but projects itself and intervenes in a certain manner in the body of Christ which is the Church. So there exist certain differences in the manner in which men and women exercise the spiritual motherhood of the Church. The priesthood, since it is a position of external authority, is reserved to the man. But this relates to the Church under her aspect as means of grace, and therefore does not touch the religious life. as such. In its external activity a religious institute can just as well exercise apostolic functions which also relate to the Church as means of grace and represent an explicit cooperation with the action of the hierarchy where the motherhood of the Church is achieved. But the religious life as such, the religious life purely and simply, belongs rather to the Church as eschatological realiza-tion of holiness. This devotes it to being the locus of a very pure and altogether spiritual realization of the twofold relationship of virginal marriage and of motherhood. All this is particularly true in the life of women religious be-cause woman is more a being of receptivity and of self-giving: because when she gives herself, and above all whe~ she gives her-self in the integrity of her heart and of her body, she gives herself in a more intense way, a more complete and irrevocable way than man; because having fewer exterior activities and acting less out of duty and more from her heart, she makes good with her fervor that which would have been lost to her in action. For all these ~Read in this sense Mt 12:48-50 (=Mk 3:33-35; Lk 8:21); Lk 11:28. In .the same way St. Paul calls those his brothers of whom he says that he has engendered them and is their father. See above, n. 18. 32 January, 1960 THEOLOGY OF RELIGIOUS WOMEN reasons religious women, consecrated virgins, play a choice role in the mystery of the Church as virgin spouse of the Lord. They play also their wonderful part in the Church's spiritual motherhood. It is extremely remarkable that this doctrine was recalled to us in a very striking way precisely in a religious woman, Therese of the Child Jesus, who having entered Carmel at the age of sixteen, having died at twenty-four, and having remained unknown by the world during her life, has become not only officially but really the patroness of all Catholic missions2'~ She became all this and remains all this solely in the order of the Communion of Saints. According to St. Augustine, it is pre-cisely the Church as a union of love and a communion of saints which exercises spiritual motherhood.4° And so without exterior activity we can in our prayer and in our laborious efforts at con-version (our penances) include intentions for other men and for all the world's miserable; and we can bear them in the womb of love which is the Church's heart of prayer and charity. It is a part of tradition also that in the Church the strong support the weak (there is no question at all here of any other strength than that which comes from God in faith). This spiritual motherhood is a very profound characteristic of the Church: we believe in the Com-munion of Saints. But experience comes frequently to the aid of our weakness of faith. Who has not appealed to this strength? Who would not be able to bear witness to its reality? The Role of the Religious Woman in the Church as a Sign St. Paul says, "We have been made a spectacle to the world, and to angels, and to men" (1 Cor 4:9). The Church gives a visible body to spiritual gifts. So, for example, the gift of unity in Christ which has been given her becomes the "note" of unity; and that of sanctification by the Holy Spirit, the "note" of holiness. Of all these notes that of holiness is the most insistent; it is'the most efficacious also as a witness to men that the Kingdom of God draws near and calls them. It is also the most directly meaningful note because from the fact of holiness to the presence of God the inference is direct and within the grasp of all. And in this mani- 3~See above, n. 33. Pius XII said that contemplative institutes are "fully and completely apostolic," Sponsa Christi, November 21, 1950 (Acta Apos-tolicae Sedis, 43 [1951], 14). See also the letter to Cardinal Piazza of June 29, 1955, (Acta Apostoltcae Sedis, 47 [~9551, 543). 4°See for example De sancta virginitate, cc. 3 and 5 (Patrologia Latina, 40, 398-99); Sermo Denis, 25, 7 (edition by G. Morin, 162-63); Sermo 215, 4 (Patrologia Latina, 38, 1074). 33 YVES M.-J. CONGAR Review for Religious festation of holiness which the Church constitutes throughout the course of history, the various expressions of religious life occupy a choice place.4~ Religious communities are living parables for men of the Kingdom of God. If we begin our consideration of this by treating what is more external in religious life, its institutions appear to us first of all as the freest and most genuine expressions of the spirit of the Church on the plane of her social manifestations. We know that the Church is an original institution put into the world by God; she proceeds from spiritual energies which come from above (Mr 16:17-18). But as this divine institution is made up of men and has a historical, terrestrial existence, she projects herself and expresses herself in creations equally historical in which, nevertheless, she injects the inspiration and the mark of her own proper genius. It would not be difficult and it would be extremely interesting to show how this special genius has from the beginning inspired institutions which are essentially communal, and at the same time respectful of the person and of his liberty, and marked with the character of service. There is truly a special Christian genius at the level of social creations.~- The religious life is perhaps the most pure and most represen-tative creation of the spirit of the Church in this area of social realities. It is not in vain that she has always loved to compare herself with the model of the first community of Jerusalem. It is marvelous to see how on the collective and judicial plane religious rules and canon law have known how to translate into institutions and laws thecommands and the inspirations of the Gospel. As a result, the institutions of religious life, just as in a certain degree the canonical life of the Church herself, become a kind of preach-ing of and witnessing to the Gospel. It is no mere coincidence that it is always the same men who fail to recognize the existence of divine positive law in the world, who deny to the Church the quality of being an institution of divine law, and who misjudge, attack, and seek to thwart or sup-press religious life. One thinks of Josephinism, of Jacobinism, of our own French laicism in its virulent form. So the religious life is not only a sign of the heavenly kingdom; it is also, along with the 4XSee Cardinal Dechamps, Entretiens, in Oeuvres, I, 467 ft.; Dora Gr~a, De l'Eglise et de sa divine constitution, II (Paris, 1907), 152. Vernon Johnson was converted by the fact of Therese of Lisieux. 42Chateaubriand and even Montalembert are dated. But there are more recent and more technical studies: E. Chenon, Le rSle social de l'Eglise and the six volumes of the Carlyle brothers, A History of Mediaeval Political Theory in the West. 34 January, 1960 THEOLOGY OF RELIGIOUS WOMEN sacraments and the hierarchy, a sign of the Church as a separated order, a social and public reality placed ,in the world in virtue of the right God has to affirm and to establish his reign.43 In a world which wishes to be completely autonomous, religious life, situated at the heart of the Church's garden, presents the example of a life totally "theonomous." But it is common, it is normal, that signs should be, according to the dispositions of those to whom they are shown, a call to conversion or a sign of contradiction, a sign of opposition. They can also be, even for well-disposed men, signs which scandalize if they become sign~ that lie, or signs that are simply inadequate for their mission and their aims. There is also, in the religious life, and we think particularly of the religious life of women, a human element -- sometimes too human, sometimes not human enough! Pettiness, legalism, authoritarianism, pharisaism, the spirit of ownership, hardness of heart, lack of fraternal com-munion and failure to share human misery, taste for power, a judaic spirit in the way of considering observances, especially the least important ones, precisely those from which the Gospel has liberated us. Among the causes which brought on the death of Christianity, the betrayal of their true spirit in the last centuries of the Middle Ages by a number of monastic and religious insti-tutions has justly been noted.4~ When it is authentic, the religious life is a sign that the spiritual exists. Heaven exists, and that takes the value out of the the goods and the joys of earth. Not that they are not truly goods, truly joys, but they are so relative! For "this world as we see it is passing away" (1 Cor 7:31). The religious life proposes, without the noise of words, the message of death which the Church addresses to the world, not a sorrowful message -- who is more joyful than the religious man, if not the religious woman? -- but a serious and an important one. Again, the religious life verifies in a singular manner the essence of all Christian life, which is an Easter life, a mystery of life and of death, comprehended within the message of 4'~In this connection I recall the beautiful text of A. Lamy, "Bios angelikos," in Dieu vivant, n. 7, 76: "The function of monachism in the Church seems to be to affirm the citizenship of the Christian in the city of the angels arid to affirm his rights there by the exercise of them." Religious life is one ele-ment of the eschatological right which the Church affirms and translates into the world. On this basis it could be said that religious life is of divine right, not in its various historical forms, but in its essential principle. It flows from the transcendence of the Church with respect to the world and from the right possessed by every Christian to leave the world and to thus affirm his eschatological and spiritual royalty. ~See Fr. Heer, "L'h~ritage Europe," in Dieu vivant, n. 27 (1954), 43. 35 Yvzs M.-J. CO~AR Review for Religious Ash Wednesday, "Remember that you are dust and that you will return to dust" and that of Easter Day, "Remember that you are spirit and that you will return to the Spirit." The religious life, by its mere existence, is a witness to the world that God exists; it calls the world to the obedience of faith. On either side of the chancel which closes in the choir at the abbey of Maria Laach one may read these words of St. Paul:" "I, therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, exhort you to walk in a worthy manner" (Eph 4:1). The religious life, therefore, has its part in the great kerygmatic function of the Church, that is, in its .lifelong exercise of the mis-sion of announcing the Good News of the Kingdom. It is like a lasting sermon against the spirit of the world. Against its freedom-worshipping and anarchical taste for liberty, religious life affirms that one can bind himself to God, that one can, in the Holy Spirit, make a spiritual thing out of that which is corporeal, and make something stable out of that which changes. Against the world's obsessive defeatism before the evil which it inflicts on itself, the religious life affirms that one can conquer the flesh and push back the empire of the devil. Finally if it is true that the very word ecclesia means con-vocation, a gathering of men in response to a call, the cal! of the Kingdom of God, the religious life situates itself at the very source of the mystery of the Church. For the religious life is, both in its substance as well as in the first act which draws one to enter into it, a total listening to God. It is a reality in the image of Mary, Mary herself being, we know, the type, and even better than the type: the perfect personification of the Church as holiness. It is possible to think that in the wide sense everything is a vocation, because everything is a response to the will of God. But there are vocations in the strict sense, and it is correct to speak of "religious vocation." In the Church, as we have seen, the strong support the weakest; docility in the following of that which is strictly a voca-tion is like a compelling example, a sign and a support for the difficult fidelity to vocations in their larger acceptation. The abso-luteness of the response of religious women to their call supports the response of all others. It is necessary that religious women know that they contribute in this way to the continuation of the whole Church, somewhat as each star in the firmament is necessary for the balance of the whole. Spiritually we all have family respon-sibilities. A last remark of some importance ecclesiologically on the subject of the religious life as a response to a special call. In the 36 January, 1960 THEOLOGY OF RELIGIOUS WOMEN beginnings of Christianity, baptism ratified a personal choice, an eventually dangerous one, of the faith. It was the term of a con-version. It was truly a second birth, not only in the dogmatic sense which is always true, but in the moral sense and on the psycho-logical plane. Psychologists distinguish, since Francis W. New-man, 4~ the "once born" and the "twice born": those who are simply what they were at their entrance into the world plus the results of their being" formed by it; and those who have known a revela-tion, had a decisive ~xperience, heard a call, and are truly, per-sonally, born a second time. A man baptised at the termination of a personal conversion is, psychologically and morally, a "twice born." But, in the general practice, almost universal and one might even say automatic practice of baptism of the newly born, the Church is no longer made up of the twice born except by way of exception. But it is necessary that their moral race always be represented in her midst. She is "twice born" individually by the more or less large number of faithful who are truly born of a second birth. She is "twice born" institutionally especially because of the religious life. Moreover, historically the fact has often been brought out46 that the monastic life developed at the moment when, with the end of persecution and danger and the beginning of the favor of the powerful, large masses of people entered the Church, en-dangering the strength of her leaven. The vocation to asceticism has after a fashion taken the place of the vocation to martyrdom; monks have in a way taken over the status of the martyrs as signs of an absolute response given to an absolute call. The Church's religious life always has this mission of signifying that the Christian life is a second birth whose principle is a call. We will not treat here -- we have already done it briefly elsewhere47 -- an interesting problem, but more theoretical than practical, which was posed by the researches of M. Weber and E. Troeltsch. According to these Protestant authors, religious orders answer within the Church to the needs and the religious tempera-ment which outside the Church produces sects. These would be, sociologically speaking, of the "sect" type, not of the "church" type in so far as they are groupings, first, of volunteers, men who 4~The Soul. Its Sorrows and Its Aspirations. 3rd ed., 1852, 89 ft. 4GFor example, see M. Viller, "Martyre et perfection," in Revue d'ascd-tique et mystique, 6 (1925), 4-25; L. Bouyer, op. cit. n. 28, 89 ft. and his Vie de saint Antoine (Fontenelle, 1950); J. Winandy, Ambroise Autpert, moine et thdologien (Paris, 1953), 56; Ed. E. Malone, The Monk and the Martyr: The Monk as the Successor of the Martyr (Washington, 1950). 47Vraie et [ausse r~/orme dans l'Eglise (Paris, 1950), 288-92 (includes bibli-ography). 37 YVES M.-J. CONGAR Review for Religious come together in a group on the basis of a personal decision and who thus do not presuppose the existence of the group but con-stitute it; second, men who have achieved a break with the world and prefer the Gospel's opposition to terrestrial life to its universal-ism which necessarily involves compromise. Troeltsch sees in religious orders an ecclesiastical naturalization of tendencies which outside the Church result in sects. There is much truth in the analysis of Troeltsch, but only on its own psycho-sociological plane. Both above and below this level it errs. Without prejudice to other of his well made points, we be-lieve we have shown from the inside, that is to say from the view-point of the Church herself, that it is the mystery of the Church which is found to be the essential element in the life of religious orders and of each of their members. By way of conclusion, we would like to answer a question which it is impossible not to put in the context of what we have been considering. Is the religious life or is it not of the essence of the Church, and if it is, by what title? Papal teaching furnishes an answer and it will suffice merely to present it and explain it. Faced with "Americanism," Leo XIII already affirmed that religious orders are of great importance to the mission of the Church.48 But it was necessary to connect their existence with the end of the Church. The Church would not fully fulfill her mission if the institutions of religious life were lacking. If the end of the "missions," in the strict canonical sense of the word, is to "plant the Church" in such a way that she has in a given country or among a given people all her essential institutions, all the means of existence and of action, one understands why Pius XI demanded that on the missions as many religious orders and congregations as possible should be instituted, and that they should be made up of indigenous elements created in new and better forms, where the need for such arose29 His Holiness Pius XII made the matter still clearer in the constitution Provida mater of February 2, 1947, the charter of secular instutes. The two states of cleric and layman, he said, exist by divine right and are necessary to the Church in so far as she is a society constituted and structured hierarchically; they pertain to the essential structure (to the building) of the Kingdom of God 4sSee his letter Testern benevolentiae to Cardinal Gibbons, January 22, 1899, in Actes de Ldon XIII (Paris: Bonne Presse), V, 322-25; also the letter of December 23, 1900 to Cardinal Richard, ibid., VI, 188-89. ~gSee the encylical Rerurn Ecclesiae of February, 1926, in Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 18 (1926), 74. 38 January, 1960 THEOLOGY OF RELIGIOUS WOMEN on earth.5° The Church recognizes a third state, the religious state, which is common to the two preceding states, since it includes members of the faithful who, canonically, belong to the clerical or to the lay state; this religious state is bound by a strict and peculiar relationship to the end of the Church, sanctification.5~ One can say, then, that the religious state is not essential to the Church considered in her formal elements or in her static constitutives. A bishop and faithful suffice for a Church. From this comes the well-known definition of St. Cyprian, "A people one with its priest and a flock adhering to its shepherd, these are the Church.''~ Nevertheless, as soon as the Church lives she exercises the activities for which she was put into the world. These are the activities of the sanctification of men, that is to say, of their sub-mission to the Kingdom of God and, by that fact, of their entry into her communion. Here it is that the religious life steps in as the social form of existence most strictly conformed to the needs and the conditions of the Kingdom of God. And the religious life was first seen historically under the form of the institution of con° secrated virgins. Evidently, looked at in one or other of its par-ticular forms, religious life is a creation of the Church and stands out in her history. But, looked upon in principle, that is to say as the call to live only for God and for His kingdom, it holds a place at the very heart of the Church. In her quality as bride of Christ, it is included in the obligations and the laws of holiness which this Church pursues as her proper end. ~°Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 39 (1947), 116. In his al]ocution Annus sacer, the Holy Father, citing canon 107, said that "on earth the structure of the Kingdom of God consists of a double element" (Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 43 [1951], 27). ~See Provida Mater Ecclesiae and also Annus sacer, Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 43 (1951), 28: "[The religious state] exists and is important, because it is closely connected to the proper end of the Church which is to lead men to the attainment of sanctity." ~2Epistula 66, 8 (Hartel's edition, p. 732; Patrologia Latina, 4, 406 where it is listed, however, as Epistle 69). 39 Survey of Roman Documents R. F. Smith, S. J. THIS ARTICLE will provide a summary of the documents which appeared in Acta Apostolicae Sedis (AAS) during August and Sep-tember, 1959. Throughout the article all page references will be to the 1959 AAS (v. 51). Encyclical on the Priesthood On August 1, 1959 (AAS, pp. 545479), Pope John XXIII issued the second encyclical of his pontificate. The encyclical was entitled Sacerdotii Nostri primordia (The First Days of Our Priesthood); oc-casioned by the Pontiff's desire to honor the hundredth anniversary of the death of St. John Vianney, Cur~ of Ars, the document is devoted to a consideration of the priesthood as exemplified in the life of the saint. The introductory paragraphs recall the temporal links between the official glorification of St. John and the Pontiff's own priesthood: the future saint was beatified shortly after the Pope's own ordination to the priesthood; the first bishop the Pope served, Bishop Radini- Tadeschi, was consecrated on the day of the beatification; and the Pope received the fullness of the priesthood in the year (1925) when the Cur~ of Ars was declared a saint. The Holy Father then lists the great papal documents on the priesthood that have appeared during the present century: Pius X's Haerent animo (Acta Pii X, 4, 237-64); Plus XI's Ad catholici sacerdotii fastigium (AAS, 28 ~19361, 5-53); Pius XII's Menti Nostrae (AAS, 42 [1950], 657-702); and the same Pontiff's three allocutions on the priesthood inspired by the canonization of Plus X (AAS, 46 119541, 313-17; 666-77). To these documents the Pope has now added his own in the hope that it may aid priests to preserve and increase that divine friendship which is at once the joy and strength of the priestly life. In expressing the purpose of the encyclical the Vicar of Christ remarked that he intended to retrace the chief traits of the holiness of the Cur~ of Ars, since these emphasize those aspects of the priestly life which, while always essential, are today so vital that the Pontiff has deemed it his apostolic duty to call attention to them. Priestly Asceticism and Mortification In the first of the three parts of the main body of the encyclical the Pope considered the priestly asceticism and mortification of the Cur~. To speak of the saint, he began, is to evoke the figure of an 4O ROMAN DOCUMENTS exceptionally mortified priest who for the love of God deprived himself of nourishment and sleep, practiced severe, penances, and exercised a heroic self-renouncement. His example, the Holy Father said, should recall to all the important place of the virtue of penance in the perfec-tion proper to the priesthood. While it is true that priests as such are not bound by divine law to the evangelical counsels, still this does not mean that the priest is less bound than religious to strive for evangelical perfection of life. Rather the accomplishment of the priestly functions "requires a greater interior sanctity than even the religious state does" (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 2-2, 184, 8, c). And if the evangelical counsels are not imposed on the priest by virtue of his clerical state, nevertheless they are offered to him, as to all Christians, as the safest road to the longed for goal of Christian perfection. The Cur~ of Ars, continued the Pope, is a model of evangelical poverty; he lived totally detached from the things of this world. Freed in this way from the bonds of material things, he could thereby be entirely open to all those who suffered and who flocked to him for solace. His disinterestedness made him especially attentive to the poor whom he treated with tenderness and respect, convinced that to con-temn the poor is to contemn God Himself. Priests, then, if they possess material things, should not cleave to them with cupidity; rather should they recall the directives of canon law (c. 1473) according to which what is left over from ecclesiastical benefices should be used in favor of the poor and of pious causes. The Pontiff, however, made it clear in the closing part of this section that he does not approve the abject poverty to which many priests in small towns and in the country are reduced, and he urged the faithful to cooperate with the bishops to see that the sacred ministers be not lacking in what is necessary for their daily sustenance. Turning to the second of the evangelical counsels, the Vicar of Christ then pointed out that all through his life the Cur~ was mortified in his body and that this was achieved by his constant and careful observance of chastity. His example, the Pope pointed out, is most necessary today; for in many places priests must live in an atmosphere of excessive license and pleasure. And at times they must live in such an atmosphere unsupported by the sympathetic understanding of the faithful they serve. In spite of these difficulties John XXIII called upon priests to show forth in their entire lives the splendor of the virtue of chastity, that noblest ornament of their sacred order, as Pius X called it. The chastity of the priest, he added, will not enclose him in a sterile egoism; for as the Cur~ of Ars himself once said: "The soul that is adorned with the virtue of chastity can not but love others; for such a person has found the source and origin of all love---God." The next component of the Cur~'s asceticism to be considered by the Holy Father was his obedience. The Pontiff emphasized that the 41 l~ F. SMtT~ Rewew for Rehgmus "I promise" of the Cur$'s ordination ceremony was the occasion of a permanent self-renouncement that lasted throughout forty years. From early youth the ardent desire of the Cur~ had been for solitude, and his pastoral responsibilities were a heavy burden preventing him from the fulfillment of this desire; many times he tried to be freed from his pastoral work but always remained obedient to the will of his bishop, convinced as he was of the Gospel phrase: "Whoever hears you, hears me" (Lk 10:16). The Vicar of Christ then expressed the hope that the priests of today would see in the Curg the grandeur of obedience and would recall the words of Pius XII: "Individual holiness as well as the efficacy of all apostolic work finds its solid foundation in constant obedience to the hierarchy." Accordingly priests should endeavor to develop in themselves the sense of the filial relationship by which they are united to Mother Church. Prayer and Devotion to the Eucharist In the second principal division of the document, John XXIII reflected on St. John as a model of prayer and of devotion to the Eu-charist. Prayer, he said, was as important in the saint's life as was penance and mortification. His love for prayer was shown in his long nightly vigils of adoration before the Blessed Sacrament; the tabernacle of his parish church became for him the center from which he drew the strength necessary for his own personal life and for the effectiveness of his apostolic endeavors. This example of the Cur6, the Vicar of Christ pointed out, is sorely needed by the priests of today; for they are keenly sensible of the effectiveness of action and hence easily tempted to a dangerous activism. The Cur~ of Ars should convince priests everywhere that they must be men of prayer and that they can be such, no matter how heavy the press of apostolic labors may at times become. The prayer of the Cur~, he continued, was especially a Eucharistic prayer; for nothing in the life of a priest can replace silent and prolonged prayer before the altar. Nor should it be forgotten that Eucharistic prayer in the fullest sense of the word is to be found in the sacrifice of the Mass. The celebration of the Mass is an essential part of the priestly life, for in what does the apostolate of the priest consist if not in the gathering together of the people of God around the altar? It is through the Mass that in one generation after another the mystical body of Christ that is the Church is built up. Moreover the entire sanctifica-tion of the priest must be modeled on the sacrifice he offers; the priest must make his own life a fitting sacrifice, a participation in the expiatory life of the Redeemer. It was for this reason that the Cur~ used to ob-serve that if priests lose the first fervor of their ordination it is because they do not celebrate piously and attentively. 42 January, 1960 ROMAN DOCUMENTS Pastoral Zeal In the third part of the encyclical the Vicar of Christ delineates the pastoral zeal of St. John Vianney. The Curg's life of asceticism, he observed, together with his life of prayer was the source from which flowed the effectiveness of his ministry; in him is verified once more the statement of Christ: "Without me you can do nothing" (Jn 15:5). As a result, the Curg was a model shepherd of souls who knew his flock, protected it from danger, and led it with authority and wisdom. His example, the Pope continued, included three points of utmost import-ance. The first of these was his keen appreciation of his pastoral re-sponsibilities. From the beginning he conceived of his pastoral work in heroic fashion and expressed his attitude in one of his early prayers: "Grant, O God, that~ the people entrusted to me may be converted. For this I am prepared to suffer all the days of my life whatever You may wish." Following the example of apostles of all ages he saw in the cross the one great effective means of saving souls; so it was that he could advise a fellow priest who was disappointed in the results of his apostolic endeavors that prayer, supplications, sighs, and groans were insufficient unless there was added to them fastings, vigils, and bodily chastisement. Besides his general sense of his pastoral responsibilities the Curg manifested his pastoral zeal by his interest and care for preaching and catechizing. Up to the time of his death St. John never ceased to preach, to instruct, to denounce evil, and to lead souls towards God. This should remind today's priests, the Pope said, that everywhere and at all times they must be faithful to their duty of preaching; for, as Pius X insisted, no task of the priest is more important than this. And in their reflections upon their duty to teach, priests should remember that they preach more by their lives than by their words. The third element in the pastoral zeal of the Cur~ of Ars was, according to the encyclical, his work as confessor. It was this form of his ministry that became the real martyrdom of his life. His fifteen hours a day in the confessional would have been difficult in any case; but these were spent by a man already exhausted by fasting, penances, and infirmities. It can be said, the Pope continued, that the Cur~ lived for sinners; their conversion and sanctification was the aim of all his thoughts and of all his activities. Like the Cur~ priests must devote themselves to the work of the confessional, for it is there that the mercy of God meets and overcomes the malice of men. And they must set their people a good example in this matter by their own regular and fervent use of the sacrament of penance. In the conclusion to the encyclical the Pontiff expressed the desire that the centenary of the Curg may arouse in all priests a desire to accomplish their ministry and especially their own perfection as gen-erously as possible. No problem facing the Church today, he added, 43 R. F. SMITH Review for Religious can be solved without priests. As Plus X said: "To promote the King-dom of Christ throughout the world, nothing is more necessary than a holy clergy." Similarly St. John himself pointed out to his bishop: "If you wish to convert your diocese, you must make saints of all your priests." The Pontiff went on to urge the bishops of the world to make the care of their priests their first solicitude; he exhorted the faithful to pray for priests and to contribute to their sanctification; and he pleaded with Christian youth to reflect that "the harvest is great, but the harvesters are few" (Mt 9:37) and that entire peoples are today enduring a spiritual starvation far greater than any hunger of the body. Allocutions, Addresses, Messages On July 29, 1959 (AAS, pp. 586-89), the Holy Father addressed a congress of the blind and those interested in assisting the blind of the world. Pointing out to his audience that in Jesus' ministry of healing the first place was reserved for the blind, the Pontiff went on to deliver a message of hope to the blind of the world. They must remember, he began, that they have a suffering to offer up to God. In spite of all efforts to ease the lot of the blind, they will always be subject to dis-couragement, loneliness, and the weight of sorrow that blindness carries with it. Yet they must recall that according to the Apostle (Col 1:24) men must fill up what is lacking to Christ's passion and that in the redemptive plan the Lord has need of the daily offering of suffering on the part of the blind. The Vicar of Christ also pointed out that the blind have a definite mission to perform in this world, the mission of silent example that only one thing matters in this world: the love with which the will of God is accomplished. And he added that nothing on tbis earth is loss, as long as conformity with God's will is present. In the concluding part of his address the Pope recalled to his listeners that their goal is that of eternal life and that their journey thither is supported by the words of Christ: "Whoever follows me walks not in darkness, but has the light of life" (Jn 8:12). Blindness, he ended, can prepare those afflicted with it for the shining luminosity which will come in the next life from the glorified Christ. On August 20, 1959 (AAS, 639-41), the Pontiff radioed a message to the Second World Sodality Congress held at Newark, New Jersey. He told the sodalists that they were in the first ranks of the Church's army and stressed in their lives the role of their consecration to the Blessed Virgin, a consecration which of its nature includes the proposal to keep it throughout life. From this consecration, he continued, arises the desire to wish for nothing except what is pleasing to God and the resolution to strive by prayer, action, and example to serve the Church and to work for the eternal salvation of souls. On July 21, 1959 (AAS, pp. 584-85), the Holy Father delivered an allocution to the Prime Minister of Japan on the occasion of that 44 January, 1960 ROMAN DOCUMENTS dignitary's official visit to the Holy See. On August 16, 1959 (AAS, pp. 638o39), he delivered a radio message to the people of.Honduras on the occasion of the official consecration of their nation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, telling them to strive to live in the grace of God, to preserve the sanctity of the family, and to maintain union and concord among themselves. On June 30, 1959 (AAS, p. 589), the Holy Father sent a written message to the Tenth World Boy Scout Jamboree held in the Philippine Islands. In the message he pointed out that the boy scout movement can produce admirable fruits in accordance with the ideals of Christian charity and universal brotherhood. Miscellaneous Documents By the apostolic letter, "Caritatis unitas," of May 4, 1959 (AAS, pp. 630-33), the Vicar of Christ approved the confederation of the various congregations of the Order of Canons Regular of St. Augustine. At the same time he also approved the general principles which are to govern the confederation and directed the members of the confedera-tion to draw up specific statutes for the confederation which should then be submitted to the Holy See for approval. A later apostolic letter, Salutiferos cruciatus Christi, dated July 1, 1959 (AAS, pp. 634-36), was directed to the Passionists. In the letter the Pontiff approved the revised form of the Passionists' constitutions and rules. He noted that the revision was undertaken in an effort to adapt the institute to the needs of the times and observed that in the revision the primary and fundamental characteristics of the institute had been reasserted, strengthened, and made more effective. On July 8, 1959 (AAS, pp. 592-93), the Sacred Congregation of Rites issued a decree approving the Office and Mass of St. Lawrence of Brindisi, confessor and doctor. The text of the Office, of the Oration of the Mass, and of the notices to be inserted into the martyrology is given in AAS, pp. 593-94. Another decree of the same Congregation was dated February 13, 1959 (AAS, pp. 590-92); this decree approved the introduction of the causes of the Servant of God Salvatore Lilli (1853-1895), professed priest of the Order of Friars Minor, and his companions, all of Whom were put to death in hatred of the faith. In the period under survey three documents of the Sacred Apostolic Penitentiary appeared. Under the date of July 18, 1959 (AAS, pp. 595-96), the Penitentiary published the revised text of the act of dedi-cation to Christ the King as well as its attached indulgences. This document is given in full on pages 3 and 4 of the present issue of RE-VIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. On August 13, 1959 (AAS, pp. 655-56), the Penitentiary published the text of a prayer composed by the Sacred Congregation of Seminaries and Universities to be recited by semi-narians for their parents. Seminarians who devoutly and contritely recite the prayer for their parents may gain an indulgence of fifty 45 VIEWS, NEWS, PREVIEWS Review for Religious days; and once a month they may gain a plenary indulgence under the usual conditions provided they have recited the prayer for a whole month. On the same date (AAS, p. 656), the Penitentiary announced that the faithful who in a church, a public oratory, or (in the case of those legitimately using it) a semi-public oratory privately perform the pious exercise commonly called the holy hour in memory of the passion, death, and ardent love of our Lord Jesus Christ may gain a plenary indulgence, if they have gone to confession, received Com-munion, and prayed for the intentions of the Holy Father. This new concession of an indulgence for this practice is not intended to abrogate the partial indulgence of ten years mentioned in the Enchiridion in-dulgentiarum (Manual of Indulgences), 1952 edition, n. 168. On May 18, 1959 (AAS, p. 647), the Sacred Consistorial Congrega-tion appointed Archbishop Concha of Bogot~ military vicar of Columbia. Views, News, Previews IN A PREVIOUS issue (Review for Religious, 18 [1959], 237), the beginning of a new quarterly, Jesus Caritas, was noted. Response to the new magazine, which is devoted to the spirituality of P~re de Foucauld, has been sufficient to warrant the continuation of its publi-cation. The latest issue has been that of September, 1959. The yearly subscription price has been set at $1.00; in Canada and the United States subscription orders should be sent to: Jesus Caritas 700 Irving Street, N.E. Washington 17, D. C. The first congress of the Confederation of Benedictine Congrega-tions to be held since the promulgation of the confederation's laws by Pius XII in 1952 took place during the latter part of September, 1959. At the congress Dom Benno Gut, Abbot of Einsiedeln in Switzerland, was elected Abbot Primate of the Confederation. The new primate was born on April 1, 1897, was professed in 1918, and ordained in 1921. After studies and a teaching career at Sant'Anselmo in Rome, he was elected abbot of Einsiedeln in 1947. The Cassinese Benedictine Congregation, largest of the fifteen included in the Benedictine Confederation, in a general chapter at Subiaco during October, 1959, elected Dom Celestino Gusi, Abbot of Manila, as the eleventh Abbot General of the congregation. The Graduate Department of Religious Education, Immaculate Heart College, 2021 North Western Avenue, Los Angeles 27, Cali- 46 January, 1960 VIEWS, NEWS, PREVIEWS fornia, announces a two-week course in canon law for religious superiors, which will grant two units of graduate credit. The course, conducted by the Reverend Joseph F. Gallen, S.J., professor of canon law at Woodstock College, Maryland, will be open to major and local su-periors of all communities of sisters. It is scheduled for the afternoons of June 28 to July 9, 1960. The tuition is $32. The fourth course in the new program in ascetical theology, which is offered in the Graduate Department of Religious Education, Im-maculate Heart College, will be given by the Reverend Eugene Burke, C.S.P., professor of dogmatic theology at Catholic University of America, from July 11-15, 1960. The course is entitled "The Life of Grace and Growth of Virtue" and grants one unit of graduate credit. Sisters who did not apply for admission to the M.A. program when it began in October, 1959, may apply for admission now. Residence ac-commodations are available for the five-day course at Holy Spirit Retreat House in Los Angeles. All reservations must be made before June 1, 1960, and be accompanied by a ten-dollar deposit. Room and board is $20; tuition is $17.50. Inquiries should be directed to Sister Mary Thecla, I.H.M., Dean of the Graduate School, Immaculate Heart College. A new publication that should prove both interesting and important is the Seminary Newsletter, the first issue of which appeared in October, 1959: The Newsletter is issued by the Seminary Department of the National Catholic Educational Association and "is meant to be a clearinghouse of information about seminaries and seminary training, especially from the academic point of vigw; a clearinghouse of ideas, projects, and results of research." Included in the first issue of the Newsletter is an informative statistical report on Catholic seminaries in the United States. According to the report, during the academic year 1958-1959 there were 381 major and minor seminaries in the United States; of these 99 were diocesan institutions, the other 282 belonging to religious orders and congregations. The report notes "that 131 of the 381 seminaries in the United States have been founded since 1945; 108 since 1950. This means that 34% of the total number have been founded since World War II, 28% of them since 1950. It represents a 53 % increase in the number of seminaries since 1945 and a 40% increase since 1950." The report gives 38,503 as the total num-ber of young men studying for the priesthood in the United States. This number includes besides minor and major seminarians 2082 novices as well as 920 scholastics who have interrupted their seminary studies to teach. In REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, 18 (1959), 304-05, Father Gallen discussed the quest~ion whether more American congregations are be- 47 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Rewew for Rehgmus coming pontifical and presented some statistics on the matter covering the years 1943 to 1957. A study of L'attivit~ della Santa Sede nel 1958 (The Activity of the Holy See in 1958), published in 1959 by the Vatican Polyglot Press gives data from the year 1958 on the same matter. According to the report of the Sacred Congregation of Religious that is given in the volume, during 1958, fifteen institutes received the decree of praise; two of these were in the United States: the Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity (M.S.B.T.) of Philadelphia founded in 1916 and the Missionary Sisters of the Most Holy Trinity (M.S.SS.T.) of Washington founded in 1921. The Congregation also reported that during 1958 there were seventeen institutes which re-ceived the definitive approval of their constitutions; of these none was in the United States. The Congregation's report also contained informa-tion about secular institutes: two secular institutes were granted diocesan establishment, one received the decree of praise, and one, the decree of final approbation; none of these four was in the United States. During the same year the Sacred Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith granted the decree of praise to one institute in Ireland and gave definitive approval to the Daughters of Mary of Uganda, Africa. It is interesting to note that this last institute is the first pontifical African institute for women. ( uestions and Answers IThe following answers are given by Father Joseph F. Gallen, S. J., professor of canon law at Woodstock College, Woodstock, Maryland.] Our constitutions command the mistress to be with the novices always and, if she should be absent from the house, to learn on her return everything that happened during her absence. I do not think that any mistress has followed either injunction literally, but these two prescriptions have caused a highly exaggerated surveillance. Shouldn't the observance of both be tempered by intelligent prudence? Yes. The first injunction, that the mistress should be with the novices always, is in many constitutions, the second only in very few. The first injunction is also and unfortunately observed in many insti-tutes. This is an evidently false spiritual pedagogy. It simply does not work in any field of the development of character and it is unworthy of the religious state, which is a spontaneous, voluntary, and personal dedication of oneself to Christ. The fundamental purpose of the novice-ship is to give the novice a profound consciousness of God, not of the master or mistress. The novice is to be led to a convinced personal dedication of herself to God; her life is to be a personal committment, 48 January, 1960 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS not forced external observance; she is to be trained to think for herself, to personal decisions, and to a sense of responsibility and reliability. The noviceship should be a school that will equip the novice for the life she will actually have to live. She should be instructed and guided but allowed sufficient freedom of action; otherwise you will know what she appears to be but not what she is. She should be checked and corrected, and even more frequently than is commonly done; but this does not demand unceasing vigilance. The more a superior tries to see, the less he will learn. No superior has to try to see everything in order to learrL what he should know. I hazard the conjecture that reticence about interior matters increases in direct proportion to external observation. That the novice mistress or her assistant should be with the novices frequently is intelligent and prudent; that she should be with them always is simply destructive of the purpose intended. Only God. can see everything, and God as one's judge is not the motive of the religious life. The following quotation from a religious woman contains several thought-provoking observations. The principles for the formation of character in congregations are for the most part taken from a psychology of a distant past. This, in the case of women, only aimed at creating habits of will power, furnishing the mind with knowledge learnt by heart, and very little was done to appeal to the interest. They disregarded the education of the senses, any development of initiative and sense of responsibility and the deep needs of feelings. The new psychology seeks to develop the virtues and activities that they may adapt themselves and form personalities . Deeper problems lie in the change of the feminine way of living. In the depth of her being the woman is rather passive. In past centuries the life of a woman matched this interior disposition, but today matters have changed. Modern life forces woman to greater independent activity. She has had to take over responsible work both in private and public life. Her mode of living gets nearer to the masculine type, though at the expense of her individuality. (Sister Agnes, S.I-I.C., Religious Life Today, 162-63.) 2 Our constitutions do not mention at all the canonical requisites for a higher superior. You have already explained these partially. Will you please explain them fully? Canon 504 demands the three personal qualities listed below for the valid election or "appointment of any higher superior of men or women. Age is the only variable element among the three canonical requirements. All of these three impediments established in canon 504 are dispensable but only by the Holy See. The higher superiors in the sense of this canon are the abbot primate; abbot superior of a mon-astic congregation; the abbot .of an independent monastery, even if the monastery appertains to a monastic congregation; the mothers general and regional of federations and superioresses of monast

Issue 12.3 of the Review for Religious, 1953. ; Bellarmine and t:he Queen ot: Virgins John A. Hardon, S.J. ST. ROBERT BELLARMINE is widely known in theological circles as the great champion of the Papac, y. At the Vatican Council, h~s Controoersies.were the principal source from which the assembled fathers formulated the definition of papal infallibility. An.d in 1931, when the Holy See declared him a Doctor of the Church, he was described as "The Prince of Apologists and Strong Defender of the Cathoiic Faith, not only for his own time but for all future ages." But Bellarmine has another title to glory, seldom pointed out, which should endear him in a special way to priests and religious who are directors of souls. St. Robert was for years the spiritual counsel-i " lor and confessor of St: Aloysius Gonzaga, to the day of the latter's death in 1591. So attached was Bellarmine to his spiritual son that he was largely responsible for his early beatification, which he lived to see, and asked to be buried near the body of his "caro Luigi" as a perpetual remembrance of their mutual affection. Pope Benedict XV was sufficiently impressed by this circumstance that he proposed, "for the imitation of confessors, the prudence of that 'wisest of spiritual directors, Robert Bellarmine, who moderated ev'en the' penitential ardor of St. Aloysius Gonzaga." St. Aloysius is the heavenl~ patron of Catholic youth, ahd the chosen exemplar of heroic chastity. We should 'not be surprised, therefore, if his spiritual director was personally so much devoted to the Immaculate Mother of Virgins that be drew from her life and example the inspiration which he transmitted to Aloysius. Bellarmine once wrotethat, "Every great man in the Church has been most de-voted to the Blessed Virgin Mary: Ephrem, Bernard, Dominic, Fran-cis of Assisi"--and we may now add, as the following sketch will show, Robert Bella~rmine, the spiritual father of Aloysius Gonzaga. Bellarmine's Personal Devotion to the Mother of God . St. Robert w~is devoted, to the Blessed Virgin fr6m his earliest years. According to his schoolmate, later Canon Vincent PatiucheIli, as a young boy Bellarmine used to recite daily the Office of the Bles- 113 JOHN A. HARDON sed Virgin, often in company with Vincent as the two of them walked slowly ~long the road. Bellarmine retained this custom of reciting the Ottice of Our Lady throughout life. In the same way he kept the custom to his old age of ~aily saying the Rosary. ,~Iexander Jacobelli, who was the cardinal's almoner for twenty years, testified at the beatification process that, "He ~never omitted saying the ~OfIice and thd Rosary of the Blessed. V!rgin Mary, during which he. was often found melted in tears." " HOwever, Robert .was not satisfied with only a single recitation of the.Rosary. The beads were Iite~a!ly his constant companion. In the words of his chaplain, "when fatigued with study, Bellarmine would find recreation in reciting the beads wiih uncovered head:'.' And again, "his relaxation was to say the Rosary of O~r Lady.". On his frequent journeys as Archbishop of Capua, attendants noticed that he always followed the same "ritual: celebrate Mass, say the Itinerarium,' and, rosary in hand, enter the carriage for the journey. Juan de Serayz, a close friend of Robert, has left some interesting details on bow Bellarmine would say.the Rosary. It was June 14, 1618, the feast of Corpus Christi, th~it Bellarmine and Juan were returning from a procession at St. Peter's Basilica-. "As we got int9 the carriage," relates Juan. "he told me that he was ablb to say the third part of the Rosary exactly three times, from the time the pro-cession left the Sistine Chapel to where it finally ended at the Altar of Exposition in St. Peter's When I asked him, out of curiosity, hbw he said the Rosary, he told me that he separated the decades of the Angelic Salutation with an Our-Fathe.r, adding to eacB decade a short prayer corresponding to the different mysteries, .and preceding the decades with a short meditation on the following mystery. Then with emphasis he said that he recited the Hail Mary's sJow.l~l, s!owl~l. When I observed that this did not leave much time for keeping his partner company, he answered that during the whole procession he did not say a single word to his~ cardinal companion." We can understand, therefore, how painful were the doctor's Or-ders during Bellarmine's last illness, when he was forbidden not only to say the Breviary but also the Rosary. . For, as his brother explained, the doctor knew with what ardor and devotion he applied himself to these prayers: Finally, the doctor was moved by ~he dying man's pleas an.d mitigated the orders first given to the servant, allowing'the sick man "a moderate use'of the Rotary," although everyone knew that, "his intense application to this prayer would'be a great strain 1!4 'Ma~/, 1953 BELLARMINEAND MARY upon him." To the Office and the Rosary, Bellarmine added the Saturday fast in Mary's honor. He fasted th'ree days a week with the same. rigor that he kept the Lenten fast, that is, most strictly. According.to a syllogism which he wrote on the subject, he argued in this way: Our justice should be greater than that of the Pharisees. Matt. 5/20. But the Pharisees fasted two days a week. Luke 18/12. Therefore, I should fast at least three days a week! So besides the fasts for the vigils and the Lenten fast, and besides the whole of Advent, he kept a sacred fast on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday of each week. That he kept the Saturday fast in honor of Our Lady is clear from the Sermon which he gave on one occasiofi for the feast of the Immaculate Conception, when he said that among the practices most pleasing to the Blessed Virgin and her Divine Son, and most useful to grow in their, love and friendship, is the daily recitation of the Rosary and the Saturday fast in Mary's honor. It was only under express orders,from hi~ confessor ~o fas~ only twice~a week, that in his old age Bellarmine relinquished ~he Saturday fast. Bellarmine and the Immaculate" Conception According to available evidence, Robert Bellarmine was the first bishop of the Catholic Church to have formally petitioned the Holy See for a definition of the Immaculate Conception. It was made while he was serving as cardinal member, of the Congregation of the Inquisition. The petition is dated August 31, 1617, and carried two main questions: Is the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin definable doctrine; and is it expedient at the present ,time to define this doctrine? Then follow three thousand words of careful theoiogical exposition and answering of objections, calculated to break down the resistance of ~ertain critics in the Roman Curia. One of the reasons whch Bellarmine gives in favor of the defini-tion is especially revealing. "It is possible," he says, "for a mere creature to be without an~i sin. Such, .for example, a~e the good angels in heaven. Consequently, the ~ame must be true of the Virgin Mother of God, who is more .pure than the angels. Otherwise she would be less pure than the angels, at least by the presence of sin. For tru.e purity consists of two qualities: absence of sin and nearness to God." The point is that if Our Lady is more pure than the angels in closeness to God, which all admit, then she is also as pure as they 115 ,JOHN A. HARDON Review for Religious in the absence of sin, since purity comprehends both qualities with-out discrimination. St. Robert's devotion to the immaculate Conception is also at- . tested by the number of sermons which he preached on this preroga-tive of the Mother of God. Besides other testimony, there are two extant letters which Bellarmine wrote on the subject i one in 1617 to an English priest, and another in 1618 to Philip III of Spain, in both of which he promised to do everything in his power to promote the defense of the Immaculate Conception. Juan de Serayz, previously quoted, testified at the Beatification Process that Bellarmine bad a singular devotion to the Immaculat~ Conception. After this general statement, h~ added that, "his de-votion was manifested in all the Roman Congregations on which the Cardinal served. And relative to. this question, he often told me that he would not rest until the doctrine was defined. ' 'There is no. need of convoking a General Council in this matter,' he said, 'since the Pontiff can easily pronounce the definition by means of a papal b~ll.' " It is significant that when Pius IX defined the dogma in 1854, he did so without convoking a General Council and by means of a papal bull, exactly as BeIlarmine had suggested. It was Bellarmine's mind that the definition of the Immaculate Conception in his own day was not only opportune but even neces-sary, as he wrote to King Philip, "to remove the terrible scandals which are daily committed against the 1donor of God and with such danger to the the souls of the faithful." Only two months before his death, Bellarmine was still 'urging the cherished definition. On August 1, 1621, says the chronicle,. St. Robert engaged the Holy Father in a long conversation, and frankly told him that if he were Pope he would not hesitate immedi-ately to define the Immaculate Conception, s~eeing no obstacle what-ever standing in the, way. st. John Berchmans died on August 13, 1621. Shortly after his death, Bellarmine heard of the vow which John had made, signed with his own blood, and declaring: "I, John Berchmans, unworthy son of the Society of Jesus, promise thee and thy Son . . . that until death I, will ever declare and defend thy Immaculate Conception." When the aged cardinal was informed of this "fact, he exclaimed: "What a marvelous act of devotion! What aningenious expression of love, written in his own blood! What he says is most certainly true; I am sure he was inspired to this action by Our Lady herself. 116 MaR, 1~53 BELLARMINEAND MARY For just now in Flanders, while others ,are attacking Mary's honor, this young man from Flanders has been chosen by the Mother of God to defend her." Bellarmine was referring to the forerunners of 3ansenism at Louvain, who were teaching that, "No one except Christ is without original sin. Consequently the Blessed Virgin died because of the sin which she had contracted from Adam." Bellarmine and the Annunciation Cardinal Orsini rec'alled that one year he happened to stop at the Jesuit Novitiate in Rome on March 25th, where Bellarmine' was making the Spiritual Exercises. That.morning, the latter's medita-tion had" been on the Annunciation of Our Lady, and when Orsini called on his friend, Bellarmine immediately began to talk about the sublime'mystery .with such fervor and clarity that his visitor was convinced "he had received a special illumii~ation from God that very morning/' It may be noted also that all his life Bellarmine delighted to mention that he was ordained to the priesthood on Holy Satur-day, ,March 25, 1570, and therefore had the privilege of celebrating his first Mass in honor of Our Lady's Annunciation. Since one of the main points of opposition by the Protestants was clerical celibacy and religious chastity, Bellarmine 'took every occasion to defend this traditional practice of the Catholic Church. There are tl~ree complete sets of sermbns which Bellarmine preached for the feast of the Annunciation, and in several of them he took as his theme the Virginity of the Mother of God, stressing the sublimity of this privilege and the example it affords for our imitation. Thus on one occasion he is commenting on the words, "And Mary said to the angel: 'How shall this be done, because I know not man?' " and explains: "The obvious implication of these words' is that Mary had not only chosen to be a virgin but that she had confirmed her choice by vow. According 'to St. Augustine, the Blessed Virgin would never have spoken this gray to the angel unless she had already vowed her-self as a virgin to God. "Can we imagine a greater courage than Mary's, when she made this choice of a virginal life? Even in our own day, it is no small thing to preserve oneself i'n untainted virginity after we have been taught the dignity ofthis state of life by Christ Himself, after St.Paul has clearly recommended it to us, after the Fathers of the Church have given it unstinted praise, and after so many thousands of people 117 JOHN A. HARDON Re~ietu [.or Religious of both ~exes have embraced the life of,celibacy and kept it inviolate until death. How. remarkable it is, therefore, that the Virgin Mary should have aspired to the palm of this virtue although she had been given no precept to that effect by God, had received no counsel, and the only example" she had to follow was the disrepute in which vir-ginity was held by everyone around her." Bellarmine and the" Assumption Among the lon,gest sermons that Bellarmine preached are three for the feast of the Assumption, which he gave at Louvain in St. Michael's Church: In Rome at the titular Church of Our Lady of the Way; and in the Cathedral Church at Capua, as Archbishop, in t 1604. It is worth noting tfiat the fifteenth of August was one of the six feast days each year ~vhen all the servants and attendants of Car-dinal Bellarmine were obliged to go to Confession and receive the Hol~r Eucharist. St. Robert would himself distribute Holy Com-munion to his cardinalatial family, at the Mass'which b~ "said~ for their intention. Two other of these six days "of.precept" were March twenty-fifth and December the eighth. In,the first of his sermons on the Assumption, Bellarmine returns to his favorite theme in relation to the Mother of God: her spotless p,urity. Contemporary witnesses record thht many of his listeners at Louvain were English Protestants, who crossed the Channel to Bel-gium just to hear him speak. ' "The Mother of Jesus," they were told, "was the first woman in history to have consecrated her virginity to God. She was the first to have pointed out the path of chastity which leads to the highest sanctity. It is common doctrine that no one, either man or woman, bad ever taken a vow of virginity before the Blessed Virgin Mary. ~ "Add to this the ~act that Mary, alone of all others before or after, united the state of virginity with the holy state of matrimony, in the truest and fullest sense of the word. For other virgins may be said to contract marriage only in a restricted sense, in that they be-come spiritually espoused to the Person bf Christ. "But most remarkable of all, she alone joined virginity of body and soul with true progeny, and such progeny as ~vould make her the Mother of God. Other virgins, it is true, are also not without chil-dren, when, by their example, prayers and exhortations, they bring sinners back to God and thus increase the number of the elect. And it not infrequently happens that the unmarried in God's'Church are 118 May, 1953 ~BELLARMINEAND MARY more fruitful in this regard than those who are married, as witness St. Catherine of Siena, St. Clare, and others. However,' with the sole except.ioa of the Blessed Virgin, none of them could at the same ' time remain virgins and also give birth to a natural offspring. All"of which must finally be attributed to a special ~race of God, and also, let us not forget, to the free choice of Mary, who chose to take a vow of virginity, to take a human spouse, and who chose to become the Mother of 'God." The Blessed Virgin in the Apostolate Bellarmine instinctively apl~aled to the virtues of the Mother of God, whenever he urged consecrated religious to the more faithful f~racti.ce of their profession. ~While he was Archbishop of Capua,,for example, a convent, of nuns which he had reformed, was accused of receiving only applicants of noble birth. When. investigatibn showed that the charge was true, St. Robert addressed .to the Sisters of San Gi'ovanni one of the longest letters Which he ever wrote. Following the lead of St.Augustine, Bellarmine praised the Sis-ters for 'consecrating their virginity to Almighty God. He implied that in so doing they were admirably imitating the, chastit~y of the Blessed Virgin Mary, becoming "the affianced of the Lord." But he also suggested that chastity is not enough, unless it is coupled with true humility. "Religious life," he told them, "cannot'co-exist with the spirit of the world, nor can ,it be ruled by it, bu~t by the Spirit of God aloiae. The spirit of the world makes accbunt of nobility and wealth, but the Spirit'of God esteems virtue and holin~s~ of life above everything else." Taking this for granted, he continues: "I thought that the nuns of San Giovanni would have really laid aside the spirit of the world, and have gone out from it not less in body than in soul." NOw (he pointed shaft: "If the Blessed Virgin were on earth and wanted to become a nun, she would never be able to get itito ~;our convent, being a carpenter's wife . This will show you in what favor you will be with the Queen' of Heaven and her "Divine Son, if you persist in such a spirit of worldly'vanity." And he con, cl'udes that, "We must nbt try' to impose our ideas on the.Holy Ghost, debarring Him from calling to His service those whom He pleases," seeing that He chose the humble Virgin Mary to become the Mother of God. Also when exhorting his own religious brethren in Rome t6 the practice of perfect chastity, he counselled them'to "be vigilant over 119 JOHN A. HARDON Review for Religious the first movements of the senses, which is easy~ because then the pas-sions are still weak and a man is strong and able to resist."' Undoubt-edly this means a constant war on our concupiscence, literally. "bearing the cross in our bodies." But in this. religious have the ex-ample of the saints to imitate, notably St. Luke, "whose friendship and familiarity with the Blessed Virgin Mary made him an ardent lover of Christ,~' for whose sake, and with the help of whose Mothe~ he was able to carry the cross faithfully until death. Also outside the cloister, on at leastone occasion, Bellarmine ap-pealed to the purity of the Mother of God in asking for a favor from the Pope himself. In the city of Ro~e, nea'r the Cardinal's titular church of Our Lady of the Way, was a public house of ill repute, which Bellarmineconsidered an insult to the Church. First he tried to do something privately, and when that failed, he wrote a letter to the Sovereign Pontiff, in which he begged, "by the love which Your Holiness has fob the most pure Virgin Mary," to see that this nui-sance was re_moved. Needless to say, his request was promptly granted. Bellarmine's Hymn to Mary the Virgin Among St. Robert's extant writings there is a short poem of twenty stanzas ~;hicb he composed in the nature of a Litany to the Blessed Virgin. The text was first published in Italian some fifty years ago, and to th6 best of l~he writer's knowledge, has never been translated into English. Each verse-line begins with the name "Virgin,~" joined to a title and petition to Our Lady, starting with the letter "A" and going down the Italian alighabet to "V". Tfius the first seven verses begin with the invocation: "'Vergine adorna . . . Vergine bella . . . Vergine casta . . . V.ergin( degna . . . Vergine eletta Vergine felice,. . . Vergine gradita . . ." A free translation of this tribute to the Virgin Mother reads as follows: "Virgin Virgin Virgin Virgin Virgin adorned and clothed with the sun, grant me thine aid. most beauti'ful, mystical rose, take abode in my heart. most chaste, all undefiled, grant me true peac~. deser;cing of all honor and praise, give ine thy love. elect and full of all grace, lead me to God. Virgin most .blessed, star of the sea, dispdl the storms .besetting ' me. Virgin most virtuous, holy and swdet, show me the way. Virgin illustrious, with thy burning light, enlighten thou my mind. 120 May, 1953 BELLARMINEAND MARY Virgin more precious than jewels or gold, make reparation for me. Virgin most worthy of all praise, mother, daughter, and im-maculate spouse. Virgin and Mother, make me more pleasing to Jesus thy' Son, Virgin most innocent of any stain or fault, make me more worthy of God. Virgin enriched with every gift and grace, obtain the remission of my sins. Virgin most pure, grant me" to enjoy the bliss of hehvenly love. Virgin, thou lily ambng thorns, I pray thee for the grace of a happy death. Virgin more rare than the rarest dream, bring joy to my heart, Virgin so great there is none like thee on earth, bring peace to my soul. Virgin most true, loving Mother too, Virgin Mary." ST. CLARE PLAY BY A POOR CLARE Candle in Umbria is the story of Saint Clare of Assisi told in a verse play by a Poor Clare Nun. The play of four acts, eight scenes is suitable for production by college students or by high schools with.special direction. The play was writt¢~l to honor the fohndress of the Poor Clares on the seventh centenary (1953) of her. death. The author is a regular contibutor to Spirit magazine. $I.00 per copy, including the music for the "Canticle of the Sun" which is embodied in the play. Those interested in obtaining a copy of this production should write to: Poor Clare Monastery, Route I, Box 285 C, Roswell, New Mexico. SUMMER SESSIONS Loyola University of Chicago announces several courses in theology scheduled expressly for Sisters during the coming summer session, Jtine 29 to August 7. Th'e Rev. James I. O'Connor, S.J., a canonist from West Baden, Indiana, will conduct an institlate" on Canon Law for Religious (Theol. 298). The Rev. Edward J. Hodous, S.J., a professor of Scripture at West Baden, will give a course on the Letters of St. Paul (Theol. 216). An authority on St. Joseph and author of several books on the saint, the Rev. Francis L. Filas, S.J., is giving a course on the History and Tbeology of the Devotion to St. Joseph (Theol. 253). For further information write to the Rev. L, J. Evett, S.J., Loyola Univet;sity, 820 N. Michi-yah'Ave., Chicago 26, lllinois. 121 Canonical Visi :at:ion ot: t:he Local Ordinary Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. ONE of the many obligations imposed on bishops is that,of vis-it! n.g their dioceses. Canon 343. § 1 commands a bishop to visit all or part of his diocese each year in such a way that the entire diocese is visited at least within every five-year period. The importance of the visitation is evident from the fact that a metropoli-tan is to. report to the Roman Pontiff: a suffragan bishop who has gravely neglected his duty of ,i.sitation. In such a case, the metro-politan himself, after obtaining the approval of the Holy See, may make the v.lsitatio.n.1 The Ordinary's visitation of religious is significant part of .'this general visitation. At least one author states absolutely that his, obligation of making the canonical visitation religious is serious.~ All religious are subject to the visitation except those that are exempt, who are to be visited only in the cases expressly. mentioned in the law.3 The specific legislation on the Ordinary°visitation of religious is found in can~ 512, It is more oractical confine this articld to his visitation of the religious community, distinguished from! its works, and to lay institutes, that is, congrega-tions of brothers a~nd sisters and orders of nuns. 1. Congregations of Brothers and Sisters . 1. Person of.the uisitor. Canon 512 prescribes that the visitation of religious is to ble made by the local Ordina'ry personally or through a delegate. The term local Ordinary includes a residential bishop, vicar or prefect apostohc, and an abbott or prelate nullius. Unlike the law on the ghneral visitation of the diocese, can. 512 gives the'l Ordinary full liberty to make the v,sitation personally or through" delegated visitors;'| The vicar or delegate of the Ordinary for reli-g, ous has vls~torial powers only if these have been expressly assigned to h~m by the O~dmary. When many priests are delegated for the visitation, it appears to be the prefeiable and more efficient practice to assign houses of the-same institute to a particular delegate, as far as lCan, 3431 § 3: 27~4;'4°, 5°. ZToso, 48; Cf. Coronata. p. 654. nora 5. SCan. 344, § 2. VISITATION OF ORDINARY this is possible. This lightens the delegate's burden of familiarizing himself with the life of the house be visits. He should study previ-busly the Rule, constitutiong,, directory, c'ustom book, book of com-mon prayers, and ce.remonial of the institute. 2. Frequenc~t of the visitation. Canon 512 enjoins the Ordinary; to visit every house of lay congregations, pontifical or diocesaia, of men or wpmen, every fifth year. Again unlike the canon on the gen-eral visitation of the diocese, can. 512 does not command the Ordi-nary to visit some of the religious houses every year nor to visit all of them at least every five years. The obligation of the Code is com-pletely fulfilled by one visit in five years, and it is perfectly licit to confine the visitation of all the religious houses to one year. The further question arises as to whether tile Ordinary may make a can-orfical visitation of these houses more frequently than once in five years. He may certainly do so in diocesan instituteR, since cart. 492, § 2 subjects these houses completely to the jurisdiction of the local Ordinary. It is the more probable opinion that the Ordinary may not make more than fine canonical visitation in five years in pontifical congregations of men or women,a A canonical visitation constitutes .an Intervention in the religious life of a pontifical congregation, and can. 618, § 2, 2° forbids such an intervention t6 the Ordinary ex-cept in the cases expressly mentioned it, law. These statements are based on the law of the Code. It~is~not impossible to find diocesan congregations and much more exceptionally pontifical congregations that prescribe a greater frequency of visitation in their constitutions. 3. Visitation of places in pontitfcal congregations. The places that the'Code subjects to the visitation in the houses of these congre-gations are: "the ~hurch, the sacristy, the public oratory, and the c!onfessionals.''s Churches and public oratories are practicall3; never iittache'd to the houses' of lay congregations in the United States. All chapels, whether principal or secondary, in the houses of these insti-tutes are classified canonically as semipublic oratories.6 Canon 512 subjects only public, not semipublic, oratories to the visitation of the local Ordinary. Since it is the intention of this c~non to define the persons, places, and things in a religious house that are subject to the visitation of the Ordinary, it is at least probable that he possesses neither the obligation nor the right to visit the semipublic oratories 4Farrell,, ~01-102; LarraonaTCpR, VIII (1927), 444; Toso, 49. sCan. 512, § 2, 2% 3°. 6Can. 1188, § 2, 2°; 1192, § 4. 123 JOSEPH F. GALLEN of lay pontifical co confessionals erected the religious and of sory to the oratory¯ 4. " Visitaffon of Review [or Reliqious gregations. The same principle is true of the in the semipublic oratory for the confessions of the sacristy, which is to be considered as acces-persons in pontifical congregatiot~s, a) General-ate arid provincialat ;. The general and i~rovincial house, superiors, officials, government, and administration of temporal matters of pon-tifical congregational are not visited by the Ordinary. Canon 512 assigns to the Ord~nary the right and the obligation to visit only houses, not provinces or institutes; can. 618, § 2, 2° foriaids the Or-dinary to intervene .~n the .internal government and .discipline of pon- ¯ tifical congregations except in the cases expressly mentioned in the law, and no particu, lar canon gives the Ordinary the right to visit the generalate or proviricialate as such. The dowries are the only matter of general administration that fall under the canonical visitation Otherwise the gene, ral and provincial house, .superiors, and officials are subject to the ~isitation only as a local house and as members of a local community. IT.he same principles are true of. such intermediate divisions as vice,prbwnces, quasi-provinces, visitations, regions, mish sions, districts, and vicariates. b) Imernal'qoloernraent. The internal government of pontifical congregations is exempt by law from the visitation of the Ordinary? Therefore, th~v .,s,tor does not inquire directly ihto the government of local, provincial, other intermediate, or general superiors. .Both [anons 5 2 8 2 3',° and 618, § 2, 2 ° restrict the Visitation of persons XC1 s, on in the latter canoh, in which both government ano a~sctptme are mentioned but the~ intervention of the Ordinary is imm.ediately re- " stricter to &sc,phne. Internal government :includes not only the gen-eral~ elation of subject's to superiors but also the admission of sub- 7De Carlo,.n. 93. 4°, Ib) ; 5°; Larraona, CpR, VIII (1927), 447, and nora 501 448; Reilly, 99, I I2;[Slafkosky, 96-97; Vromant De Personis, n. 177, IL2),a). For the contrary opmton, of. Farrell, 104. Cf. also Ciacio. 60; Coronata, p. 655, ~ota 2; Goyeneche, C'pR,'III (1922), 335-336; Schaefer, n. 560; XVernz-V~dal, p. 123, nots 91.550 ' SCan. 535, § 2; , § 2. . 9De Carlo, nn. 64, III, b) ; 93, 5°, b) ; 404, c) ; Fanfani, IfDiritto Detle Rehq~- ose, n. 60, 2 , c) ; De Reliqiosis~.n. 70, d) ; Larraona, CpR, IX (1928), 100, and aota 505; Pruemmer! qq. 187, 5, c): 242, 2, c). Cf. Abbo-Hannan, ~. 512, Bastien, n. 141; Bryn, n. 616, 6°: Ch°elodi, ~. 281,~b~: Cocchi, pp. c5)2, 183, Goyeneche, De Rehg~ps~s, 169; Jorabart, I, nn. 827, 2, e); 890, 2, ; Raus, n. 178, 4); Regatillo, n. 746; Schaefer, nn. 560, 1285; Vermeersch-Creusen, nn. 631; 778, 2. 124 May, 1953 VISITATION OF ORDINARY jects into the congregation' and to the professions, their education and formation, appointment t_o various offices and employments, and transfer from house to house. c) R~liqious discipline. The right and the duty of the Ordinary to inquire into religious discipline is specified by can. 618, § 2, 2° as follows: 1 ° "The observance of discipline according to the constitutions." The Ordinary is not a religious superior in canon law. His office in this matter is that of the vigilance of external authority and not of direct government of the religious life. He does not inquire into re-ligious discipline in the detailed and rather individual manner of a higher superior. His right and duty is to ascertain the general state of religious discipline in the house and especially the existence of abuses in discipline. Inquiries bearing on an individual should, not be made unless, there is at least a rumor or founded suspicion of the misconduct of the individual.1° The Ordinary is not obliged to in-terview all tbe religious but only the number and the particular indi-viduals who because of their office, employment, or other circum-stances will be sufficient to enable him to discern the general state of discipline.11 Religious dlsc~phne includes the observance of the laws, decrees,' and instructions of the Holy See except those on government. Prac-tically all of these that are pertinent are or at least should be con- .rained in the constitutions. Inquiry sh6u!d also be made as to whether these lay religiou, s are informed on such important canonical legislation as the duration, continuity, and laws on absence of the canonical year of noviceship; the limitation on the application of novices to external works of the congregation during the second year of noviceship; the necessity of the reception of all juridical profes-sions and especially of the renewal o'f temporary professions; ind the observance of the canonical prescription of three full years of tem-porary vows for the validity of the perpetual profession. A direct investigation is to be made on such matters as the observance of the Code and the instructions of the Holy See on begging and on the canonical prohibition of electioneering. The more proper field of religious discipline is the observance of the vows and of the articles of the following sources of obligation: the Rule, constitutions, legitimate customs, ordinations of the general 10Chelodi0 n. 194, c). nCan. 513, § 1. 125 Review for Religious JosEPH F. GALLEN chapter, an~i regula.tions of higher superiors. The most apt norm of inquiry that can be suggested here is the list of questions of the quin-quennial report to ,the Holy See, especially those contained in Chap~ ter II, Article II of this list. The observanc~ of the vow of poverty demands the pe'rmission of the superior fo~ the disposition of material things, but both the ancient and modern abuses in poverty are in the neglect of common life, for example, ~he possession of money that th~ religious' disposes of dependently or independently for his' own necessities; .the frequent or habitual obtaining of necessities from externs; the failure of the institute to supply these necessities adequately and generously; the absence.of the pres, cnbed and reasonable uniformity among the reli-gious in material things, especially in such matters as trips and vaca, tions; and ¯imprudent and excessive demands on parents for these ne-cessities, particular!y during the postulancy and noviceship: ' The external ~afeguards of chastity are subject to the inquiry of the visitor. Thes~e include the avoidance of familiarity and sensual friendships, care ih reading, prudence in the use of the radio, tele-vision, and in thelchoice of the moving pictures shown to the com-munity. The observance of cloister falls under this heading but it is mentioned individually later in the canon. Tile OrdinarY inquires about fidelity to the prescribed religious exercises: Mass, meditation, Little O~ce of the Blessed Virgin Mary, examen 'of conscte, nce, rosary, spiritual reading, visits to the Blessed~ Sacrament, etc. ¯ The spirit of i cooperation, peace, happiness, charity, the general spiritual Ievel in the house, and the obstacles to all of these come un-der the scrutiny of the Ordinary. The canon orl the purpose of the general visitation 6f the diocese directs the Ord, i!nary aiso positively to promote the welfare of the pkrsons and place~ he visits,t2 His counsels can be of value to 'insti-tutes that are la~'king in initiative, manifest a most unsatisfactory rate of increase o~ membership, have a constricted mental outlook, or live so much. in ~he traditions of the past that they refuse to face modern times in ,their lives in general, their work, spiritual forma-tionl and' educat.~gn of subjects. He can give a sympathetic hearing and even effectivei aid to representations on the universal lack of suf-fici'ent financial r~sources in lay congregations. This fact is the cause l~Can. 343, § 1. 126 ) May, 1953 VISITATION OF ORDINARY of overwork, of some of the weakefied health, df much of the loss of the full fervor of the religious spirit, of inadequate education of sub-jects, of the failure to provide sufficient material necessities and suit-able vacations, and, finally of annoying and undignified ways of raising funds. The whole matter of overwork in its relation to the ~observance of religious discipline should be thoroughly studied. The daily schooltwork of brothers and sisters is more than sufficient labor in itself. Added burdens can readily result in the contradiction of the unprepared teacher and the natural' religious. 2° "'Whether sound doctrine and good morals have suffered in. any way." This clause expresses an~application of subjection to the Ordinary not as religious but in the manner of the ordinary faithful. The local Ordinary is the guardian of the purity of faith and morals in his diocese. Misu'nderstanding of matters of faith and erroneous moral principles can be avoided by a competent course in Christian doctrine during the postulancy~ and noviceship and by further and highly desirable theological courses after first profession. 3° "'Whether there have been any violations of cloister." The Ordinary has the 6bligation of exerting .vigilance that cloister is ob-served in all religious congregations and of taking appropriate meas-ures to correct any habitual, notable, or scandalous Violations.13 Canon law imposes cloister on all congregations of men or women. This law places in cloister the parts of the house reserved for the ex-clusive use of the religious and determined by higher superiors. It forbids the entrance into the cloistered section of any person of the opposite sex except for a reasonable cause. The particular law of some .congregations forbids the entrance likewise of those of the same sex. The law of cloister also demands the observance of the pre-scriptions of the constitutions on going out of the house and 6n the rec~eption of visitors. 4° "'Whether 'the sacraments are, dul~t and regularlt.t received." The Ordinary is to inquire whether the religious receive the sacrament of Penance weekly, as universally prescribed by the constitutions. This is also the appropriate occasion for an investigatibn into the following canonical matters: the competence and regular fulfillment of their duties by the ordinary and extraordinary confessors; the-availability of supplementary confessors; abuses in the matter of special confessors; interference in 'internal and external government by confessors; interference with the rights of subjects regarding the 13Can. 604, § 3. 127 JOSEPH F GALLEN Reweto for Rehfltous suplblementary and occasional confessors and also the confessors of re-ligious women who are seriously ill; the exercise" of these rights in Conformity with right .reason, prudence, and religious discipline; the important directive of the Sacred Congregation of the Sacraments on the opportunity for confession before daily Mass; and any violation of the prohibition of obliging to a manifestation of conscience. The frequency of the reception of Holy Communion is not prescribed by the constitutions but is left to the devotion of the individual ~eh-gious. It is not beyond the power of the Ordinary to inquire about the general frequency of the reception of Holy Communion. If he finds a situation unusual in a religious house, he may be able to sug-gest o'r actually to effect a solution that will render the 'situation normal. 5° Remedial action of the local Ordinary. The defects in reh-gious discipline of lesser moment that the Ordinary has discerned and judges worthy of mention should be communicated to the siapiriors It will be sufficient to advise the local superior of such matters, unless , he judges that an effective correction can be attaihed only by inform-ing the superior general or provincial. If he has found abuses of serious moment, that is, continued or repeated violations of the laws o~ God, of the Church, or of.religious discipline in matters of greater importance, he is to admonish the superiors to correct the abuse. The gravity of these matters will frequently demand or at least cdu,.nsel that the higher superior be informed. If the abuse is not corrected within a reasonable time, the Ordinary himself is to take means to eliminate it. If he has discovered any serious matter that demands immediate correction, the Ordinary himself is to take direct corrective action but in this case he is obliged to inform the Sacred Congrega-tion of Religious of his action.14 5. Financial matters in pontitical congregations. Cation law here asserts the practical restriction of the authority of the local Ordinary to the two following matters:XS a) Dowries. The dowries, which are proper to institutes of women, are under the vigilance of the Ordinary of the habitual resi-dence~ of the higher superioress who is administering them. This right of vigilance demands that the consent of the Ordinary be obtained 14Can. 618, § 2, 2*., lSCan. 618, § 2. 1 °. Only the two financial matters here listed.are ordinarily found in constitutions approved by the Holy See. Cf. can. 533, § 1, 4"; 1515-1517, 1544-1551. 128 Mag, 1953 VISITATION OF ORDINARY for any investment or change of investment of the dowries; he is also to exert care that the dowries are maintained intact and invested in safe~ lawful, and productive securities; finally, he is to exact an ac-count of the dowries un'der these headings at the time of the canonical visitation or even oftener, if he thinks the latter necessary,lg A state-ment should be prepared for the visitor sho~ving the number of dow-ries, their 'value when given, the securities in which they are invested,' and the current value of the securities. b) Funds for divine worship or charitg~. The rather obscure and complicated funds here intended are those: (1°) donated or be-queathed to a house of a religious congregation; (2°) and motivated at least primarily and directly for divine worship or works of charity in favor of externs and to be carried out in the same. village, town, or city in which the religious house is located. Money given for main-taining a scholarship can be an example of such funds. The consent of the local Ordinary must be. obtained for any lnvestment or change of investment of these funds, and he also has.the right of inquiring into their administration. The manner, frequency, and time of the inquiry are left to the decision of the Ordinary.lz The canonical visitation is an opportune tim~ for this inquiry. These same rights of the Ordinary do not extend to such funds given to a province or congregation, nor tO those given solely or pri-marily and directly for the benefit of the religious, nor when the di-vine worship or works of charity are to be performed outside the lo-cation of the religious house or when the choice of the place of their performance is left to the religious. The primary and direct purpose of the gift of funds for a scholarship may be to provide an education for a poor youth or to bestow a gift on the religious who conduct the school; only in the former case would these funds be subject to the norms of vigilance quoted above. 6. Visitation of diocesan cofigregations. The general principle of canon law is that diocesan congregations are completely subject to the local Ordinaries. However, the Code immediately limits this sub-jection by stating that it is such as is described in law.is The prin-ciples that restrict the jurisdiction of the Ordinary over these congre-gations are as follows: (a) he must observe the particular canons that limit his power, for example, the higher superiors of the institute, 16Can. 549; 550, § 2; 533, § 1, 2°; § 2; 535, § 2. 17Can. 533, § 1, 3°; § 2; 535, § 3, 2°¯ ISCan. 492, § 2. 129 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Reoietu for Religioas not the Ordinary, are competent tb admit to the professions; (b) his authority must be exercised according to the apprgved constitutions; (c) the Ordinary of the motherhouse enjoys no primacy of author-ity, since the Code subjects the houses in each diocese to the jurisdic-tion of the Ordinary of that diocese; (d) a diocesan c~'ngregation is a legitimately erected moral person in the Church, with its own proper internal life and field of action: the superigrs possess independent au-thority and are obliged to recur to the Ordinary in matters of inter-nal government only when this is demanded by the Code or the con-stitutions; (e) the Ordinary is not to be considered as a religious su-perior who directly governs the congregation but as an external ec-clesiastical superior, whose authority is that of vigilance over the proper observance of the Code and the const~itutions, of correcting abuses, supplying for defects, and of guiding and aiding the co'n-gregation during the relatively brief probationary period of acquiring the strength and stabili_ty necessary in a petition for pontifical ap-proval. The Ordinary thus acts as an external ecclesiastical superior in the canonical visitation of these congregations. The Code places no limitation on the Ordinary's right of visitation of the houses of congregat!ons. He visits these houses'in everything, internal government, the whole field of discipline, all financial matters, per-sons, and places. Here also the Ordinary is obliged to interview the individual religious only to the extent that he judges necessary for the attainment of the purpose of the visitation.19 The visitation of the semipublic oratories and sacristies of dioc-esan institutes includes an examination into the fgllowing matters: cleanliness; freedom of the oratory from profane uses and its security against sacrilegious thefts and profanations; the conformity of the altar, the t~bernacle, and their furnishings with canonical and litur-gical legislation; the cus, tody of the Eucharist; obedience to instruc-tions on the custody .of the tabernacle key; all the sacred vessels; tl~e sanctuary lamp; the conformity bf the vestments and other furnish-ings with liturgical law, ecclesiastical tradition, and the laws of sacred art; observance of the laws on divine worship and sacred music; fidel-ity to the list of days on ~hich Exposition and Benediction bf the Most Blessed Sacrament are permitted; the admission of priests to the celebration of Mass; and the proper custody of the holy oils. The confessionals in these institutes are examined in the follow- 19Can. 513, § 1. Cf. 4. c), 1° above. 130 Matt, 1953 VISITATION OF ORDINARY -ing respects: their location in' institutes of women in an open and conspicuous place and generally in the chapel: suitability and per-manent accessibility of the place of the confessional; the danger of being overheard, especially ih a confessional in the chapel: a suitable place for the ~onfessions of the deaf; the presence of a narrowly per~ forated grating between the confessor and the penitent; and observ-ance of the law that forbids the confessions of women outside the confessional except in cases of sickness or for other reasons of similar import. The Ordinary always has the right of taking direct and imme-diate action to correct defects and abuses that he has discovered in di-ocesan congregations. However, for the efficacy of the government of superiors and the peace of the members of the institute, it would be better to follow the order of correction described above for pontiff-cal congregations. A diocesan generalate or provinciaiate and the general and pro-vincial superiors and officials, even if the institute or province has houses in several dioceses, certainly fail, under the quinquennial visi-tation of the Ordinary as a local house and members of a local com-munity, The administration of all the dowries i~ also' subject to this visitation of the Ordinary. It is certain that the Ordinary is not obliged to make a ~canonical visitation of the general and provincial houses, superiors, and officials as "such, nor of the general and pro-vincial government and material administration, even if all the houses of the congregation or province are located in his diocese. The argu-ment for this statement is found in the law on the canonical visita-tion, which speaks only of the visitation of houses, not of provinces or institutes.~° It is likewise certain that the Ordinary may make such a visitation, provided all the houses of the province or congrega-tloia are located in his diocese. This right follows from the general subjection of diocesan congregations to [he Ordinary and is in con-flict with no canonical principle. It is more probable that the Ordi-nary may not make such a visitation when the congregation or prov-ince includes houses located in other dioceses, unless he has been com-missioned to do so by the Ordinaries of all these other diocesesl- The principal arguments for this doctrine are that sfich a visitation would affect the entire congregation or province, would contravene the can-onical principle that the Ordinary of the motherhouse enjoys no primacy-of authority, and would thus be obstructive of the rights of 20Can. 5 1 2. 13 t JOSEPH F. GALLEN Reoieu~ for Religious the other Ordinaries. Some canonists oppose thi~ doctrine and hold with solid prob-ability that the Ordinary may make a canonical visitation Of such a generalate or provincialate. Their position is founded on the general subjection of diocesan institutes to the local Ordinary and they deny that this visitation, whose purpose is to promote the observance of the Code and the constitutions, would of its nature conflict with the authority ~r rights of the other Ordinaries.22 In this diversity of opinion, the Ordinary may licitly maintain the right of visitation, since the exclusion of the visitation of such a generalate or provi'ncial-ate from the general principle of subjection to the local Ordinary has not been certainly proved. The controversy should now have a. negligible practical applica-tion. The Sacred Congregation of Religious stated clearly in the new quinquennial report that a diocesan institute actually divided into provinces should have petitioned the status of a pontifical con-gregation before such a division. The Sacred Congregation also ex-plicitly affirmed that any diocesan congregation should.~petition pon-tifical approval as soon as the necessary conditions are verifiei:l. These are practically alwa~rs verified in a diocesan congregation that has spread beyond the diocese of origin. It cannot be repeated too fre-quently that the .diocesan status of a religious ifistitute is not per-petual and definitive but only temporary and probationary and that pontifical status, when the necessary conditions are verified is not optional but mandatory according to the practice of the Sacred Con-grega tion~. ~ II. Monasteries of Nuns Not Subject to Regular Superiors Canonically. nuns are the members of an institute of religious @omen in .which solemn vows at least should be taken according to the prescription of the particular law~ of the institute. Only simple vows are still taken in most monasteries of nuns in the United States, but the injunction of the apostolic constitution Sponsa Christi should soon reverse this condition,24 Some orders of nuns, for example, the 21Bastien, n. 137; Jombart, IV, n, 1323, 7, but cf.'I, n. 827, 2, a); Larraona, CpR, X (1929), 368-377: XIV (1933), 417, and nora 777; 418; Muzzarelh, nn. 145-147; Quinn, 842'90; Schaefer, n. 744, d), but of. n. 745. 22D'Ambrosio, Apollinaris, I (1928.), 417-422: Reilly, 91-97; apparently also Brys, n. 631, IV, 3°; De Carlo. n. 206, III: Vermeersch-Creusen, n. 660, 3, Vromant, De Bonis Ecclesiab Ternporalibtts, n. 238. 23Review forReligious, March, 1950, 57-68; January, 1951, 22; January, 1952, 13-14. z4Statuta, Art. III, § 2. 132 May, 1953 VISITATION OF ORDINARY Carmelites and Dominicans, are subject by the law of their constitu-tions tothe supeiiors of orders of men; others, for example, the Vis, itandines, are not. Monasteries of only simple vows are most rarely in fact subject to order~ of men, even though their constitutions pre-scribe such subjection. The first category of nuns with regard to the canonical visitation of the local Ordinary is of monasteries of solemn or simple vows that are not in fact subject to orders of men. The local Ordinary is obliged to visit all such monasteries every five years35 He may do so more frequently, since these monasteries are subject to him also with regard to the religious life. The consti-tutions also may prescribe a greater frequency of visitation. He viS'its these monasteries in everything, as described above for diocesan con, gregations. All monasteries of 'nuns, whether of solemn or simple vows, are now to have papal cloister.~ The local Ordinary or his " delegate, accompanied by at least one .cleric or religious man of ma-ture age, enters a papal cloister of. women only for the-visitation of places. The rest of the visitation is carried out at the grille37 III. Monasteries of Nuns Subject to Regular Superiors , The distinctive note of this category is that th~ monastery is in fact subject to an order of men. A~ stated above, it may be of sol-emn or'simple vows. The local Ordinary is obliged to visit such a monastery "every five years concerning the observance of the law of cloister and he may make such a visitation as often as he judges it opportune.~ On the occasion of his q~inquennial visitation he also inquires'into the administration of the dowries,a9 The Ordinary alsb has a suppletory duty with regard to a monastery, of this category. If the monastery has not been visited within five years by ~he regular superior, the 1,ocal Ordinary is obliged to visit it in everything, as ex-plained above for diocesan congregations.3°, Other Pertinent Canons abd Principles Canons 513; § 1 and 2413, as also the principles on the. field of c6nsciende, denunciation of the conduct of another, and use and se-crecy concerning.matters learned in a visitation, explained in the pre- 2SCan. 512, § 1, 1" 26Sponsa Christi, Statuta, Art:'IV. 27Can. 600, 1" 28Can. 512, § ~, 1". 29Can. 5 5 0. ~30Chn. f!l2, § -2, 1". 133 JOSI~PH F. GALLEN vious aiticle on the visitation of higher superiors, a~ply similarly the canonical visitation of the local Ordinary.3',32 31Concerning the subject of the penalty of can. 2413. cf. Jombart, Larraona. Muz-zarelli, and D'Ambrosio. as cited in notes 21-22. and Reilly, 173-176. 3ZThe authors cited are: Abl~o-Hannan. The Sacred Canons, I: Bastien. Directo~re Canonique; Brys. duds Canonici Compendium, I: Chelodi, lus Canonicum De Per-sonis: Ciacio, De, Oratodis Semipublicis: Coccbio Commentarium In Codicem lur,s Canonici, IV; Coronata. lnstitutiones luris Canonici, I: D'Ambrosio. Apollinar,s:. De Carlo. dus Religiosorum; Fanfani. ll Diritto Delle Religiose, De lure Relioioso-rum: Farrell. The Rights and Duties of the Local Ordinar{l Regarding Congrega-tions of Women Religious of Pontifical Approtml; Goy6neche. Commentadum Pro Religiosis, De Religiosis; JomlSart. Traitd De Droit Canonique, I. IV: Larraona, Commentarium Pro Religiosis; Muzzarelli. De Congregationibds furls Dioecesam; Pruemmer. Manuale luris Canonici; Quinn. Relation of the Local Ordinart, t to Reh-gious of Diocesan Approval; Raus. Institutiones Canonicae : Regatillo. lnstitutiones luris Car~onici; Reilly~ The Visitation of Religious; Schaefer, De Religiosis; Sl~f-kosky, The Canonical Episcopal Visitatiori of the Diocese; Toso. De Religios~s, Vermeersch-Creusen, Epitome furls Canonici, I: Vromant. De Personis: De Bores Ecclesiae Temporalibus; Wernz-Vidal. De Rdigiosis. "10,000 GOLD FRANCS" MEANS "S,000 DOLLARS" AcCording .to a decree of the Sacred Consistorial Congregation, duly 13, 1951, religious institutes need the permission of the'Holy ¯ See t6 alienate property or to incur a debt when the amount exceeds 10,000 gold' francs or lire. In an article in-this REVIEW (November, 1952, pp. 301-304), we att'empted to translate this amount into American dollars, and we reached the~ tentative conclusion that the approximate amount would be 7,000 dollars. Our estimate was based on sound economic calculations; hence, we suggested that 7,000 American dollars Could be taken as the norm until some more specific norm would.be given by the Holy See itself. On danuary 29, 1953, the Sacred Congregation of Religious pub-lished the official equivalents of 10,000 gold francs or )ire for the principal countries of the world. The equivalent for the United States is given as 5,000 dollars; for the equivalents in other countries, see page 150. As matters now stand, therefore, the permission of the Holy See must be obtained to alienate property or to incur a debt when the amount exceeds 5,000 dollars in our ordinary currency. It should recalled that this permissidn may be obtained through the Apostohc Deldgate, in Washington,if the sum does not exceed 500,000 dollars 134 Conl:ession before Communion Gerald Kelly, S.3. '~N THE FIFTEENTH of Jun, e, 1520, in a memorable docu- . ~ ment which begins with the words, Exsurge Domine (Arise, O Lord), Pope Leo X condemned a multitude of errors of Martin Luther. Among these errors was Luther's teaching on the preparation, required for Holy Communion. According to him, pr~yers~and other pious works, as well as contrition for mortal sin and even confession itself, are useless; all that is required is to .be-lieve, to have confidence that one will obtain grace in the sacrament, and this alone will make one pure and worthy. Thirty-one years later, fin its thirteenth 'session' (October 11, 1551), the Council of Trent considered this same errdneous teaching, and,stated the true doctrine in a chapter and a canon. Chapter VII, "On the preparation to be given thht one may.worthily receive the sacred Eucharist," runs as follows: "If it is unbeseeming for anyone to approach to any of the sadred functibns unless he approach holily; assuredly, the more the holiness and divinity of this heavenly sacrament are understood by a Chris-tian, the more diligently ought he to "give heed that he approach not to receive it but with great reverence and holiness, especially as we read in the Apostle those words full of terror: He that eateth and drinketh unworthil! , eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, Wherefore, he who would communicate ought to recall to ~ind the precept of the Apostle: Let a man proue himself. Now ecclesiastical usage declares that necessary proof to be, that no one, conscious to himself of mortal sin, how contrite .soever he may seem to himself, ought to approach to the sacred Eucharist without previous sacra-mental confession. This the holy Synod hath decreed is to be,in-variably observed by all Christians, even by those priests on. whom it may be incumbent by their office to celebrate, 16rovided the opportun-ity of a confessor do not fail them; but if, in an urgent necessity, a priest should celebrate without previous confession, let him confess as soon as possible." (Waterwotth, The Canons and,Decrees of the Sacred and Oecumen&al Council of Trent, pp. 80-81.) " The eleventh canon :of the same session makes explicit reference to the Lutheran error. It reads: 135 GERALD KELLY Reoiew for Reli~lious "If anyone saith, that faith alone is a sufficient preparation for receiving the sacrament of the most. holy Eucharist; let him be anathema. And for fear lest so great a sacrament may be received unworthily, and so unto death and conddmnation, this holy Synod ordains and declares that sacramental 'confession, when a confessor" may be had, is of necessity to be made beforehand, by those whose conscience is burtl~ened ,with mortal sin, how contrite even soever they may think themselves. But if anyone shall presume to teach, preach, or obstinately to assert, or eveh in public disputation to de-fend the contrary, he ~hall be thereupon excommunicated." (Water-worth, p. 84.) The foregoing teaching of the Council of Trent is the principal source of our present canon law: namely, canon 807, which concerns the celebration of Mass, and canon 856, which concerns the reception of Holy Communion. .An English translation of the latter canon runs as follows: "No one, whose conscience convicts him of mortal sin, no matter how contrite he thinks himself, may approach Holy. Communion without l~revious sacramental confession. If there is urgent neces-sity, and no oppoitunity of finding a confessor, he must first elicit an Act of Perfect Contrition." (O'Donnell, Moral Questions, p. 270.) This law is of the greatest moment. It should be clearly under-stood by religion teachers, catechists, and frequent communicants. Properly to understand it, one must have a grasp of these three propositions: (I) It is always, necessary to be in the state of grace When receiving Holy Communion. (II) It is ordinarily necessary to confess before receiving Holy Communion if one has committed a mortal sin since one's last good confession. (III) In certain extra-ordinary circumstances it is sufficierit to regain grac~ by a'n act of per-fect contrition before receiving. Holy Communion. The purpose of the present article is to explain these three propositions and (IV) to call attention to some precautions to be. taken in order to safeguard the ordinary observance of the law and, to avoid sacrilegious Com-munions. I. It is alwol~s necessary to be in' the State of grace when receiving Communion. One reason for this is that the Holy Eucharist is a sacrament of the living. A sacrament of the living supposes its recipient to be already supernaturally aliventhat is, living the divine life of grace--- 136 Ma~, 1953 CONFESSION BEFORE COMMUNION and its function is to increase this divine life in the soul. A second reason is found in the special purpose of the Eucharist, which, is to r~ourisb. We do not speak of nour.ishing a corpse; nourishment sup-poses that life ~lready exists. The conscious receptiOn of Holy Communion while in the state of mortal sin is a grave sacrilege. It is to receive the source of sal-vation unto one's own condemnation. No one, therefore, should receive this sacrament unless he has a reasonable assurance that he is in the state of grace. I say "a reasonable assurance," because when there is question of our interior state of soul it is not possible for us, apart from ~ special divine revelation, to have an absolute certainty that we are in the state of grace. All that God. expects of us in this and in similar matters is a practical, or working, certainty that we fulfill various conditions established by Himself or the ChurCh for His honor and our own spiritual welfare. For ordinary people there is no difficulty in this.matter. They go to confession; do what they can to fulfill the requisites of a good confession, and leave the con-fessional in peace, sufficiently confident that their sins are forgiven and that they are in the state of grace. And the same is true of them when they make an act of perfect contrition: they are reasonably, or practically, sure that through this act they are restored to God's friendship,' in case they had lost it through mortal sin. (Contrition, said the Council of Trent, is perfect through charity. Hence, perfect coritrltion is sorrow for sin based upon a motive of charity, that is, sorrow because one has offended God, who is the supreme good and worthy to be loved above all things. It is not difficult for those who are accustomed to think of God to make an act of perfect contrition and to mean it. The formula for the act of contrition, as ordinarily taught in catechism classes, contains both imperfect and perfect contrition. This is appropriate, because sorrov~ for the perfect motive does not exclude sorrow for lesser motives.) Some people, such as the scrupulous, have great difficulty in these matters. They alw.'ays feel spiritually insecu~re. No matter what their reason might tell them of their state of soul, its calm judgment is stifled by their fear; and this fea.r makes them feel that they are not, or,may not be, in the state of grace. If such people were to follow their feelings, they would very likely never receive a sacrament of the living, especially the H61y Eucharist. For them~ it is necessary to fol-low sound direction in spite of their feelings--lall the while working towards the goal of being able to make quiet judgments for them-selves, judgments based on facts and not on fea~. 137 GERALD KELLY As is the case with other sins, one must realize what he is doing in order to be guilty of a sacrilegious Communion. Consequently, one who is actually in the state of mortai sia but does n~ot advert this when he receives Holy Communion does not commit a sin: fact, it may be that he receives sanctifying grace through the Eucha-rist itself. Many erfiinent theologians hold that. a sinner (i.e:, in the state of mortal sin) who receives Holy Communion ifi good faith and with imperfect contrition for his sins is restored to grace through'this sacrament. Knowledge of this opinion may be a con-solation to those who are apt to worry about being deprived of grace because of unsuspected unworthiness when they communicate. The case of receiving Holy Communion without adverting the fact that one is in the state of mortal sin can hardly be very common. But it is certainly not an impossibility, especially for some people whose devotions' aie governed by routine. For example, sup-pos~ that a layman is accustomed to receive Holy Communion first Sunday of every month and to go to confession, the day before It might happen that something unforeseen.would prevent his going to confession, and then, following his routine pattern, h~ would communciate Sunday morning without realizing at the time that had been unable to make his usual confession. If he had committed a mortal sin and had made only an act of imperfect contrition'he would still be in mortal sin at the time of communica_ting. Being unconscious of this, he would be in wh~t is called "good faith Communion would proba.bly have the same effect for him as an of perfect contrition~namely, give him sanctifyi.n.g grace, though would still be obliged to confess his sin.' II. It is ordln~rily necessar~.l to confess before receiving Communion ~f one has committed a mortal sin since one's last good confession. To say that one must be in the state of grace when receiving sacrament of the living is not the same as saying that a sinner must go to confession before receiving one of these sacraments. It is pos-sible to regain sanctifying grace either through actual confession through perfect contrition, which includes the intention to co,nfess the proper time. Nothing in the nature of a sacrament of the living makes actual confession a necessary prerequisite; nor is there any special law which makes confession necessary, except for the Holy Eucharist. For instance, if a young man who is to be confirmed tomorrow commits a mortal sin today, he is certainly obliged regain sanctifying grace before receiving confirmation, but an act 138 ¯Ma~, 1953 CONFESSION BEFORE COMMUNION perfect contrition would suffce for ¯thpis rup !o s e .~ A . nd this would" be true also of matrimony, holy~orders, and e~xtrem¢ unction if these sacraments were received apart from Holy:Communion,or the cele-bration of Mass. | ~ . . The Holy Eu~charist, therefo.re, is govern~ed by°an entirely special law~. As we learn from the Council of "l~rent arid the Code, the regaining of grace through perfect contrition.is not normally suffi-cient for the reception of this sa~cramsaecnrat;m Ie ~ntal confession' is ordinarily required. The reason for this seems to be the entirely special .character of the Holy Eucharist. it is the most excellent of sacraments, and it is to be safeguarded as much fis is humi~nly possible against the clangerof abuse. ~ ] Is this law prescribing confession beforle Comrfiunion a divine law or a law made by the Church? The answer to this question is not clear. Some of the greatest of'post-Tr~dentine theologians ex-plain it as a divine law promulgated through St. Paul: St, Alph'onsus Liguori, writing in the eighteenth century, ~dheres. to this explana~ tion as being by far the more common and th~eonlv true one Never-thele. ss, eminent modern theologians express ~lissa~isfa~tion with the arguments that the law is of divine origin arid hold that ~he words of the Council of Trent are sufficiently verifi~ed if the law is consid-ered to be of ecclesiastical origin. In either case--whether divine or merely ecclesiastical the law is strictly binding, and the only excep-tion to it is offcially declared by the Church[ to be a case in which Communion is necessary and confession is impossible, as will be ex-plained in our next section. ~Who are obliged by this law to go to cofenssion before receiving Communion? Only those u:bo are certain tb ~at tbe[j.have committed a mortal sin since their last gUod confession. T~erefore, one who inculpably failed to tell a mortal sin in an otl-lerwise good confes~io~h is ~iot obliged to abstain from Communion u~nti~ he makes another c~nfession. ~'He bus already regained grace thr~ough co~nfession. It is true, of course, that the omitted sin must still be confessed; but it is not necessary to advance one's ordinary time of confession in order to do this, and in the meantime one may receive Holy.Communion even daily as long as ~he commits no further m~0rtal sin. " , It is clear that- if one who knows he forgot to tell a mortal sin in. confession may receive Holy Communion, then one who merely doubts whether be forgot to tell a sin has the~ same privilege¯ BUt what of one who knows be committed a mortal sin and doubts 139 GERALD KELLY Reoieto for Religious whether~ he has been to confession at all since then (not a yery com-mon case), or~,.of one who doubts whether he has sinned mortally (e.g., by sutficient reflection or full co.nsent) since his last confession~ Regarding these cases there would be some difference of opinion among xheologians; but a sound practical rule covering all .such doubts is this: th~ sole obligation is to take some available means of removing the doubt so that one will be reasonably sure of being in the state of grace when receiving HolyrCommunion. ¯ Sometimes what is called a doubt is not a doubt at all, but merely a scruple or a sort of hazy" fear. The best treatment for such ~orries is to pay as Iittle heed as possible to them, even though they accompany the holiest of actions. In other instances, a doubt is a sort of temporary state of mined that can be corrected by the applica-tion of a sound rule of presumption. For instance, one who Wonders whether he gave full consent in some very disturbing temptation, mig~ht' realize in his calmer moments that in similar' situations he never, or practically never, gives in to the temptation. Thus the presumption of not consenting favors him, and he may use this pre-sumption to dispel his perplexity and to form the practical judgment 'that heDis still in the stare of grace. In such cases neither confession nor r~erfect contrition is strictly required before Holy Commun.lon But it may happen occasionally to anyone that his doubt whether he has committed a mortal sin is too solidly-founded to be ignored and that the circumstances of the temptation are so unusual that the ordinary presumptions are not helpful. In other ~ ords. one might have a really sincere and insoluble doubt whether he is here and now in the state of mortal sin. Even in this case confession is not obliga-tory; but if one does not wish to go to confession one should make an act of perfect contrition before receiving Communion. Ac~ording to some good authors even the act of perfect contrition is not str_ictly necessary; but it is hard to find any sound reason for this opinion and I viould-not sponsor it. On the. other hand. many, if not most. authors think that confession is generally advisable in these cases of insoluble doubt. For myself. I would be very slow to recommend the special confession of doubtful sins except to persons who might need this'as a means of corr.ecting a proneness to laxity. III. In cdrtain extraordinary circumstances it is'su~cient to regain grace before receit)ing Communion by making an act of perfect con-trition. A problem proposed to Father Michael O'Donnell (Moral Ques- 1:40 Meg, 1953 tfons, p. ,2,70) can aptly introduce the pCrOeNs~eEnSt$ 1sOecNt BioEnFO. TREh CeO pMrMobUlNeImON concerns a person who d d an impure action and was heartily sorry for doing so, and wanted to keceive Our Ble'~ssedLord the following morning," This person evidently had no opportunity to go to con-fession: hence be made an act of perfect cqntrltlon 'and promised Our Lord he would go to confession'at the first opportunity and tell that sin of impurity and fulfilled that promis~e a few days later." He now wants to know whether he did wrong an going to C6mmunion. This is a very human problem. One can almost feel the anxiety of the questioner. Father O Don-_ewl rlgbtllv sets b~ m:nd at r~st by saying that. since he acted in good faith. He has n6 need to worry. It is one thing to decide wh&her one has beech guilty of sin, another thing to tell one what to do in the future. I~ cannot be repeated too . often that past actions arenot to be judged by present knowledge. Many of us have done things in perfectly gobd faith which we later learned were forbidden. In acting thus we ~ere not guilty of sin: in fact we may have been highly pleasing to God because we ~lid what we thought was righf under the circumstadces. So, too, we may have done things in a sort of perplexed state i~n which .we did the best we could to decide what was right and then d~d it. but with a sort of vague anxiety. This is not ,what aut, bors referIto when,, they coffdemn acting "in practical doubt.' The °practica1~lldoul~ter is not merely troubled by a vague worry or perplexity; he is one who has a serious reason, for questioning wh~tber what he is about to do is sinful and then, witl~out forming his conscience, be does' it Xnyway. I call attention to this principle that pas~ acti6ns are n~t to be judge.d by present knowledge, because it is n~t entirely unlikely that some readers of this article may have had an experience similar to Father O'DonnelI's questioner. Lacking a ~lear knowledge of the law of confession before Communion, they may have received Co}n-reunion without previous confession in some. instance in which, ac-cording to the explanation given here, they were not justified in doing so. Let them be content to use the new knowiedge as a guide for the future and not make it a cause of anxiety abou~t~tbe past. Many laws admit of exceptions by reason of some extraordinary circumstances or combination of circumstances[ Thus, a mothek who must care for a sick child is excused from Slunday Mass; the "poor who live on what they receive from others are excused froin tb~ law of abstinence; and so forth. The law pr~scri'bing cbnfession before Communion also admits of exception; but the" Church considers ~bis 141 GERALD KELLY Reoteto [or Rehgtous matter of such importance that she officially declares just what cir-cumstances constitute the exception. For a legitimate exception there must be a combina~tion of two extraordinary circumstances: (1) im-possibility of going.to confession; and (2) necessity of receiving Communion. Both conditions must be verified. And both need some expla~nation. 1. Confession lmpbssible. Authors generally illustrate this matter with the example of person who is0 already kneeling at the Communion rail before he realizes that he should have gone to confession. It is clear that if he is to receive Communion now (whether 'that is necessary will be ¯ treated later), then coflfession before Communion is impossible. He ~annot stop the priest.at the altar rail and say: "Will you please bear my confession before giving me CommuniorL" " F~ther Edwin F. Healy, S.2., in Christian Guidance (p. 105), uses the example of a father of a family who has planned on receiving Communion with his children on their mother's anniversary. ,He intends to go to confession before Mass, but when they reach the church they find that the onlh, priest of this parish is already begirt-ning Mass. As Father Healy points out, it would be out of the question for the man to leave the church and go elsewhere to con-fession if he is to receive Communion with his family at this Mass'. Example~ of inability to get to confession are not limited to these last-minute cases. The impossibility might last for some tihae, espe-cially in a small town when the pastor is absent and when inclement weather or lack of time would prevent one from going to another town. Moreover, there can be cases in which a priest can be reached yet, confessi6~ is impossible: _for example, if the priest Would not hear the. confession, perhaps because of scrupulosity. Or the only available priest might be one without tl'ie faculties to hear confessions. This would not be very common in our country; but it could happen, for instance, in the case of'a priest who would be outside his own dio-cese. And it would be more common in some countries where it is customary to,limit the jurisdiction of young priests to a certain class of persons. At the time of the Council of Trent the limitation of confes-sional faculties was not at all uncommon: hence cases in which an available priest migh~t b~ able to hear one's confession were not rare This seems to be one reason for the rather strange wording used by the Council in declaring the law of confessing before Communion 142 May, 1953 CON~ESSION BEF(~RE COMMUNION / Confession is necessary, it says, if one has a i'co/~ia confessoris." The Code preserves the same expression, "copia ~onfesarii?' The literal meaning of copla is 'a plenty, an abundanc~e," an,d the very use of the expression implies that it might be possible to have a priest pres-, ent, yet no confessor would be available, VaI r.ious authors try to press this idea by saying that confession is neIcessary: if a confessor is present to whom one is obliged to confess: if a suitable confessor is present: if there is an available priest to wh6m one could go to con-fession without grave inconvenience. The foregoing are various ways of sayin~ is present or can be reached confession may bility. I have aI~eady cited two examples cannot hear the confession, and the priest Another example of this practical impossibil case in which confession cannot be made privacy. Still another case, very clear in tF. that,even when a priest be a practical impossi-af this: the priest who who will not hear ~t. ity of confessing is the without the necessary eory but not nearly so clear in its application, is that in. which the very going to confession would create suspicion in the minds of others that one had s~nned seriously. I say this is clear in theory becaus~e such a danger to one's reputation is certainly an extraordinary inconvenience that would, make confession morally impossible. And I ladd that Jr'is not clear in its practical application bechuse the dangelI is more likely to exist merely in the minds of,certain oversensitive in~lividuals than in actual fact. It is sometimes said that this kind of sltuat~on is not uncom-mon in communities of Sisters, so that a Sister1 who would go to con-fession before Mass would be open to suspicion. Perhaps there~are some communities in which such gross unkindness and injustice pre-vail, but we can at least h'ope that they a.re ~ery rare and that they will soon reform. " I Theologians discuss and dispute over what they call "invincible repugnance') attached to goin~ to con~fession to a certain individual. All agree, of course, that the mere d~flicultyI of confession, or the mere humiliation of confessing a serious sin-~iifficulties inherent in "confession to some extent for most people~,w.ould not constitute a moral impossibility of going to confession. The debatable case con-cerns repugnance or embarrassment that arises ?from some kind of special relationship with the confessor. This might be blood rela-tionship.: for example, the confessor 'is one's son or brother. Or it might be a relationship of work: for example, the confessor and peni-tent are working intimately together day after day. Or it might be a 143 GERALD' KELLY Review for Religipus relati0nshipZwif I may use the term--of dislike., For instance, sup-pose that a certain priest clearly dislikes me and loses no opportunity of~showing it l~y bein~g rude,.ridiculing me, and so forth. It is easily seen that I might have a repugnance to confessing a serious sii~ that priest which would be entirely special, entirely different from the difficulty ndrmally experienced in confession. No one holds that these relationships always create "invincible repugnance." But many theologians believe that this psycho!ogical effect is experienced in some cases and,that in these cases there is truly extraordinary inconvenience which amounts to a moral impos-sibility of confessing to that priest. Hence,,the~r wo~Id say that such a priest were the only one ~vho could be reached, confession would be a practical impossibility. I am convinced that these theo-logians are c~orrect: and I believe that St., Thomas. Aquinas would agree with them, too. With reference to a similar question--the ne-cessity of making" the annual confession "to 6ne's own priest"-- St. Thomas recommended great liberality in alldwing people to to other confessors, "because," he said, "many are so weak that they would rather die without confession than confess .to that priest." (Suppl., q. 8, a. 5, ad. 6.) A few otheb cases generally cited by authors as constituting impossibility of confessing are these: the danger of scandalizing t, priest: the danger that confessional secrecy will be abused; the danger of revealing one's accomplice in a sin. Granted that such ~onditions existed, they would make confession morally'impossible: but I think their actual existence would be rare. 2. Communion Necessarg Because" of the variety of situations which mak~ confession moral impossibility, the first condition for the exception to the .of confession before Communion is not entirely uncommon. But second condition is also required--necessity of going to Communion --and this is seldom gerified. To illustrate this condition we might reconsider three of the cases previously mentioned. In the problem presented to Father O'Donnell the questioner apparently had no opportunity of going to confession. But his only reason for going to Communion was that" he "wanted to receive Our Blessed Lord the following morning." This desire, though it may be very strong and though it is very laudable, does not. make Com-munion a necessity. There is a necessity of going to Communion Ma~, 1953 CONFESSIO,N BEFORE COMMUNION' only when abstinence from Communion would be accompanied by' some very extraordinary incorivenience. Another case is that of the person who is. already kneeling at the Communion rail when he realizes that be should have gone to Con-fession. Clearly, as we pointed out, confession is now impossible. And if he could not leave the rail without exposing himself to suspi-cion, there would also be a necessity of communicating: that is, ab-stinence from Communion would be akcom13anied by the extraordi-nary inconvenience of danger to his reputation." Granted that this circumstance existed he could legitimately receive Communion after having made an act of perfect contrition. A third example was taken from Father Healy's Christian Guid-ance. Since Father Healy uses this particular example primarily to illustrate a necessity of communicating, it may be helpful to quote it in its entirety: "It has been the custom for some years, that the whole Baxter family receive Holy Communion on December 12, the day on which Mrs. Baxter died. Mr. Baxter had received Holy Communion the d~ay be, fore at the Sunday Mass and now he comes to church with his grown children. Unfortunately, he committed a serious sin ~he pre~ vious afternoon, and he i~ counting on going to confession before Mass. However, when' Baxter arrives he finds that Father Treacy, the only priest at this church, has already begun the prayers at ~he foot of the altar. Baxter cannot pretend that he violated the Eucha-ristic fast, for his children know that he did not. ' He cannot feign sickness, for he is obviously in the best of health. Unless he receives Holy Communion, his family will conclude that he is in the state of mortal sin." Father Healy comments: "Given these circumstances, Mr. Baxter may make an act of perfect contrition and licitly go to Holy Com-munion at this Mass." I believe that theologians would generally agree with this solutidn because the drcumstances all build up to an entirely exceptional situation--a situation which not only excludes the possibility of confession but also .makes abstinence from Com-munion a source of extraordinary inconvenience. And if the case were changed so that the children were young, instead of grown up, there might be the added factor of danger of bad example if the father were to abstain from Communion in the cir~umstances de-scribed. A case in which similar circumstances might prevail would be a wedding, when the bride and groom had planned on receiving GERALD KELLY ~ Review for Religious Co.mmunion together it the NuptialMass. It may be taken as a sound working 15rinciple that if abstinence from Communion would jeopardize one's reputation or give bad example, then Communion is necessary, in the sense of canon 856. But as I suggested,with reference to confession, it is easier to enunciate a principle like this thin to-judge its practical application. It is sometimes said, for instance, that these inconveniences are apt to ex-is't in a convent, or when Sisters go to Communion daily in the parish church, or when they receive Communion with the children on special occasions, such as the First Friday. We are dealing here with a question of fact, and I certainly would not want to be dogmatic m affirming or denying the existence of the conditions. If they exist, they constitute a necessity of communicating. But clearly the Church d6es not want them to exist; and there is no valid reason why they should exist, because occasional abstinence from Communion is cer-tainly not a ~ound basis for either suspicion or scandal. All theologians say that the mere desire to receive Communion does not rfiake Communion a riecessity. In other words, the sorrow felt by a devout person who is deprived of Communion is not an extraordinary inconvenience in the sense of canon 856. This is un-doubtedly true when the omission of Communion would be required foronly a day or two. But I think there is room for an easier judg-ment in the case of a devout daily communicant, e~pecially a reh-gious, who might have to omit Communion for a rather l~ong time. I am thinking 15art~cularly of an earnest religious who might very rarely commit a serious sin and who on one of these rare "occasions might be in circumstances in which confession would be impossible for a week or so. I believe that abstinence from Communion during all that time would constitute an e~traordinary hardship for such a religious a hardship of such an exceptional nature as to constitute a justification for receiving Holy Communion after regaining grace through perfect contrition. This case is admittedly rare; but it can happen, especially in some rural districts. Throughout this present section I have tried to~ stress two points: first, that the combination of circumstances demanded by the latter part of canon 856 ~should be seldom ~erified; and secondly, that it can be verified occasionally, even in the case of religious. But when-ever a religious finds that these exceptions are frequent, there is some-thing radically wrong a situation which should not exist andwhich must be corrected. In this regard, I should.like to refer to a question 146 ! May, 1953 ~ONFESSION BEFORE COMMUNION answered inan earlier number'of this REVIEW (V, 70-71) that con-cerned a young Sister with aproblem that called for frequent con-fession. She was in a islace where such frequent confession was prac-. tically impossible and she thought that "frequent abstaining from Communion. especially as this might often be for several days a~ a time, would enable others to suspect her trouble." I believe that the answer we published at that time bears repetition here! "It is not easy to answer a problem like this in a few words; but we can give a general idea of the points that must be considered. An occasional emergency when Communion is judged necessary and con-fession is impossible is understandable and might occur in the life of almost anyone. But a state of affairs that makes such emergencies more or less habitual ought to beremedied. Ii~ the case referred to in the question, the religitius should ask for a change of reside~ace that .would enable her to confess when necessary and to obtain competent dire. ction concerning her problem. If she cannot bring herself to ask for the change and is unabld to cle~ar up the problem, she ought seri-ously to consider whether she has the requisite qualities for leading the religious.life. Decisions like this ought to be made while religious are still young. If some problems are not faced, and settled in the early years of the religious life they can eventually reach a point where a satisfactory solution is practica'lly impossible." , The change of residence suggested in this answer can hardly be made jtidiciously unless thesuperior is given some information as to the nature of the problem. (Cf. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, VI, 242- 47.) Humility, therefore, is a requisite for the ~eligious: but need-less to say a religious who is unwilling to practice such humility when salvation itself might be concerned has lost his sense of values. On the other hand, the superior should be approachable, sympathetic, and very careful to observe, strict secrecy. IV, Precautt'ons to be taken to avoid the unnecessary use o[ excep-tions to the ordinary law o[ con[ession be[ore Communi, on and to guard against sacrilegious Communions. Under date of December 8, 193 8. the Sacred Congregation of the Sacraments issued an instruction for local ordinaries and majo~ reli-gious superiors which called attention to the fact that frequency of Communion could le]d to diminished esteem, for the Blessed Sacra-ment and that reception in groups could lead to sacrilegious Com-munions. The purpose of the instruction was to outline a number of steps tobe taken to preclude these evils. There is a complete English 1417 GERALD KELLY version of this instruction in Canon Law Digest, II, 208.-15; an out-line in REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, III, 268-270. In the same number of the REVIEW (pp. 252-67), is a commentary on the instruction by Father I~mile Bergh, S.2., together with some notes by the editors and some references to other commentaries. Since these various ref-erences cover the matter completely, I shall conclude the present article with only brief references to some of the main precautions. The first precaution is t~ give proper doctrinal and ascetical in-struction regarding the Holy Eucharist. This kind of instruction should engender a profound esteem for the Blessed Sacrament, a de-sire to communicate frequently arid worthily, and a wholesome abhorrence of sacrilege. Through such instruction one would see that daily Communion is a great privilege, but not a necessity Moreover, though Communion is not reserved to the saints, it does suppose a minimum disposition of freedom from mortal sin, and nothing justifies its conscious reception in this state. And although One need not have tl~e most perfect motive, such as disinterested love of God, one should have a supernatural .motive, such as the desire to avoid sin, preserve grace, grow in grace, and so on. Should instruction be given, not only about the necessityof re-gaining grace through confession, but also about the exception which permits .the reception of Communion with only an act of perfect cbn-trition? If one were to judge from some of the religious texts I have seen, one would conclude that the faithful are to be told only about the necessity of confession, and nothing about the exceptions men-tioned in canon 856. This does not seem ~air. If the faithful are obliged to keep a law, they are entitled to know what the law means, how seriously it obliges, and wh~t are at least the more common legitimate exceptions. I admit that this has to be adapted to the age of the people. Yet surely even a child can be taught that if he com'- mits a mortal sin he should go to confession before receiving Com-munion, but if he cannot avoid going to Communion and cannot get to confession, then he should make an act of perfect contrition before Communion. He migh~ also be told that if ever he should have to do this, it would be well for him to explain the case in the next confession and see.whether the confessor would want to 'give him some advi~ for the' future. A second precaution is to provide ample opportunity for confes-sion before Communion. For religious in particular this means safe-guarding the liberty of confession as granted in the canons: and for 148 May, 19~3 CONI~SSION BEFORE COMMUNION parishes, schools, institutions, and religious houses,, it means that whenever it is feasible a confessor-should be available before Mass. This latter provision should certainly be very helpful in larger con-vents, but I do not clearly see how it would be either convenient or effective in some very small convents. A third precaution is to avoid practices that make it difficult for individuals to abstain from Comfiaunion. It is ordinarily not pru-dent, for instance, for ateacher to say to a pupil, or a superior tb a subject: "What's the matter--are you ill? I noticed you didn't go-to Communion this morning." Also, if a "general" Communion is bad, it should be in such a way that no one feels obliged to go or tl~at no attention will be called to those who do not go. So, too, prizes are not to be given for frequent Communion, and contests that highlight ¯ the reception of Communion by individuals should not be had. As regards circumstances that make it difficult to abstain from Communion, the instruction, referring especially to the effect of these things on young people, said there should be "no rigid and quasi-military "or~ter in coming up, no insignia to be worn by those who receive Communion, etc." Some commentators have inferred from this that communities of religious women ought to abandon their custom of approaching the Communion rail in a certain order. Some have put this rather strongly, ~as if the instruction demanded it. One of the milder comments runs as follows: "It would certainly be praise-worthy and accord.in.g to the spirit of the Instruction if the rigid and almost sacrosanct order of aproaching, the communion rails (Mother Superior, the Assistant, the senior nuns, etc.) were abolished: in con-vents human respect may do more mischief than in men's communi-ties." No doubt, good might come from dropping the order of preced-ence; but I do not shar the great enthusiasm of some writers about its possible good effec.ts. For one thing,1 a large number of otir ~reli-gious are' in small communities, where abstaining from Communion wouldbe noticeable no matter what order or lack of order prevailed, And even as regards larger communities, I wonder how long it would take, after the prescribed order of precedence had been dropped, for the religious to establish their own order. Most. of us are confirmed routinists. Give a community .enough time--and I doubt whether much time would be requ.ired-v-and one would note that the same ones go to Communion first, the same ones go las~, and of course the" same ones are'in the middle. Perhaps I am wrong. But if I am 149 GERALD KELLY .right, then the best precaution is notin the "mechanics" of going Communion, but in the general cultivation of a mental attitude which allows everyone liberty of spirit, both in going to confession and in abstaining from Communion. NATIONAL EQUIVALENTS FOR."I0,000 GOLD FRANCS" According to the announcement of the Congregation of Religious (see p. 150) the official equivalents of l O,O00 gold francs or lire for the principal countries are North and Central America 5,000 American dollars Argentina 100,000 Argentine pesos Belgium 250,000 Belgian francs Brazil 150,000' Cruzeiros Canada 5,000 ~ Canadian dollars Colombia 15,000 Colombian pesos Egypt 2,000 Egyptian pounds France 2,000,000 Franch francs Germany 20,000 German marks Great Britain' 2,000 Pounds sterling India 25,000 Indian rupees Italy 3,000,000 Italian 1ire Netherlands 20,000 Dutch guilders Philippines 15,000 Philippine pesos Portugal 150,000 Portuguese escudos Spain 200,000 Spanish pesetas Switzerland 20,000 Swiss francs Turkey 20,000 Turkish life Uruguay 15,000 Uruguayan pesos Venezuel~ 15,000 Venezuelan bolivars Countries not listed above should take as their norm the value of a neighboring country which is found to be in analogous conditions. :PROCEEDINGS OF CATHOLIC THEOLOGICAL SOCIETY 'At the seventh annual convention of the Catholic Theological Society of Amen'- ca, which was held at Notre Dame, Indiana, 3une 23-25, 1952, the following sub-jects were presented: "On the Essence of the Sacrifice "of the Mass," by Emmanuel Doronzo, O.M,I.; "The Common Good and the Socio-Economic Order," by Ger-ald Kelly, S.3.; "The Problem of Theology for the Laity," by Charles E. Sheedy, C.S:C. : "The Physician's Duty to Preserve Life by Extraordinary Means," by ,John A. Goodwine; and "The Current Protestant Critique of Catholicism in the Umted States," by Msgr. Thomas 3. McCarthy. Copies of the Proceedings are available to clerical non-members at $2.00 per copy. Older from: P. O. Box 24, 3amaica N.Y. 150 The Mys!:ic l Pr yer ot: h' argaret: Mary . A. Herbst, S.3. ST. MARGARET M~RY is one of the great mystics, oi i'fiodern times. On the visions and the revelations she received from Qur Lord is based, historically speaking; Devotion to the Sacred Heart in its modern form. This article will try to illustrate each of the degrees of mystical prayer from her own life and. writings. It should be noted that it is not easy to do this in such a precise manner that the quotation might not also apply to the other degrees. Let me preface a few remarks. ,In the first place, we ought not look askance at, be suspicious of. or afraid of the mystics.There really is nothing wrong with them nor with mysticism.'. Those who are humble and obedient, and keep in touch with their spiritual director need have no fear of becoming_psychopathic or of being deceived by the devil. Secondly, visions, levitation, and the like are merely acci-dental phenomena of the mystical life. They are not at all necessary to a life of infused prayer. Thirdly,, one who has lived a fervent re-ligious life for a.period of years ought to be ready for infused or mys-tical contemplation if God chboses to raise him to it. It is the "logi-cal," but not the necessary, sequence of acquired contemplation. Father Poulain, the author of the well-known work, The Graces of Interior Pra~ler, defines infused contemplation: "Those supe~- natural: acts or states which no effort or labour on our. part can suc-ceed in producing, even in the'slightest degree or for a single inst~lnt, are called mystical." They are.infused, poured into the soul as a pure gift of God, without our being able to attain them by our own efforts. 'This .is higher, ex, traordinary contemplation. We cannot soar to'these heights without the wi,ngs God furnishes. He determines when, how, and for how long it is to be given. It is passive prayer: the soul no longer takes the initiative, but God fastens its attention lovingly onHimselfl The s0ul is not idle though. It is intensely active under the operation of grace. It is a special kind of knowledge of God which lies somewhere between the knowledge of faith and the b~atific vision and shares in faith's obscurity. It really baffles descrip-tion and has in it mysterious suffering and intense happiness. It is an intellectual experimental knowledge of God. 151 C A HERBST Reotew for Rehg~ous St. Margaret Mary describes it: "I felt Him always near me, as one feels himself near another at night but cannot see him because of the darkness. The pdnetrating eyes of love make me see and feel Him in a most loving and certain way, and under various aspects . .This infinite grandeur encompasses me with its power and so takes posses-sion of mine and of my whole body and soul that I think I can say that I no longer have any power over myself." (Letter 1~3.~) The first degree or state of the mystical union is the Prayer of Quiet. Here God takes over the higher faculties of the soul, the will and the understanding, but leaves the imagination and the exterior senses free. Therefore there can be distractions. The soul experiences God's presence and reposes joyously in it, but only f.or very brief pe-riods of time. As an initial stage of this prayer of quiet there is the First Night of the Soul, or Night of Sense. In this the one domi-nating thought or idea of the prayer of simplicity is intensified, there is habitual aridity and a great, anxious y~arning for God. The dis-taste for things of sense grows and God works gently and almost un-noticed on the soul in a special way. A characteristic of this Night is inability to follow set forms of prayer. St. Margaret Mary says: "I did my utmost to follow the method of pray, er and other practices which were taught me, but I was not able to retain anything. It was in vain that I read my points of meditation, for all variished from my mind, and I could neither learn nor retain anything except what my Divine Master taught me." (Autobiography, No. 47.) The second degree of mystical prayer is the Prayer of Full Union. Now God takes over not only the will and the intellect but also the imagination and interior senses. Therefore there are no more dis-tractions. The soul is fully occupied with God. St. Margaret Mary describes it well when she says that God "presented Himself to me in the mystery in which He desired me to consider Him, applied my mind so closely to it, and kept my soul and all my powers so ab-sorbed in Him that I felt no distraction . . . being then so absorbed in prayer that I never felt weary" (Ibid., No, 12). , Any doubts or fears of being deceived are gone now. God's presence is ?xperienced "in a manner so real and sensible as to be beyond all doubt, by reason of the.effects which this favour produced in me, fearful, as I always am, of deceiving myself, in anything that I say of what passes in me" (Ibid., No. 53). .In this degree there is "profound peace, joy, and satis{action" (Letter 133). It is sometimes called the semi-ecstatic union. The exterior senses continue to act and one can, therefore, 152 Ma~ , 1953 PRAYER OF MARGARET MARY though with great effort, cease from prayer. Th third state of infused contemplation is the Ecstatic Union or Spiritual Espousals. Now not only the interior faculties are absorbed in God but the activity even of the exterior senses is suspended. .The whole person, body and soul, is taken over by God. The body be-comes fixed and rigid as though dead. ,Communication with the ex-terior world is all but severed. The power of voluntary movement ¯ is gone. One cannot emerge from this state at will, but only when God determines or at the command of a superior. Since St. Margaret Mary was a great ecstatic, she can describe this state for us. "I felt myself wholly penetrated with the Divine Pres-ence, but to such a degree that I lost all thought of myself and of the place where I was, and abandoned myself to this Divine Spirit, yielding up my heart to the power of His love" (Ai~tobiography, No. 53). "On orie occasion . . . feeling wholly withdrawn within myself by an extraordinary recollection of all my senses and powers, Jesus Christ, my sweet Master, presented Himself to me" (Ibid,, No. 55). "After such a signal favour which lasted for a long time, I remained for several days,.as it were, on fire and inebriated (with divine love) and so completely out of myself, that I had to do my-self violence in order to utter a single word" (Ibid., No. 54). "I lost all cor;sciousness during that time and I no longer knew where I was. When they came to withdraw me, seeing that I could make no reply, nor even stand except with great difficulty, they led me to Out Mother. On seeing me thus, as it were, completely beside myself, all burning and trembling on my knees before her, she mortified me to the utmost of her power, which pleased me and filled me with incred-ible joy" (Ibid., No. 58). Let it be remarked that the Pray.er of Quiet, the Prayer of Full Union, and the Prayer of Ecstatic Union are but three degrees of the specifically same grace of supernatural prayer. In the Prayer of Quiet the .union is incomplete, weak, doubted, obscure. Inthe Prayer of Full Union there are no distractions and the whole interior is taken up with God. In the Prayer of Ecstatic Union even the exterior man, the senses, are captured and absorbed in God. These are three degrees of infused contemplation: weak, medium, energetic. The transitions b.~tween them are imperceptible, much like the colors in the rainbow. It is different with the fourth and highest degree of infused prayer, the Transforming Union or Mystical Marriage. This differs 153 C. A. HERBST Reoieto for Religious specifically, not merely intensively, from the other three. Before entering it the soul must go through the Second Night, or the Night of the Spirit. ' Since mystical marriage is permanent whereas the th~ree preceding stages are transient, thesoul must be profoundly and ~adi- . tally purified from all its habitual, and actual imperfections. The poor, weak soul is dazed and pained by the bright light of God much ag the eyes of the body are by looking into the sun. Green wood must be dried out and blackened by fire before it itself will become inflamed. The sufferings of this Night are terrible. St. Margaret Mary says: "His sanctity is in~xorabl~, and it seems to me there is no suffering more exquisite than that through which He makes a soul pass when'He wants to purify it in order'to corn-, muica.te'Himself to it" (Letter 132). Yet the soul is not disturbed and is perfectly conformed to God's will. ""Yet I suffer all this with perfect serenity, content to cling to His holy will. If only He is con-tent I am satisfied" (Letter 135). The mind and will, the whole soul, even the body, is in anguish. "My whole being, body and soul, is plunged jn suffering., desiring only what is pleasing to my Sovereign Who is sacrificing me, before Whom I am a sighing victim immolated to divine justice" (lbid). But the soul has a great Sense of security. "I sometimes think that all hell is let loose against me to annihilate me, so fiercely am I attacked on all sides. But I am not afraid, deeply intrenched as I am within my strong fortress which is the divine Heart of my divine Master" (Letter 136). The soul is strong, too, and all aflame with the love of the Divine Spouse. But to return to the Transforming Union. Being a mystical marriage, it is most intimate. "I felt myself .wholly penetrated w~th that Divine Presence, but to such a degree that I 'lost all thought of myself and of the piace where I"was, and abandoned myself to this , Divine Spirit, yielding up my heart to the power of His love. Her made me repose for a long time upon His Sacred ~Breast, where He' disclosed to me the marvels of His love and tbe inexplicable secrets of His Sacred Heart, which so far He had concealed from me." (Auto-, bioqrapby, No. 67). The soul is serene in its perfect enjoyment of, God. "My heart is so centered there that it finds repose only if it can enjo, y Him continually: [ was made just for that" (Letter 133). .And, like marriage, this union is indissolul~ie. "And when you com-mit some fault, I shall purge it away with suffering if you do not do 'it yourself with penance. I shall never.deprive you of My presence on that account, but I will make it so painful for you that it will, M~, 1953 take the place of every other torment" (Ibid.). These are the char-acteristics which put thi~ highest degree of infused contemplation in a class by itself. Habitual imaginative visions of Christ may occur in this state. St. Margaret Mary narrates one. "Feeling wholly withdrawn within myself by an extraordinary recollection of all my senses and powers, Jesus Christ, my sweet Master. presented Himself to me. all resplend-ent with glory, His Five 'Wounds shining like so many suns. Flames issued from every part of His Sacred Humanity especially from His Adorable Bosom. which resembled an open furnace and disclosed to me His most loving and most amiable Hefirt, which was the living . source of these flames. It was then that He made known to me the ineffable marvels of His pure (love) and sho(ved me to what an ex-cess He had loved men." (Autobiographg, No. 55.) Visions'of the Blessed Tr.inity are in place here, too. "The Three Persons of the Adorable Trinity presented themselves to me and filled my soul'with inexpressible'consolation. But I cannot well explain what then occurred, except that it seemed to me the Eternal Father presented, me with a very heavy cross beset with thorns and sur-' rounded with various instruments of the Passion and said to me: 'See, My daughter, I make thee the same present which I made to My Beloved Son.' 'And I,' said Our Lord Jesus Christ, 'will fasten thee to the crbss as I Myself was fastened to it and will bear thee faithful company.' The Third Adorable Person then said that, being Love Itself. He would purify and consume me thereon. My soul was filled with unutterable peace and joy, and the impression made upon it by the Divine Persons has never been effaced." (Ibid., No. 59.) This highest form of prayer here on earth brings with it an in-satiable thirst for suffering. St. Margaret Mary had this, too. "I will only sa~; that it has given me such an intense love of the cross that I cannot .live a moment without suffering, but suffering in si-lence, without consolation, alleviation or compassion, and in fine dying with the Sovereign of my soul, overwhelmed .by the cross of every kind of opprobrium, of sorrow and of humiliation, forgotten and despised by all." (Ibid., No. 50.) To sum up. After purifying the soul b~r habitual aridity and an anxious yearning for ,God in the Night of Sense, God takes over the highest part and makes it repose joyously' in Himself in the Prayer of Quiet. In Full Union the imagination and interior senses are also 155 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS l~eotew ~or l~eltgtous taken so that ~here are no more distractions and the soul is fully oc-cupied qcith Him. In E.cstatic, Uriion the outer senses, too, are wrapt in God, and the whole person, body and soul, is united with Him Finally comes the indissoluble bond of Mystical Marriage, in wh,ch the soul enjoys the mbst intimate union with God possible in this life, a foretaste of the beatific vision. II In an institute in which the. novitiateiasts for two years~ may the first profession be made on the recurring date (two years later) of admission to the novitiate, or must it be postponed for an additional ,day7 For example, a novice is admitted to the novitiate on August 15, 19S3. May he /hake his profession on Au~cjust IS, 19SS, or must he wait till August 16, 19S57 I understand that if there were question of a one-year novlt[ate, profession could not be made till the lapse of one year plus one day. If the same rule does ;not hold in the case "of the two-year novitiate mentioned above, what is the reason for the discrepancy7 A general rule is that the provi.gions of the constitutions are to be observed. Sometimes a provision touches upon the validity of an action. If the constitutions explicitly require two complete years of now-tiate for t~alidit~, then such provisiqn 'would have to be observed for the validity of subsequent profession. In that case, if the novitiate is begun on August 15, 1953, first vows could not be taken until Au-gust 16, 1955. The reason is that entrance to the novitiate is not made at midnight. Consequently, according to canon 34, § 3, 3% since the day of entrance is not counted, the two years of novitiate .would be completed (provided there had been~no canonical inter-ru]~ tion nor suspension of the novitiate) only at midnight between August 15 and 16, 1955. Hence first vows could not be taken until the day following the anniversary date of entrance to the novitiate. Aside from such particular law, the common law as expressed m canon 555, § 1, 2° of the Code, requires only one complete, unin-terrupted year of novitiate for validity. ,Just as in the supposition above, first profession therefore cannot be made onthe anniversary of entrance to the novitiate, but the novice midst wait until the follow-ing day, under pain of an invalid profession. 156 Ma~, 1953 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS If the constitutions of an in~stitute prescribe more than one year of novitiate, the extra time is notrequired for the validity of the pro-fession, unless the constitutions expressly declare otherwise (canon 555, § 2). The added time (in Our case, one year) would be for licitness but not for validity of subsequent profession. Custom and superidrs then would' be the best interpreters of the requirements of the constitutions on the point of whether first profession is to be made on the recurring second anniversary of entrance to the novitiate or not until the following day. In either event in this last supposi-tiom neither ~ractice would affect the validity of the profession. This explains why first profession after a two-yea,r novitiate often'might be made on the anniversary of reception into the noviti-ate, while it cannot be made thus after a one-year novitiate. --12m Some religious are of the ol~inlon that certain community prayers, such as the rosary, meditation, and the like, are to be interrupted to say the Angelus as soon as the Angelus bell is rung. Must this be done, or would not the mere recitation of the Angelus prayers three times a day suffice to gain the indulgences? The 1952 edition of the official collection of indulgences, the Enchicidion Indulgentiarum: Preces et Pia Opera, states that the faithful may gain the indulgepces attached to the .recitation of 'the Angelus if 'they recite the prayers at dawn, at noo~n, anal at eventide, or" as soon after these times as they can (no. 331). It is not necessary to~interrupt the rosary, meditation, and the like, in order to say the Angelus as soon as the bell is rung. Is it proper to seat the st,',dents at Mass according to whether they will receive Holy Communion or not? It has been the practice to designate certain sections for those who are going to. Holy Communion and other sections for those who are not. Thereason for such procedure is to obtain order. In its reserved Instruction on precautions to be taken against abuses in the daily reception of Holy Communion (the complete English text is in the Canon Law Digest, .II, pages 208-215), the Sacre~d Congregation of the Sacraments in 1938 remarked that "the danger ofreceiving Communion unworthily.is increased when the faithful, especially the young, approach the Holy Table; not singly but generally and in a body a.s. .happens.frequently 157 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Reuteto [or 'Rehgto,,s in colleges and institutions for the training and education of Chris-tian youth." (Canon Law Digest, II. 209). Again, "When Holy Communion is being received, all those things are to be avoided which create greater difficulty for a young person who wishes to abstain from Holy Communion, but in such a way that his absti-nence will not be noticed: hence there should be no express invita-tion, no rigid and quasi-military order in coming.up, no insignia to be worn by those who'receive Communi6n, etc." (ibid., 214). The observance of order is, of course, a worthy motive. How-ever, the purpose of the Sacred Congregation, as manifested in its Instruction, is to safeguard the worthy reception of Holy Commun-ion by discouraging anything which would make communicants con-spicuous. Seating communicants in a special place makes them con-spicuous. ml4-- "The Mother General holds the first place in all the houses of the Community. Then follow the Members of the Council in the order of their election; ~hen the Secretary General, unless she is a member of the Coun-cil, and the Adminlstratrix General, in the Motherhouse: in other houses these latter take their rank after the Superior ,of the house." What is meant by these latter? Does it refer to the last two Offices mentioned, or does it refer to the Council Members also? Ira Council Member visits one of the houses where the Sisters are stationed, does she take .precedence over th'e Local Superior who is only an appointed person while the Council 'l~lember was elected? In part canon 106 says that: 1. One who represents another enjoys the precedence that per.son has. But anyone who is in a council or similar me~ting as a proxy yields precedence to those of thesame rank wh~ are personally present. , 2. A person who has authority over other physical or moral persons has right of precedence over them. These are general norms. The highest superior of the institute, therefore, always and everywhere has precedence over all his subjects If someone represents him, that person likewise enjoys the precedence of the superior represented. Provincial and local superiors have pre-cedence in their territory or houses, unless a higher superior or h~s proxy is present. In regard to other officials, there is great divergence among different religious,institutes. "In ~ach case the constitutions or else legitimate custom will have to be considered. 158 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS In our specific case, the general councillors are being considered in their proper role, and not as proxies. Do the constitutions give them precedence over local superiors in the latters' houses?' It is not clear that.they do, since the ouestioned words these latter might be inter-preted as ~ivin~ or denying such precedence. (As a matter of fact, in some institutes b~r a clear provision of the constitutions general coun-cillors have such precedence, especially in more recent congregations; in others they do, not.) Since the constitutions do not seem t6 settle the matter clearly, the solution would be sought in legitimate cus-. tom, which in this case~ would mean the way in which the,disputed phrase of the constitutions has been habitually interpreted, If 'no such consistent interpretation exists, it seems that the" words these latter refer to the secretary general and theadministratrix general, so that councillors general would take precgdence over local superiors even in the farters' own hoi~ses. ! Is it absolutely necessary that the entlre'concjrecjatlon turn and face each station of the cross in order to obtain all of the indulcjences attached to that pious exercise? Ordinarily a person making the stations of the cross must movg from station to station ai part of the requirement for gaining the in-dulgences attached to that exercise. When t.here is question of a large group of people, however, confusion or disorder might result from so many moving about. The Sacred Congregation of Indulgences on August 6, 1757, decided that in that case the method proposed by St. Leonard of Port Mafirice for making the stations is to be used. According to this method the people remain'in their places, while a priest.with two acoly'tes moves from station to station, stopping ~it each to recite the customary prayers to which the faithful reply. This decree was reaffirmed in a response from the Sacred Penitentiary, March 20, 1946.(A.A.S., XXXVHI [1946], 160). In connection with the foregoi.ng method of making the stations, the Subsecretary for the Section on Indulgences in the Sacred Peni-tentiary, Serafino de Angelis, in his book De lndulgentiis (1946): n. 341 b, remarks that the' people are to be advised, while remaining in their places, to face each station, rise, genuflect, and recite the pray-ers. From this one would conclude that, when the way of the cross is being made according to the method of St. Leonard of Port Mau-rice, it is not absolutely necessary for the.entire congregation to face each station in order to gain thedndulgences. 159 . QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS The use o~ St. Leonard's method has b~en extended by several official pronouncements (one of these: the reply of the Sacred Peni-tentiary mentioned above) to the members of religious institutes in like circumstances in their chapels. In such circumstances only'one religious, man or woman as the case may be, moves from station to station. By its response of March '20, 1946, the Sacred Peniten-tiary recognized this method also for use in boarding schools and the Will you kindly tell me how many votes constitute an "absolute major-ity" in a house of thirteen vocals7 Also how many votes constitute a "rda-tlve majority" in the same house? When there are thirteen valid votes, seven of them constitute an absolute majority, since such a majority is effected by any number exceeding one half the number of valid votes. A relative majority is had by a candidate who receives more vahd votes than any other candidate, but less than all the others taken to-gether. Thus in our case if three'candidates received respectively six, four, and three votes, the candidate with the six votes would have a relative majority over the other two candidates. What five scapulars comprise thefivefold scapular? The following scapulars are popularly known as the "fivefold scapular" or the "five scapulars." 1) The brown scapular of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel: proper to the Carmehtes, the best known of all the scapulars. 2) The wfiite scapular (with a blue and red cross) of the Most Holy Trinity: proper to the order of Trinitarians. 3) The red scapular of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ: pr6per to the Congregation of the Mission (Lazarists) 4) The black scapular of the Seven Dolors of the Blessed Virgin Mary: proper to the order of the Servites of Mary. 5) The blue scapular of the Immaculat~ Conception: proper to the order of Cler,cs Regular (Theatines). HOSPITAL CONFESSION CARD A plastic-coated Confessio'n Card for the sick, with prayers before and after ,I confession, has been designed by the Rev. Thomas Sullivan, C.S.V., chaplain of St. Luke's Hospital, Aberdeen, South Dakota. It is similar in size and design to the Communion Card (REVIEW, Sept., 1952, p." 248) by the same author, now m use in more than 250 hospitals. Both cards bear the i.mprimatur of Bishop liam O. Brady of Sioux Falls. Each sells at 20 cents and may be ordered from the Presentation Sisters, Aberdeen, South Dakota. 160 Book "Reviews THE SACRED CANONS. By John A. Abbo, S.T.L., J.C.D., and Jerome D. Hannan, A.M., LL.B., S.T.D., J.C.D. Pages in Volumes: I, xxll -k 871~ II, 936. B. Herder Book Company, Sf. Louis, 19S2. Two-volume set, $19.00. "Amon~ other objectives, the work, was begun to answer in some degreeothe spontaneous demand for a better knowledge of ecclesiastical law that has arisen in English-speaking countries among religious who are not clerics and among laymen, especially in the professions.'.' It is from this standpoint that this book is reviewed. After a brief his-torical introdtictioh the learned authors give a statement of the law as contained in the canons of the Code, together with a running commentary. The order of treatment and the division~ of the work are identical with that of the Latin Code, and the numbers of the canons are used instead of paragraph numbers. In the distribution of the matter the authors have made their book especially .useful to non-clerical religious and to the laity. Of the 1800 pages of text con-rained in the two volumes, over 1500 are devoted to the commentary on the three first books of the Code of Canon Law, whereas books four and five of the Code, which are of lesser interest to non-clerical readers~ are taken care of in little more than one hundred pages. Of particular importance is the treatment given tothe seven sac-rament~, which is usually omitted in whole or in part in treatises on Canon Law and transferred to the writers on Moral Theology. 209 pages are devoted to the canons dealing with "Religious" and will" be of great use for religious Brothers and Sisters. All the latest decrees of the Holy See are reported, and there are numerous references to American civil law/especially in the titles concerning church property, An index with over 4500 references, which makes it easy for the reader to find any particular subject, concludes the work. The publisl~ers plan "to keep this commentary up to date by adding, at each reprinting, a supplement containing decisions of the Holy See issued subsequent to the first edition, and these will be available' to purchasers of earlier printings at a nominal cost. The only defect in the book is the lack of a table of contents. While the clerical reader~ will easily follow the canon numbers with which he is familiar from the Latin Code, ,the non-clerical reader has no way of getting a bird's-.eye view of the entire field in order to b~- 161 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS ' Re~Jieto fbr Religiou~ come acquainted with it, so that he may choose certain parts for reading and study. Su~ch a table of contents should be added to the next printing, and copies made available to all purchasers of this first edition. , We recommend this book to all religious---especially to religious Brothers and Sisters who will find it a great help in solving personal problems as religious, as well as a source of information in preparing classes in. religion and church history. Not only higher superiors, but every religious communify should have a copy of it. --ADAM C. ELLIS, S.J. BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS [For the most part. these notices are purely descriptive, based on a cursory examina-tion of the books listed.] BENZIGER BROTHERS, INC., 6-8 Barclay St., NewYork 8, N.Y. The Burning Flame. By Francis Beauchesne Thornton. The story of Guiseppe Sarto, the peasant boy who became the saintly Pope Plus X, told in popular style by Father Thornton, an associate editor of the Catholic Digest. " Pp. 216. $3.00. BRUCE PUBLISHING CO., 400 N. Broadway, Milwaukee 1, Wisc Dear 8istec. By Catherine de Hueck, Brief letters to help Sisters train lay leaders. PI~. 80. $2.00. BIBLIOTHEQUE DU SCHOLASTICAT, L'Immacul&-Conception, 1855,, rue Rachel Est, Montreal .34, Canada. La Virginitd Chrdtienne. ~ By Francois Bourassa, S.J. A full treatment of the subject of Christian virginity, showing its oppor-tunities for full ahd harm6nious development of persgnal perfection. Pp. 174. $1.25. CATECHETICAL GUILD, St. Paul 1; Minnesota. Pocket book editions of You Can Change the Worl

Issue 12.6 of the Review for Religious, 1953. ; A. M. D. G. Review for Religious NOVEMBER 15, 1953 Pracfice Of ÷he H01y See, I I . Joseph F. Gallen Psychological Testing . William C. Bier The Eucharistic Fast . : . Hi~ary'R. Wer~s MOfU Proprio Jubilee . c.J. McNaspy Communications Questions and Answers News a'nd Views Book Reviews Index for 1953. VOLUME XII NUMBER 6 RI::VII::W FOR Ri::LIGIOUS VOLUME XII NOVEMBER, 1953 NUMBER CONTENTS NEWS AND VIEWS . 281 PRACTICE OF THE HOLY SEE, II--Joseph F. ~Gallen, S.'J .2.8.5 BOOK NOTICES . 290, 316, 329 LETTER ON OBEDIENCI~ . . . 290 PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTING OF CANDIDATES AND THE THE-OLOGY OF VOCATION---Willlam C. Bier, S.J2.91 OUR CONTRIBUTORS . 304 THE EUCHARISTIC FAST---Hilary R, Werts, S.J . 305 MOTU PROPRIO JUBILEE--C. d. McNaspy, S.J . 317 COMMUNICATIONS . 321 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS-- 29. Correction of Subject by Immediate or Mediate Superior 322 30. Guidance of Subjects by Superiors . 322 31. Local Superior at Council Meeting . 323 32. Local Superior at General Chapter . 324 33. General Council and Suggestions to General Chapter . 324 34. Postulancy and Readmission . ." . 325 BOOK REVIEWS-- Religious Men and Women in the Code; Fundamental Psychiatry; Most Reverend Anthony 'j. Schuler, S.J., D.D.; I Want to See God 326 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS . 330 INDEX FOR VOLUME XII, 1953", . 333 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, November, 1953. Vol. XlI, No. 6. 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 3anuary 15, 1942 at the Post Oflke, Topeka, Kansas, under the act of March 3, 1879. Editorial Board: Jerome Breunig, S.J., Augustine G. Ellard, S.J. Adam C. Ellis, S.J., Gerald Kelly, S.J., Francis N. Korth, S.J. Copyright, 1953, by Adam C. Ellis, S.J. Permission is hereby granted for quota-tions of reasonable length, provided due credit be given this review and the author. Subscription price: 3 dollars a year; 50 cents a copy. Printed in U. S. A. Before wrlfing to us, please consult notice on Inside back cover. News and Views Psychological Testing When we last published an article on the psychological testing of candidates, a religious superior wrote an indignant letter cancelling his subscription and asserting that such testing interferes with the work of the Holy Ghost. Thatthis is a misconception should be evi-dent to all who read Father Bier's article in the present number and a s~cond article to be phblished in January. Whatever may be said 'for or against the value of psychological tests--and we do not claim to have all the answers--it seems clear enough that their use is no more an attempt to "naturMize" religious vocation than is the use of previous medical examinations. Educating Sisters We have just received a very yaluable brochure entitled Directorg of Catholic Women's Colleges with Facilities for the Education oF Sisters. This brochure gives tabulated i'nformation on colleges and motherhouses accredited to offer degree programs, detailing the par-ticular courses provided, the number of Sisters who could be cared for, and the conditions, financial and otherwise, under which they would be received. The information was gathered by the Commit-tee on the Survey Section on Teacher Education of the N.C.E.A. The reason for gathering the information was the fact that many of the smaller religious congregations of women do not have facilities for educating their own members and find the standard costs of "sending Sisters away" prohibitive. These congregations can obtain help from the larger congregations; and this Directorg will show at a glance where and how the help can be obtained. For further information, or for copies of the Directo~g, piease address: Sister Mary Gerard, O.S.F., Chairman, Directory Project, Alverno College, 3401 South 39th Street, Milwaukee 15, Wisconsin. Poor Clares The Poor Clares of New Orleans have prepared a file of at least one hundred 2-inch slides in .black 'and white for use in a still pro-jector. The photos were taken within the cloister, and every" part of the monastery is included. Also prepared is a brief description of every picture. The nuns will send'this file to any desiring to show 281 NEWS AND VIEWS Reoiew for Religious the slides tO interested groups, particularly, young ladies among whom there might be the possibility of a contemplative vocation. They will also send ~lratis literature for distribution, a set of seven large posters, and 6-inch dolls'd~es~ed as" Poor Clar~s. The remailing of, the small slide file is the only expense they would expect the user to assume. Those interested in this vocational project shQ~Id write to: Monastery of Saint Clare, 720 Henry Clay Avenue, N~w Orleans 18, Louisiana. New Indulgence For the purpose of 'increasing devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary ever more and more, Ou~ Holy Father, Pope Plus XII, in. an audience given to the Cardinal Major Penitentiary on March 30, 1953, granted in perpetuum an indulgence of fifty days, to be gained once a day, to those who, keeping on their person a duly blessed rosary of Our Lady, have kissed it devoutly.and at the same time have recited with a pious mind the words of the Angelic Salutation: "H~iil Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women, arid blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus." (Acta Apostolicae. Sedis, XXXXV [ 19 5 3 ], 31 1.) , Valuable Booklets The Grail Press, St. Meinrad, Indiana, has sent us two booklets of immense value for clerics. Both of them are re-editions. One is Rome and the Study of Scri_pture, which contains a collection of papal enactments on the study of Holy Scripture, together with deci-sions of the Biblica.1 Commission. The price is one dollar. The other booklet is The Popes and the Priesthood, which contains English translations of importgnt statements of the Holy See on the.priest-hoo. d. The price of this booklet is only fifty cents. Rural Parish I, Vorke;'s In our last number (see. p. 242) we promised a more complete account of the Rural Parish Workers of Christ the King. This apostolate was begun by Miss Alice Widmer, a graduate of.Webster College, Webster Groves, Missouri, and Miss LaDonna I-fermann, a graduate of Maryville College of the Sacred Heart, St. Louis. In the summer of 1941 they decided to devote ~heir lives to lay action for the salvation of souls and the extension of Christ's Kingdom by the igractice bf the spiritual and corporal works of mercy. That fall they heard Monsignor (later Bishop) Leo J. Steck speak of the'lick 282 Not~ember, 1953 NEWS AND VIEWS. of priests'in rural.areas, and th'ey: asked him whether they might help in one of these areas. With his assis'tance and that of Father William d. Pe~.old, they began work in the latter's parish of Cottleville, St. Charles Count'/, Mi'ssouri. During that same summer they learned to use the short breviary. The remainder of their story i~ told by tlSemselveL as follows: "Activities ir~ St. Ct~arles County, where we lived in two twelve: by-twelve-foot rooms in a portable schoolbuilding on thechurch grounds, included home visiting, care of the sick, helping the poor, Vacation schools, Sianday school for non-Catholic and pre-s~hool .Catholic children, craft classes for,, dhildren and adults, discussion Clubs in' the homes, w~rk with teen-agers, in'structions of converts'. distribution of Catholic literature and sacramentals, religious and social Welfare work. "Originally we had no thought of a continuing organizatio.n. As'we saw the needs and what could be done we went to see Car-dinal John d. Glennon of beloved memory', who had been a benefac-tor from the first. He encouraged us in our plans to £tevelop a per-manent organization and gave permission to solicit funds for~ p, er-manent home not to be located on parish grounds. Shortly there-after he died. "Sev, enteen months, later we discussed our future with Arch-bishop. Joseph E. Ritter. Three months afterwards he asked us;.to work'among.the miners and farmers of the tiff.aiea in Wash, ington County, the mbst e~ploited region in the St. Louis archdiocese. Through ,his generous assistance and that of Auxiliary Bishop: Charles tt.'Helmsing and Rev. Edward A. Bruemmer of Old Mines, we moved in September, 1949, to Fertile iri the Old Mines parish,of St. Joachim. We entered into parish, activity by beginning the in-struction of ninety-one public-school children and visitation in their homes and began extensive remodeling of an old brick residence eight miles from church. "The Rural Parish Worker program is adjusted to the,.needs of the area and is always pointed to the development of Christian homes and the strength.ening of parish life. In Washington County the following activities take precedence: ~eligiotis and social welfare work: distribution of food and ,clothing; transportation, to church, h.ospitals,_a.nd clinics; Sunday instruction classes; preparation of con-verts: home visiting, and instruction; interpretation of rights and 283. NEWS AND VIEWS duties as citizens; assistance in obtaining State and Federal benefits, doctors' care, hospitalization. "Some assistance is given to a few in adjoining parishes. HOw-ever, since.our home parish of St. ,loachim is one hundred and fifty square miles in size with poor and sometimes no roads,, it occupies most of our time. Attendance at civic meetings and participation in civic affairs are also on the agenda, as are outside works, such as land-scaping, building of small buildings, care of goats, and gardening when we can get to it. "Yearly summer sessions ~nd a year-of-service program are offered to young women thinking of the lay apostolate as a way of life or who wish to give at least part of their lives in. concentrated work for the restoration of Christ in society. "Last fall Rev. Bede Scholz, O.S.B., of Plus X Monastery in Labadie, Mo., was appointed by the Most Rev. Archbishop as our spiritual director. Father Bede, then at Conception Abbey, Concep-tion, Mo., had helped form us in the early days. (We would go for a week of spiritual refreshment to Conception.) Father Bede, Rt. Rev. Monsignor Martin B. Hellriegel, and Rev. Charles P. Schmitt were our spiritual advisers for several years when we lived in St. Charles County. "At the beginning we had literally nothing except a few dollars we had saved when working, a typewriter, phonograph and records ¯ bought for the work, our clothes and personal little belongings. Yet we have neve'r been in want and God has sent everything as it was needed for our neighbors and for us. Today many are assisting by prayer, donations of money and materials. The bills are always with us but we know that Almighty God is also, and we have no fears for the future. We know He will do with us as He wishes and that is all we want. It is with humble hearts that we look back over twelve years of labor in His vineyard and it is with confidence that we invite others--young women from all over the United States--to come to Fertile, to the Center of the Rural Parish Workers of Christ the King, and lend their talents and their labors in this rural aposto-late of service based on the spiritual arid corporal works of mercy for the glory of God and the development of Christian homes; to come to Fertile and help in the world-wide work "of the Church today-- the restoration of Christ to society." The address of the Rural Parish 'Workers of Christ the King is: Route 1, Box 194, Cadet, Missouri. 284 ¯ Pract:iceot: :he l-loly See, II Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. [The first part of this article was published in the September REVIEW, pp. 252- 72.] XII INDULTS OF SECULARIZATION New practice of the Holy See. Secularizati-on is the voluntary de-parture from religion, authorized by an indult of competent ecclesi-astical authority, in virtue of which the subject is separated com-pletely and perpetually from membership in the institute and is freed absolute.ly from all obligations contracted by. religious profession. Since secularization dispenses from all religious vows, even if solemn, it is co~nmonly also called a dispensation from the vows of religion. The Holy See alone may grant secularization in pontifical institutes; in diocesan congregations the Ordinary of the place where the, reli-gious is staying is also competent.34 .Indults of secularization granted by the Holy. See for those who are not priests now contain the following sentence: "This decree ceases to have any validity if not accepted by the petitioner within ten days after being informed of the executorial decree.'qs" It has long been a clea~ principle of canon law .that an indult of seculariza-tion, even ~hou.gh freely petitioned,, may be refused and has no effect until accepted by the religious in question,z6 If within the ten days: (a) the indult is expressly accepted, it becomes effective immediately;37 (b) the induli is neither accepted nor refused, it ceases to have any validity at the end of this period; (~') the indult is definitively refused, all validity of the indult cer-tainly ceases at the end of ten days and. at least more probably immediately upon the definitive refusal.3s In practice a new indult is to be petitioned if the religious repents of his refusal and wishes again 34Can. 638; Bouscaren. II, 173. 3s"Post decem dies a recepta comrnunicatione Decreti exsecutorialis, ex porte Oratoris (ricis), prasens Decretum, si non fuerit acceptatum, nullii~s roboris esto.'" Cf. Gu-ti& rez, CpR, XXIV (1953), 186-197. 36Bouscaren, I; 326. 37Cf. Creusen. ft. 332: Jombart, RCR, II (1926), 151; Piontek, 262 ft.: Ver-meersch, Periodica, XI (1923), 151. a8Cf. Guti~rrez. CpR, XXIV (1953),194-195: Goyeneche, CpR, XVIII (1937). 239-240:.Muzzarelli, p. 172; and Jombart, RCR, II 1926), 150-151, who ap-pears to hold the contrary. 285 ¯ JOSEPH 1:::. GALLEN for Religious to leave during the ten-davy period. ," The practice of the Holy See is not to grant the indult directly to the religious but to give to an intermediary person, for example, the local Ordinary, the f~iculty of granting the indult of secularization to the religious. The actual granting of the indult by this intermedia'ry person is called the executorial decree. The ten days begin to run -from the time the religious is officially notified of the granting of this executorial decree, not from the date of notification of the deciee of the Holy See. The day of notification is not computed. If the no-tification is given on August 1, the ten days expire at midnight of August 1 1-12. This time does not run for any period in which the religious was ignorant of or unable to exercise his right of acceptance and refusal. XII. GENERAL CHAPTER 1. Constitutions rec.ently appro~)ed by the Holy See. One congrega-tion of sisters had difficulty in persuading the S. C. of Religious to approve in a general revision of its constitutions the designation of the Secretary and Bursar General by appointment rather than by election. Appointment was approved about the same time in another general revision without any difficulty and had been permitted in some constitutions approved by the Holy See in the past. The num-ber in the grouping of the smaller houses for the election of delegates. is now rather constantly stated to be at least twelve and not more than twenty-three professed. The S. C. of Religious is consistently including in constitutions an article stating that the duties of the pre-siding local Ordinary or his delegate terminate at the proclamation of the election of the mother general.39 Some recent constitutions con-tain the prescription of the Normae of 1901: "If the Ordinary. is ac-companied by one or more priests, these may in no way take part in the election.''40 The present practice of the Holy See permits not only the secretary general but also the bursar general to be elected a general councillor but neither may be elected as the first councillor. The same practice now rather consistently gives the general chapter the right of declaring matters to be of greater importance and subject to the deliberative vote of the general council. Some recent constitu-tions. also give to the general chapter and council the'right to deter- 39Cf. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, XI (1952), 16-18. 4ONormae of 1901, n. 224. Cf. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, ibid., 17-18. 286 Nooember, 1953 PRACTICE OF THE HOLY SEE. min~ matters as subject to the deliberative vote of-the local council. The S. Congregation corrected one set of constitutions to read~ " . . .the newly elected M6.thfir General shall appoint one or seoeral. committees.to examine and arrange the'proposals to the Gerieral Cfiapter and to furnish a report concerning them." Even if not so' stated in the constitutions, several committees may be appointed be~ cause of the amount of work or for greater efficiency and lack of time, since several committees are not forbidden by the constitutions. 2. Indult's. One congregation of si'sters secured an indult from the Holy Se~ permitting th~ anticipation of its next general chapter by' six months. The principal reason given in the petition was the ex-~ p~nse and extensive travel that would be required foi the' capitulars' to return to the motherhouse two months after all had been present there for the annual retreat. ~ Another congregation of sisters requested a change, in its constitu- ' tions by which the novice mistress would be a member of thegeneral chapter in virtue of her offce. The S. C. of Religious replied: "It is not expedient.'" Canonical authors had stated that such a provision was not in accord with the practice of the S. Congregation,4x but a.~ similar article had been approved in a very small number of constitu-. tions in the past. A congregation of sisters was to hold in the United States an ex-traordinary general chapter,, which the delegates of the provinces be-yond the "iron curtain" would not be able to attend. The S. C. of Religious gave to a local Ordinary the faculty of permitting their votes to be sent by letter or for these provinces to choose delegates here who would cast their votes. 3. Roman meeting. The subjects touched upon at this meeting of superioresses general appear to have been the following: (a) The Holy See is opposed to the immediate re-election, or rather postula-tion., of a mother general beyond the limits prescribed in the consti-tutions. Similarly the Holy See only for serious reasons grants a dispensation permitting a local superior to be given a third successive three-year term in the same house. (b) Two excesses are verified in ~lections, an indifference that results in ignorance of the eligible and' suitable and electibneering. (c) Young religious should not be ex-. cluded from higher offices' if they have the necessary natural and spit-. itual qualifications. ., 41Basticn, n. 246, 2; Battandier, n. 352. 287. JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review/:or Religious These subjects present nothing new,4z but the. light thrown on the abuse of electioneering is very Opportune. Electioneering is the deliberate seeking of votes, directly or indirectly, to elect a particular person, or one person rather than another, or to exclude anyone from being elected. The simple seeking of information concerning the abilities or defects of those eligible and the communication of such information to. others, without any attempt at persjaasion, is not for-bidden, and is very frequently necessary and laudable. It is.:remarkable.how often the matter of elections can blind the moral sense of even very good religious. This reason alone has per-suaded the present writer to hold rigidly to the conviction, that in any general revision of the constitutions elections should, be restricted to those absolutely necessary. Only the offices of the superior gen-eral and of his or her councillors demand election. Every religious should have the permanent resolution of nevei uttering a word about future elections in his institute until after he has meditated daily for at least a week on the will of God. XIII. MONASTERIES OF NUNS I. Federations and Con/¥derations. The only federation or con-fdderation affecting American monasteries of nuns that has been made public is that of the Visitandines. The pohtifical constitution Spon~a Christi and the accompanying Instruction should be carefully studied by all nuns. Unwise and exaggerated changes are to be avoided in any state of life, "but no religious institute can reasonably exclude progress and prudent adaptation to .the times; Federations and con-federations are highly recommended by Plus XII in Sponsa, Christi. 2. Restoration o[ solemn ~ows. In 195 1-52 eighteen monasteries of nuns-in the United States secured permission from the Holy See for the taking of solemn vows.43 The restoration of solemn vows is at least strongly urged on all monasteries of nuns in Sponsa Christi. If serious reasons exist against this restoration in any monastery, such reasons are to be submitted to the S. C. of Religi6us for examina-tion. 44. The form of the decree granting solemn vows is uniform. The provisions are: (a) Papal cloister must be observed as' described in 42Cf. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, X (1951), 187-200. 43Guti~rrez. CpR, XXXIV (1953), 102-115. Cf. the list of monasteries of solemn vows in the United States, as of January, 1950. in REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, IX (19~50), 58, note 2. 44Larraona, quoted by Guti~rrez, ibid., 1"07. " '288 November, 1953 PRACTICE O~: THE HOLY SEE canon law, Sponsa Christi and the accompanying Instruction (Inter praeclara), and also the Instruction of the S. C. of Religious of Feb-ruary 6, 1924.4s (b) Nuns at present in simple perpe.tual vows and thbse who have compieted the prescribed time of temporary vows make solemn profession. The local Ordinary or his delegate receives the profession of the superioress, who then receives all the other pro-fessions. (c) Any nun in simp!e perpetual vows who does not wish to make the solemn profession may remain in simple vows but she is obliged by all the prescriptions of papal cloister.46 (d) Future per-petual professions Will be solemn except, of course, those of the ex-tern sisters, who may be admitted only to simple perpetual profession at the expiration of the prescribed peridd of temporary vows. 3. Dowr~ . Modifications in the general constitutions were granted to several monasteries of one order of nuns in the United Sta~es by the S. C. of Religious in 1950. A canonically interesting article of these modifications is: "No dowry is required for the admission of postulants." 4. Induhs concerning papa! clbister. A monastery of nuns in. the United States obtained the follov~ing permissions from the S. C. of Religious: (a) for five years--to admit into the enclosure at the funerals of nuns the clergy, acolytes, and pall bearers required to carry the body to the crypt; (b) fbr three years--to allow those taking out naturalization papers to go out to government offices as often as necessary; (c) for three years--t6 allow a nun to leave the enclosure as companion for a nun obliged to go out for bospltal treatment. Iri the case of another monastery, the local Ordinary whs given the faculty for twenty cases of permitting a nun to leave the enclosure with a companion for the reason of ill health. The rescript contained the clause, that any unbecoming circumstance was to b~ avoided. 5. Concession of Masses. A proper ordo or calendar, and thus dis-tinct from the diocesan ordo, is had by all orders of regulars, and this is to be observed also by the nuns and sisters of these orders. A proper ordo is also had in.religious congregations and societies living in common without public vows, whether of men or women, that have been approved by the Holy See,.[re constituted under one gen-eral superior, and are obliged to the divine office, even if only by 45Bouscaren, I, 314-320; .46Escudero, CpR, XXXIII (1952), 35, nota 39. 289 JOSEPH F. GALLEN reason of major orders.47 Nuns that constitute a second order, such as the Carmelites, will follow the proper ordo of the first order of men. Obviously, there-fore, they may not celebrate in the divine office and Mass feasts granted to dioceses or t6 other institutes. For this reason at least one monastery of nuns in the United States secured from the Holy See an indult permitting the celebration of the feasts of the North American Martyrs on September 26 and that of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini on December 22.48 47,SCR, 4312, ad'l-2; 4403, ad 1. 48The autlqors, documents, and abbreviations not clear from their mere citation are." Acta Apostolicae Sedis (AAS) ; Bastien, Directoire Canonique; Battandier, Guide Canonique; Bouscaren, Canon Law Digest; Cervia, De ProFessione Religiosa; Com-mentarium Pro Rell.qiosis (CpR) ; Creusen, Religious Men and Women in the Code; Decreta Authentica Congregationis Sacrorum Rituum (SCR) ; Muzzarelli, De Con-gregationibus luris Diocesani; Piontek, De Indulto Exclaustrationis necnon Saecular-izationis; Revue des Communautis Religieuses (RCR) ; Schaefer, De Religiosis. BOOK NOTICE AUX SOURCES DE LA TRADITION DU CARMEL, by Jean le Soli-taire, is a work that will be of special.interest and value, not only to Carmelites, but also to all who are concerned with understanding well the essentials and the accidentals of the contemplative life and~ with the problem of adapting it fittingly to the changes that mark modern culture and the present situation of the Church. The book is not primarily historical; rather it is conceived from the ,spiritual point of view, and would like to contribute to the best possible re-vitalization and perfection of the contemplative life in the concrete existe.ntial conditions of today and tomorrow." (Paris: Beauchesne et ses Fils, 1953. Pp. 274.) LETTER ON OBEDIENCE Father William J. Young. S.J., has made a new and very readable translation of St. Ignatius' Letter on Obedience. This translation is published in pamphlet form by the America Press. Single copies are twenty cents; special discounts are allowed on quantity orders. Write to: The America Press, 70 East 45th St., New York 17, N.Y. 290 Psychological Test:ing ot: Candida!:es and t:he Theology oF Vocal:ion William C. Bier, S.,I. [EDITORS' NOTE: This article is an adaptation of 'a paper presented at the Fordham "Institute on Religious and Sacerdotal Vocations, July, 1953. Father Bier's interest in the use of psychological tests as helps in evaluating the suitability of candidates for the priesthood and religious life goes back to graduate work in psychology at The Catholic University under Father Thomas Verner Moore, who encouraged him to plan a doctoral research on some.preliminary phases of this problem. After the completion of his doctoral work in 1948 Father Bier went to Fordham and has been teaching in the psychology department of the graduate school since that time. He developed a program of psychological tests for candidates in the New York Province of the Society of 3esus, which has been in operation for five years. This work is now spreading to other Provinces of the Society and to other religious groups. He thinks that the greatest need at the present time is the development of specific, norms on these tests, not only for religious as distinct from lay persons, but probably also for different religious groups. The development of such norms is of necessity a cooperative undertaking, and Father Bier has been serving as a clearing house for gathering the needed information from the various groups working in conjunction with him. At the present time this work is still in its initial stages, and it will have to be in operation some time longer before publishable results are ¯ available, ] THE present article is the first in a series of two dealing with the use of psychological tests in the selection of candidates for the priesthood and for the religious life. This matter receives clari-fication bydistinguishing and giving separate treatment to the two questions involved. The first concerns the role of psychological tests in the selection of candidates and raises the question of the relation-shiio between testing of this kind and the theology- of vocation. It is evident that this first question is largely theoretical, but testing must first be justified on these grounds before it is feasible to discuss the second question, namely, the practical requirements of such a testing program. The current article, therefore, will consider the theoretical basis for the psychological testing of candidates, and a second article will take up the problems involved in the development of such a pro-gram in practice. Religious Vocation Although in full accord, on theological and psychological grounds, with the modern tendency to extend the term vocation to embrace all states of Christian life, the current consideration is never-theless restricted to vocations to the religious life.and to the priest- 291 WILLIAM C. BIER Reoiew for Religi'ous hood. More specifically still, the explicit treatment is confined mostly to the religious life, leaving the priesthood as matter for reasonably evident inference. A vocation, as the nominal definition of the wor~l implies, ex-presses the action of summoning someone to move toward a definite goal; in a word, it is a call. ~n the case of a divine vocation, it is God who calls the person, and in the matte~ of religious vocation, it is a call to the voluntary practice of the evangelical counsels in an institute.approved by the Church. The question that arises in the case of every vocation is: how can we know in a given case that'God calls? How can it be determined that the vocation is real and not illusory, genuine and not deceptive? This is the question ~vhich must be answered by the candidate himself, by his director, and by the superior who accepts him. In his recent book, The Theolog~I of Religious Vocation, Father Edward Farrell, O.P.,1 indicates that St. Thomas Aquinas distin-guished between internal vocation, or desire on the part of the candi-date for the religious life, and external vocation, or acceptance by a legitimate superior. It will be helpful for our present purpose to consider vocation under both of these aspects, and in so doing we shall 9ttempt to place the psychological testing of candidates in its proper perspective and to indicate what is its legitimate function with respect to the discernment of vocation. Internal Vocation By internal vocation St. Thomas means the intention on the part of the candidate to embrace the religious life. This intention is formed by. a man under the influence of the Holy Spirit. -Such an intention is the result of grace, or rather a series of grace~ consisting of interior'andexterior helps, in virtue of which the individual is led to take the resolution to enter.religious.life. This resolution to enter religion may result from an extraordinary illumination of the mind and incitement of the will toward the reli-gious state. Some of the saints have been favored with such an un-mistakable divine call, but Pope Plus X in his decision on the book of Canon Lahitton on Sacerdotal Vocation made it clear that no such special attraction is necessary for a priestly or religious vocation. Gen-erally, the intention to enter religion is formed under the influence of what theologians would refer to as ordinary grace, i.e., a grace which " 1St. Louis: Herder, 1951. 292 o November, 1953 PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTING works through the reasoning processes. Theologians generally would take this to mean that the decision is the result of deliberation where-by the individual perceives, in the light of the Gospel ~ind from other considerations that, everything being taken into account, the way of the counsels is preferable for him. Consequently be experiences a corresponding rational inclination of the will toward such a life. It is Worth n'oting, however, that the proposal to enter r.eligion must be sufficiently firm considering the difficulties involved in this state of life. It is only a firm resolution which, in the opinion of theologians, is the subjective manifestation of vocation. On philo-sophical grounds it may be shown that a state of mind can be logically firm only when reasonable doubt is.excluded. We may .say, therefore, that what God's grace does in the case of vocation is to make it possible for the individual to see with a clarity which ex-cludes the reasonable fear of error that the way of ~he counsels is the preferable way of life for him. It would seem, therefore, that the applicant, whose state of mind prior to entrance is uncertain, who is not ~ure whether he has a vocation or not, but who applies "in order to give the life a try," does not hav~ a vocation, since he lacks this firm proposal which is the subjective sign of vocation. It is possible that such an applicant would become certain bf his vocation during postulancy or noviceship, but it seems more prudent, when such a doubt is known, .to postpone his acceptance until it is solved, and meantime to encour.age him to'pray and consider the matter more maturely. It is evident that such a firm decision to enter the religious state is the result of grace. "You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you" (Jo. 15:16). This is the essence of religious vocation, and it is clearly its supernatural aspect. Directly, therefore, psychology, which can touch only the natural, has nothing to do with this aspect. of vocation. Yet,. indirectly, even here, it may have something to contribute. Canon 538 indicates that the candidate for the religious life must be inspired by a "right intention." This requirement expresses in another way what has already been discussed. If the intention to enter religion has been formed under th~ influence of grace, it will be a right intention. Therefore, no purely natural motive will suffice, such.as disappointment or disillusionment with the world, or per-sonal happiness, or security; or the desire to escape an unhappy home situation. On the other hand, theologians allow that ar~y super- 293 WILLIAM C. BIER Ret~iew for Religious natural motive will suffice, for instance, the desire, to save one's soul, or to work for the salvation of others, or to serve God more per-fectly, or to render salvation more secure. It is at thi~ point, it would seem, that psychology can enter to make a contribution. Human motivasion, we know now, is a much more complex affair than was previously suspected. Our motives are seldom simple, and seldom single. Conscious motives can sometimes serve as a cloak for hidden and undetected tendencies. In the case of the motives inducing a person to apply for admission to the religious life, it will seldom happen that they are pur~ly supernatural. Natural motives invariably enter as well. What seems to be important, how-ever, is that the dominant motives should be supernatural. Granted that in the.concrete the total motive force will bepartly natural and partly supernatural, the more dominant the role of supernatural motives, the more assurance there would be that the call was truly from God. Let us illustrate the point mad~ here by an example. " Suppose a spiritual director, on inquiring why a girl wants to consecrate her virginity to God, were to discover that it is because she finds things of the flesh repugnant. Marriage would be abhorrent to her, and if ¯ the attraction to the religious lifewere in fact nomore than an adjust-ment to such a psychic inhibition, it would scarcely be genuine. Prob-ably, such a girl would have combined this fundamental motive force with some supernatural intention, but the question is how dominant, and hence how genuine, would a supernatural motive be in such a case? Would it be any more'than a case of self-deception? I can conceive of a director telling sucha young girl to thank God that she feels that way, because she is thus freed from many temptations against chastity. Yet such advice, I think, would be highly questionable. It is true, of course, that such a person would have little or no difficulty with the material observance of chastity, but absence of sin or conflict.is not a proof of virtue. In such a case the brake applied to prevent sin is not the regulating influence of rea-son, which would be the basis for virtue, but is an inhibition of the psychic order. It is God's plan that sex should be attractive, not repugnant, and it is clear from the words of Christ (Math. 19:12) and of St. Paul (I Cor. 7:6-9) that the invitation to the counsels implies.a sacrifice. The girl who finds sex repugnant has no sacrifice to make in dedicating her virginity to God. The suitable candidate for the religious life is not one who is incapable of marriage, but one 294 November, 1953 PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTING who freely surrenders this good for a greater. There is a further consideration in a case of this kind which should not be overlooked. The repugnance felt toward sex expression is, as we have presented it, a psychicinhibition. It is due to some psycho-logical twist or other. Suppose, "perhaps after some years of religious life, that this twist is suddenly straightened out--a not inconceivable happening. Once the psychological brake is removed, the person may, for w.ant of virtue, be defenseless against a passion whose existence she never suspected. Could it not be that something similar to this is the explanation of some of those particularl~- puzzling defections after years in religion? The masters of the spiritual life have always recognized the pos-sibility of self-deception in the service of God, and modern psychol-ogy tends to re-enforce their warnings by supplying instances of the subtle ways in which uncon'scious and undetected influences may in-sinuate themselves into human motivation. When such happens in the case of vocation, the good will of the applicant is not in ques-tion, but the genuineness of his vocation.is. He is, in this supposi-tion, deceived himself, and be may quite easily deceive others. The manifestation of virtue is sometimes ambiguous, and what externally passes for virtue may actually be no more than a cover-up for a psychological problem. Natural submissiveness and deep-seated inferiority can ~asily pass for humility, overly-conscientious strivihgs for perfection can, as a matter of fact, be no more than psy-chological defenses against fear of criticism and inability to tolerate failure, while genuine apostolic zeal is not always ea~sy to distinguish from a paranoid discontent. The discernment of spirits is sometimes difficult, and we have the scriptural warning: "Dearly beloved, be-lieve not every spirit, but try the spirits if they be of God" (I John 4:1). This admonition seems to be particularly pertinent in the matter of the discernment of vocation and especially with respect to. the motives prompting the applicant to apply for admission to reli-gion. It would surely be excessive always to question o~ur conscious motives and to see in them nothing but disguises for hidden tenden-cies, but it must be acknowledged that conscious motives are some-times deceptive, and that the dominant motives for our actions are not always the ones which consciously move us. Unconscious fear of contact with the world, for example, may be concealed by perfectly orthodox motives such as contempt for the world and desire of per-fection. For a long time the individual's actions may seem to be in- 295 WILLIAM C, BIER for Refigious spired by these traditional motives, but it may eventually appear that ~hey were in fact but the effects of neurotic tendencies. Where uhcon-scious factors are at work common sense is hardly sufficient for the discernment of vocation, and the eye of the expert, is needed to detect a latent neurosis artfully Concealed behind normal behavior. External Vocation ~ ~ Let us pass now from internal vocation where psychology has but a limit.ed and indirect contribution to make, to external vocation where its contribution is more direct and more extensive. By external ¯ vocation, as previously mentioned, St. Thomas meant the acceptance of ,'i candidate by a legitimate superior. Thus external vocation com-pletes and perfects the internal call essentially determining it to this particular institute. It is evident that before an applicant can be accepted a judgement must be made on his suitabil!ty for the religious life. Some one must 'pass on such firness, and ultimately this decision is the responsibility of the religious superior. The internal call is always subject to the possibility of self-deception, and finds a certain confirmation, there-fore, in the judgement of suitability passed by a competent superior. The junction of the two gives vocation to the religious life in the concrete. Suitability for the religious life might be treated from various-points of vie~v, but for the purposes of the present discussion it will be considered under qualities of body and mind, which in the words of Canon 538 render the individual "fit to bear the burdens of the religious state." A certain level of physical well'being is required for the exercise of religious life, and it is co~nmon practice, to require of applicafits a doctor's certificate of good health. Pertinent to the present discussion, however, is the fact that mental health is no less necessary for religious life. The idea of "mens sana in corpore san&' (a sound mind in a sound body)' seems to be a p~oper estimate of fitness f?r life in religion. The Contribution of Psychological Tests There would be no real disagreement, I think, on the fact that certain psychological qualities are required in a candidate for the reli-gious life. What these qualities are might be diff,erently expre.ssed as maturity, balance, stability, control, adjustment, but there is at least agreement that some over-all psychological integrity is needed. It might even be clearer and there would, perhaps, be even greater agree- 296 Nouernber, 1953 PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTING ment if the propositi6n were put negatively: certain psychologic.al conditions render an applicant unsuitable for the religious life. Con- .sequently no .superior can accept a candidate for religion without making some judgement of psychological fitness. The trouble is that such a judgement, necessary as it is, is frequently superficial and hap-hazard, because the basis for a more adequate judgement is not avail-able. Here the psychological examination of candidates can enter to make its contribution. Such an examination can offer a more ade-quate foundation for the estimate of psychological suitability which must be made. It may be valuable to point out thus early in the pre~ent discussion that the psychological testing of candidates is new only in its methods; not in its p.urpose. Its function is traditional and inescapable: namely, ~a judgement on the psychological fitness of the applicant. The psychological' examination has a function to perfwor~mth " " respect to all candidates. With the greater n~amber of them its func-tion will be negative hnd w. ill consist simply in affirming the fact that th'ey are psychologically suitable, i.e., that no psychological fac-tors are in evidence which would antecedently make it impossible for them to bear the burden of religious life. Even though the contribu' tion here is negative, it is not to be despised for it is precisely what is needed, namely, a clean bill of mental health. It should be noted that such immunity at the time of application is no necessary guar-antee that psychological difficulty ~might not subsequently ,,develop, any more than the assurance of physical health at the time of entrance is a gua.rantee against subsequent ill health, bht at the time it repre-sents what is needed and is sufficient. With ~espect to the remaining candidates the psychological exam-ination, we assume, will show positive results. Sometimes these re-sults will be extreme, for serious mental disorder cannot be a priori excluded in candidates for the religious life. .In this connection, the work of Father Thomas Verner .Moore on the. rate of insanity in priests and religious2 is pertinent. This ~tudy appeared in The Ec-clesiastical Review for 1936, and still remains the only published work on th,e subject. In connection with the investigation, Father Moore contacted all the Catholic and non-Catholic state and .private sanatoria and asyla for the insane in. the United States. On a basis '-'Thomas Verner Moore. "Insanity in Priests and Religious. Part I[ The Rate of Insanity in Priests and Religioi~s." The Ecclesia t;'ca! Reoic~', 95 (1936). 485- 498. : 297 WILLIAM C. BIER Review for Religious of his returns, Father Moo~e reports the following figures for the year 1935. The ratio per 100,000 population was as follows: for priests 446; for sisters 485; for brothers 418: for the ge,neral popu7 lation 595. He found a notable difference between active sisters with a ratio of 428 and cloistered sisters with a ratio of 1034. On a basis of these findings, therefore, the rate of insanity among priests and religious is less than it is among the general population, but the rate for cloistered sisters is more than twice what it is among the popula-tion at large. One additional point is worth noting. Although it is true that the rate of insanity among priests and religious is less than for the general population, this result is due to the fact that syphilitic types of insanity are almost completely absent among priests and re-ligious. If the latter were eliminated from the figures for the general population, the rate of insanity for priests and religious xvould rise above that for the population at large. One might be tempted at first sight to interpret these figures as meaning that religious life makes reore demands on psychological stability than life in the world, with psychological breakdown conse-quently more frequent. Although there is truth in this interpreta-tion, Father Moore is of the opinion that a more important factor in producing these results is the attraction exerted by the religious life upon certain pre'-psychotic personalities. Schizophrenia, for example, is by far the most frequent psychiatric disorder among institutional-ized priests and religious; and there can be no doubt that a consider-able number of pre-schizophrenic personalities are attracted by the retirement and seclusion of religious life, and of the contemplative life more than the active. Their schizophrenic tendencies blossom out into a full psychosis in religion, but they would undoubtedly have done so just as xvell had these persons remained in the world. Outright psychosis among applicants for the religious life is hardly to be expected, but pre-psychosis and incipient psychosis is ~ problem, as Father Moore's findings and fundamental interpretation indicate. Now, the essential point in term} of the present discussion is that pre-psychosis is not likely to be discovered in an applicant for the religious life, apart from some special testing procedur~ designed to reveal it. Sufficient proof of this statement is found in the number of such persons who secure admission to religious life. As indicated above, cases of severe mental disorder among appli-ca, nts for the religious life are relatively rare, nor do they offer too great a difficulty in evaluation. In such cases the picture is unequivo- 298 Not~erober, 1953 PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTING 6al, and upon examination the applicant is found to exhibit such a wealth of psychopathology as to be clearly unsuitable. There is, however, a larger number of cases in which the degree of psychologi-cal difficulty is considerably less. The evaluation of such cases is more difficult for two fundamental reasons: (1) because the degree of disorder being less it is more difficult to detect; and (2) because it is more difficult to predict the extent to which the disorder is likely to render the applicant incapable bf bearing the burdens of the religious life. It is evident that the reference here is to neurosis in 'general and to the milder forms of mental difficulty which wduld not even qualify as neurosis. Neurosis, referring in general to the non-psychotic forms of mental difficulty, is a broad term, and I am inclined to think that most responsible and informed persons would be reluctant to say that the presence of neurosis, ipso Facto, would render an applicant un-suitable for the religious life. The presence of neurosis would un-questionably create a presumption of unsuitability, but the latter might yield to the contrary fact in a given case. What then is to be taken as the norm? I would, suggest that we might distinguish 'on the basis of the kind of neurosis. It is beyond question that there are certain types of neurotic difficulty which would almost surely be accentuated by the demands of religious life, and it would be my suggestion that the presence of a neurosis of this type would render the applicant unsuitable. At the present time I would prefer to leave open the question as to whether there actually are any neuroses of the second type, i.e., which would not be aggravated by the requirements of life in religion. As an example of a neurosis the presence of which would likely preclude acceptance into' religion, I would mention hypochondriasis, an abnormal pre-occupation with bodily health. This tendency, as is well known, can grow into an exclusive pre-occupation leaving the individual with little thought or energy for religious observance. In its milder forms it s.imply interferes with ~ommunity life and regular. observance; in more advanced stages, it renders the individual com-pletely incapable of foIlowing religious routine. Experience quite well attests that the introspection of the religious life develops a cer-tain number of hypochondriacs as it is, so that the expectation seems justified that this life would aggravate such tendencies if they were already present at the time of admission. An even clearer example, to my mind, of the kind of neurosis the presence of which would 299 WILLIAM C. BIEP~ Re'view [or Religious render an indi~cidual unsuitable 'for the religious life, would be an obsessive-compulsive neur6sis, which manifests itself .in the moral sphere as scrupulosity. I have referenc~ not to an isolated instance of scrupulosity in the life of an applicant, but to scrupulosity of suffi-cient duration to have become habitual. Such a state is aggravated 'by the additional duties of religious life, by the continual self-exam-ination which is an iodispensable condition for progress t~ward reli-gious perfection, andparticularly by the obligation of the vows. In its milder forms, scrupulosity impairs efficiency, in prayer no less than in apostolic work. In its severer manifestations, it makes prayer and religious observance a torture, and any substantial measure of pro-ductive work an impossibility. Attitude to be Assumed in Doubtful Cases In connection with the matter just .discussed, a question arises which must be faced directly, and it is this: do we not go too far in excluding applicants with neurotic tendencies? Would it not be more in accord with the spirit of Christ. and the Church to accept them and to leave something to the healing effect of God's grace? In answer to this sort of a question, I would like first of all to. point out that psychological testing is finished, its work complete; its contribution made, when it has ascertained the facts, in as far as it is possible to ascertain them in the case of the applicant, and has put these at the disposal of the superior. It then becomes the superior's responsibility to act upon the facts as seems best, and, in view of them and all other available sources of information, to accept or to reject the candidate. A prudent superior will not come to a decision', of course, without taking the matter to prayer. Indeed everyone con-nected with the discernment of a vocation must pray; the applicant himself must pray, his director must pray, and the superior who acts on his application must pray. The Gospels tell us that Our Lord spent the .night in prayer before choosing the Apostles. The example. of saints teaches us that we should pray in such an important deci-sion, but also work. It was it. Ignatius' advice, for instance., that we should .work as if the entire l)utcome depended on us, buy pray as though the entire outcome depended on prayer alone. Such advice seems particularly apposite in the selection of candidates. In this case, the importance of the matter requires that the most adequate possible investigation be made, but ultimately such s~lection depends upon a judgement of the superior. This judgement should be founded in fact--as far as it is humanly possib, le to discover the truth--and 300 Noaeraber, 1953 PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTING should be illumined b'y grace, in as far as it is possible to invoke the divine assist~ince through prayer. Even when we have proceeded in: the manner indicated abo,~e,.the decision still remains difficult, for we are attempting in such cases just ¯ about the most difficult task in the .world, namely, to predict the interplay of divin'e grace and human freedom. "If the human mind,'r says a distinguished French contemporary, "cannot probe this mys-terious interplay +yen after the event (for when someone leaves a re-ligious institute it is often impossible to tell.whether it was through infidelity to a. real vocation or simply due to the late discovery that there was no vocation at all) still less can it see it~beforehand.'''~ We are compelled .humbly to admit that there are and will continue to be a certain number of cases which cannot be avoided, but there are others which, with a gr.eater expenditure of human effort and l~ru-dence, could be avoided. Such" is our task. When there, is, doubt about the psychological s~itability of can-didates for the religiou~ life, I would offer it as a general principle that we should be severe rather than lenient in admitting. My fun-damental reason for this recommendation is that the religious life demands more than ordinary psychological stability for. its practice. In the vows, which constitute the essence of religious life, man makes of himself a holocaust to God. owe speak also of the martyrdom of the vows. It is true that "holocaust" and "martyrdom" are meta-phorical expressions in this context, but they serve to emphasize the demands made of human nature in the practice of the religious life, " demands which are to a considerable extent psychological. Certainly the number of psychological satisfactions available to religious are considerably reduced over those possible to people in the world, while the occasion~ for frustration are greater, due to the surrender of deep human wants through the vows of religion, and by reason of the demands of day-by-day community lif~. Hence there is required more than the usual amount of psychological stability and maturity in a religious, and it would seem, therefore, to be imprudent to accet3t in religion applicants with distinctly less than the normal amount of psychological integrity. A further point seems worth) of note in this connection. The attitude is sometimes assumed that doubtful candidates should be ac-cepted in religion because religious life wotild benefit them more than 8A. Pit, O.P., "Unconscious Attraction to the Religious Life." Religious Life: H Vocation. Westminster, Maryland, Newman, 1952, p. 110. 301 WILLIAM (~. BIER Reoiew fo'r Religious it would some better individuals who are less in need of helps reli-gion would prgvide. A ~lightly different way of putting this same objection would be to say that if there is a doubt, we should give the ,applicant the benefit of the doubt. We assume that the doubt is a positive one, i.e., one in which there are positive .reasons for ques-tioning the suitability of the candidate. ¯ In such cases, I do not think that the general principle that the applicant should be given the bene-fit of the doubt is the correct one. It must not be forgotten that the religiouscommunity has rights as well, and it .seems a more funda-mental principle that the good of the community should prevail over the good of an individual, particularly when the latter is not yet a member of the community, as would be the case of an applicant. The doubtfully suitable applicant--if indeed the doubt is well founded--is likely to prove to be a problem from the very day of his arrival in the novitiate. If such is the case, he will require a dispro-portionately large amount of the novice master's time, to the detri-ment of the other novices who would profit more from his counsel and direction. Furthermore, psychologically unstable and neurotic individuals are difficult to live with, and it seems really inequitable that such persons should be permitted to enter and to. disrupt the peace and harmony of community life. One such person can be a thorn in the side of an entire community,, as experience very well at-tests. In God's Providence we shall always have enough 'difficult members of the community to make religious~life a source of virtue and sanctification, but it seems quite another thing knowingly to ¯ contribute to the difficulties of religious life by admitting psycho-logically unsuitable persons. Finally, there is always the distinct possibility, if not probability, that the defiaands of religious life will increase the difficulties of psychologically unstable persons to the point where they will ultimately be compelled to leave religion (and the institute may consider itself fortunate if the p}oblm can be solved in this way), or else they will have to be removed from the commun-ity and institutionalized. The latter can be.a tremendous financia'l burden to a c~mmunity, an, d it would seem an unjust one when the likelihood of such an eventuality could have been foreseen at the time of admission. It might be felt by" some that when there is doubt about the psy-chological suitability of a candidate, he should be admitted with the expectation that his inability to adjust to religious life would soon become evident to him through the actual attempt in a way which he 302 Noaernber, 1953 PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTING would never have been able to accept beforehand, and that he xvill in consequence voluntarily leave. The expectation of k, oluntary with-drawal in a case of this kited is not well founded. Even for the psy-chologically well-integrated and mature personality, readjustment to life in the world is difficult and the courage required to face the un-asked questions of family and friends is considerable. Ability to measure up to such demands is not realistically to be expected of one whose difficulty is weakness precisely in this area. Furthermore, it is assumed that the individual is suffering from personality or emo-tional disorders, and one of the main characteristics of such difficulties is a lack of insight on the part of the individual into his condition.' Hence, if the disorder" increases to a point where the individual should leave, insight is likely to decline as well, so that it is not to be ex-pected that the individual will leave voluntarily. I return, therefore, to my earlier proposition that it is a mistaken charity to accept doubt2 fully mature and questionably stable individuals into religion. In concluding the'present article I should like to refer to two quotations which seem to me to re-enforce the viewpoint presented. The first arises out of*the symposium on religious vocation held in France during the summer of 1949, and consists of the following expression of experience on the part of a religious superior: "Experi-ence has taught us one thing, and that is that when there is a doubt about any.one in the novitiate it is n~arly always confirmed later: the situation does not improve. There may be exceptions but they are few and far between.TM I would simply suggest that, under adequate investigation, we can move the process back one step further, and speak about the doubtful applicant, but that the principle remains the same. The second quotation is from our late Holy Father, Pope Pius XI, xvho expressed himself on the severity to be exercised in admitting candidates to the religious life. The occasion was an audience granted to the Capuchin general chapter after the election of Very Reverend Donatus de Welle as Minister General in June I938, at which time the Pope spoke in part as follows: "This recommendation, for which we take full responsibility, ought to be regarded as a father's instruction to his children, based simply on a desire foi the well being of all religious families. And the instruction is this: Be severe. These may be hard words but they~ 4"An Enquiry about Vocation" in Religious Life: II Vocation, Westminster]Mary-land, Newman, 1952, p. 83. 303 WILLIAM C. BIER are p~ompte~t by love, for true love, love worthy of our L.o~d's' friends, can be satisfied with nothing short of the truth . We are not alluding merely to severity of discipline, in general, but first and foremost to the seyerity v,;hich ought to be shown in accepting postu-lants. If ariyone tells you that there is too much sev.erity even now, we authorize you to reply that the Pope wants it to be that .way, be-cause he clearly sees the, need of it, in virtue of his position and.re-sponsibilities, the more so as Providence has granted him a pontifi-cate of some length and thus allowed him to acquire wide .experience in this field. Indeed, if the religious life is to be kept in all its splen-dour there must be severity, particularly with regard, to vocations, because although divine grace helps nature it does not destroy iF; the necessity fordoing battle remains, and in the religious life the stakes. are higher . "It is no exaggeration to say that whenever people unite to form a group, even in small numbers, deterioration occurs. We learn.this from experience. This does not mean that a religious family ought therefore to reduce the number of its members; quite the contrary-- the tendency should always be to increase. But it should see that its members are carefully chosen, like picked soldiers. This is a difficult task, but essential.~ When a number of men join together in some enterprise, their good qualities, and particularly the highest ones, do not become common property; each man keeps his own. Their weak-ness and. bad qualities,I on the other hand, add up and merge to-gether . " These words, coming from so high an authority, speak for them-selves. The purpose of the present article has been to demonstrate the ~)roposition that psycl~ological testing has a function to perform in theselection of candidates for the religious life, and that such,a pro- . gram is in keeping with the spirit of religious vocation as understood in the Church. The theoretical desirability.of such a program is one thing, its practicality is another, arid the latter question will be con-sidered in a second article. OUR CONTRIBUTORS JOSEPH F. GALLEN is professor of canon law at WoodstockCollege, Wood-stock, Md. HILARY R. WERTS is superior and a professo.r of moral theology at Alma College, Los Gatos, Calif. C. J. McNASPY, an authority on ~cclesiastical music, is on the faculty of St.'Charles College, Grand Coteau, La. Information on WILLIAM C. BIER is given in the prenote to his article. ' 304 \ The F:ucharis :ic Fast: Hilary R. Werts, S.3. THE. new and mitigated law of the Eucharistic fast contained in the Apostolic Constitution, Christus Dorninus; and the accom-panying Instructibn of the Holy Office, whose translations were published in this REVIEV~, last March, is a generous concession of our H01y Father the Pope who wishes to make more humanly possible the frequent and even daily reception of Holy Communion so.much recommbnded by Blessed Pope Pius X and his successors in the chair of Peter. In pro.mulgating the new law His Holiness urge~ bishops and priests to take advantage of its concessions to exhort the faithful to more frequent reception of'the Blessed Sacrament. Religious who have much contact with the faithful in schools and hospitals will find many' opportunities for their zeal to promote frequent Com~ munion by expla.ining this law'and leading people to use its condes-sions. For this purpose it is necessary that they have a clear under-standing of the conditions for the.application of these concessions. It is hoped that this article will help to this understanding. The former law for the Eucharistic fast is retained except for the particular conces~ion~ "granted in the new law. The first concession is that water does not break the fast, Water may now b.e taken at any time by anyone, right up to Communion time. The Eucharistic" fast is no longer concerned with water, and abstinence from it can no long, er properly be called fasting, though it may be an act of mortifi-cation ¯ Water here means plain water, that is, water without the admix-ture of'any other substance whatever. Water as it is found in natural conditions is plain water, even.though it be mineral water from a mineral spring, Qr ocean water with its content of salt. But minerals or salt may not be added artificially to the water that is permitted before Communion. How,ever, the chemical additions to our city water su'pplies are not to be considered, f6r otherwise we would have no water available to drink and the change in the law would be meaningless. Aside from the permitted water, the Pope confirms the former law and says that it must be observed by those who are able to do so. But this does not mean that those who c.ome under the conditions of the new concessions must worr, y as to whethe, r or not they should use .305 HILARY R. WERTS . Revieu~ for Religious them. Norm I of the Constitution says: "The law of the Eucharistic fast, to be observed from midnight, continues in force for all those who do not come under the special conditions, which We shall set forth in this Apostolic Constitution" (italics supplied). Hence there is no requirement that those who come under the concessions should rather fast from midnight if possible. Norm II of the Constitution makes concessions for the infirm. They may, without any time restriction, take something by way of drink or medicine. They may take non-alcoholic liquids and they may take medicine in either liquid or solid form at any time before the celebration of Mass or the reception of Communion. The ini~rm who enjoy this concession are either those who are sick, or thos.e who are infirm because of age. For the sick, no kind or length or degree of gravity of sickness is specified, but it is required that the infirmity be such that it is difficult to observe .the fast from midnight. The difficulty need not be extraordinary; a moderate diffi-culty will suffice. If an infirm person who desires to communicate would omit Communion because of th~ fast from mid.night, then surely he finds this fast too difficult. For example, influenza, stom-ach ulcers, diabetes, asthma, the ills of pregnancy, may be presumed to make fasting from midnight difficult. Any sickness in which the doctor recommends nourishment before Communion, or in which re-covery would be delayed by fasting, or any infirmity which causes the feeling of weakness unless nourishment is taken will suffice to permit liquid nourishment before Communion. Insomnia, severe headache, high or low blood pressure, distressing ~ough, rheumatism, arthritis, a bad cold, hay fever, may frequently make fasting rather difficult, ahd permit liquids. Some kinds of infirmity may last for a long time and permit .liquids daily before Communion; others may be tran.sitory and cause difficulty only for a day or a few days and these latter equally suffice for the use of the concession whenever ~hey occur. Since a moderately serious difficulty in fasting is required for the use of this concession, there are cases of infirmity in which the con-cession may not be used because the fast is no more difficult in these cases than it is for ordinary healthy persons; e.g., a person who has weak eyes or is blind, one who has lost an arm or leg, will have no fasting difficulty arising from his infirmity Unless other circumstances enter into the case. The difficulty in fasting required in order to permit the infirm to 306 November, 1953 THE EUCHARISTIC FAST take liquids before Communion is, according to some commentators, also required in order to permit them to take medicine. However it seems to me that a close reading of the Instruction (n. 1) reveals a distinction between liquid nourishment and medicine. There are two clauses, one concerning liquids, which are permitted fi~nder the con-dition that fasting is difficult; the other cgncerning medicine, which is permitted under the sole condition that it is real medicine. Thus [ conclude that a person with a headache, even though it is not severe enough to make fasting difficult, would still be permitted an aspirin before Communion because he is sick and aspirin is real medicine. ¯ It may happen that someone feels well on rising, but knows from exi~erience that if he fasts until he receives Communion, he will be-come ill. In this case be may take medicine or liquid under the con-cession for the infirm, in order to avoid the sickness. Sometimes a person's sickness is due to his own fault, as when one is ill the morning aft, er an evenir~g of overindulgence in food or d~ink. Nevertheless, he .may use the'concession for the sick, sup-posing that he has the .proper dispositions of body and soul for the reception of.the Blessed Sacrament. We may now examine more .in detail what is meant by liquids and medicines. The liquid permitted to the sick before Communion is anything that can be pour,ed and drunk, except alcoholic bever-ages. Thus milk, tea, coffee, broth, fruit juices, soft drinks, and. heavier liquids like egg hog, milk shake, creamed soup and raw or lightly boiled eggs. The liquid may have some° undissolved solids as lo.ng as it remains a potable liquid; e.g., broth with some bread or cracker crumbs, cereals such as cream of wheat or corn meal when diluted with suffici,ent milk to make them drinkable. But all alco-holic beverages, even with low alcoholic content, are excluded after the midnight preceding Communion. Medicine, either liquid or solid, is permitted so long as it is real medicine, and not merely something nourishing or agreeable. True medicine is somethi,ng curative, palliative, or preventive. Any medi-cine prescribed by a doctor is a true medicine, but there are also many substances that are known to be medicine and used without a pre-scription, such as aspirin, sleeping pills, cold remedie~, etc. Commen-tators dispute whether medicine containing alcohol is permitted. It may safely be said that alcoholic beverages may not be used medici-nally before Communion, but a real medicine, even if it contains alcohol, may be used. This accords with the wording of the law, 307 HILARY R. WERTS ° Review for Relioious and the law hardly requires that a sick person know the chemical con-tent of his medicine, or° be prevented from Communiofi because he must take medicine containing some alcohol. We may also note that some things which are ordinarily considered food and not medicine may in certain diseases be real medicine with curative or preventive value. Thus sugar is prescribed for diabetics who have an insulin reactidn. This concession of the use of liquids and medicines for the infirm is granted to priests or rion-priests, and to p~iests for the reception of Communion or th,e celebration of Mass, and applies whether the ¯ Mass or Communion is in the morning or in the evening. The liquids or medicine may be taken once .or several time~ after midnight, and in any quantity. The use of this concession is not directly open to all the infirm, but those who are not priests are required to first consult a confessor, that he may judge whether they may use the concessio~a. This con- ¯ sultation is required in every case, but need be made only once ,for a given cause of infirmity, and the advice of the cQnfessor maY be fol-lowed as long as the infirmity continues, even if it be life-long. When the infirmity diminishes, as during convalescence, the c6ncession may still be used until it is clear that the infirmity no longer makes fasting difficult. . The time'fo[ this consultation is any time before Comm~ion. The confessor's advice is not required to take liquids or medicines. The advice is required for Communion after having taken these things, and so .it may be asked after taking them ~but before receiving Communion. The gravity of the obligation to consult a confessor is discussed by commentators, and some hold that to use the concession without consultation would be to viOlate the law of the Eucharistic fast and commit a grave sin. Others say that a person who is sure that his case comes under the conditions of the concession would sin'venially by disobedience if he were to omit the consultation and rceive Com-munion; and that in an extra.ordinary case, when it is impossible to. consult a confessor, he could use the concession without consultation. This opinion may be followed unless the Holy See ~olves the question otherwise. Of course, if a person were not qualified to judge the matter, he would sin at least, venially b,y acting imPrudently. There is"also some discussion about the confessor who is t6 be consulted. The strictest o.pinion is that he must be a priest who 308 November, 1953 THE EUCHARISTIC FAST could h~re and now hear the confession of the one consulting, and this would be required if the advice were sbught in confession. But the law does not require that the advice be sought in confession. It may be asked in private consultation outside the confe~si6nal and, according to atenable opinion, from a priest who can hear confes-sions somewhere, even though he .has no faculties to hear confessions in the place of the consultation or of the person consulting. Certainly no one but a priest may give the required advice, though teachers and others may explain the requirements to their charges. Since the advice of the confessor may be asked out of confession, it follows'that it may be asked in personal interview, by phone or by letter, or by an int.ermediary,such as a parent or other relative, a Sister or nurse in a hospital, a teacher, etc. The advice is personal and in-dividual and could not be given to a large group together, such as Ill the people attending Mass; but.if there is a group in which the con- "fessor knows that all those present have the same reason for the use of the concession, he could advise the group together, as when all the nurses present are on night duty, or all the people present must make a long trip to Mass, and thus come under the concessions to be seen later. As seen above, a person who is not a priest must consult a con- . fessor before using the concession for the sick (and also the conces-sions to be seen below). Must the sick priest also consult a confessor before using this concession to receive Communion or to celebrate Mass? "A~ first sight the law seems to requlke this, and some com-mentators thus interpret the law., But many, i~ncluding some who are connected with the Holy Office in Rome, say that the sick priest need not consult a confessor. This seems reasonable, for if the priest can decide for others, he should be able t9 decide ~or himself. With-out entering into all the arguments, it might be well to consider one point, The Instruction of the'Holy Office concerning the sick (n. 3) says: "Priests who are ill., may likewise take advantage of the dispensation." The word likewise is a translation of the.word pariter, meaning "likewise," "in the same way." Many'commenta-tors r~fer this word to what has gone before, and understand the law to gay that priests may use the dispensation in the same way as the faithful, that is, .after consulting a confessor. It seems to be as well or even better to refer the word to what follows, and understand the sentence to mean that priests are given permission to .use the dispen-sation as well for celebrating Mass as for receiving Communion, 309 HILARY R. WERTS Review for Reliqious which is a new and very noteworthy concession, emphasized by the word pariter. The next concession is for priests in circumstances other than sickness which make fasting difficult. Three specific causes of diffi-culty are set down and the concession is grant.ed to piiests in these circumstances, without the need of consulting a confessor, and even incases where the pri, est couId fast without difficulty. The three causes are exclusive, and the concession is not to be extended to other circumstano~s, but actually the three given causes cover most of the difficult cases. The first cause is the late hour of celebrating Mass. The hour is defined as nine o'clock in the morning. If a priest celebrat,~s Mass after this hour he may take non-alcoholic !iquids as explained above, up to one hour before the beginning of Mass, and may take them as often as he wishes. The time in this case must be measured mathe-matically. There must be a full hour of fasting before the beginning of Mass. And the Mass must start after nine o'clock. If the priest leaves the sacristy promptly for a scheduled nine o'clock Mass, it will be after nine when he begin? the Mass at the foot of the altar with the sign of the cross, and he is a proper subject for this concession. When a priest is celebrating more than one Mass, and one of them is after nine o'clock, he fulfills the cbndition and may us~ the dispensation by taking liquids any time after .midnight, and therefore before his. earlier Mass, but he must observe the prescription of fasting from the liquids for one hour before each Mass. Thus if he celebrates at eight and nine o'clock, he could take liquids before seven o'clock; if he celebrates at six and nine o'clock, he could take liquids before five and again after the first Mass but before eight o'clock. The second cause which allows priests the use Of liquids up to one hour before the beginning of Mass is heavy work of the ministry done before Mass. No exact definition of this work is given, but in view of the definition of a late hour given above, and of a long jour-ney given in the next cause, it would seem safe to say that one hour or more of concentrated work, such as hearing confessions, taking~ Communion to the sick, preparing a sermon, participating in solemn ceremonies, and the like, would allow the concession, but not an hour of puttering at odds and ends while waiting for Mass time. The third cause permitting liquids to the priest up to one hour before the beginning of Mass is a long journey, before Mass. A long journey is defined by the Holy Office as a distanoe of a mile and a 310 November, 1953 THE EUCHARISTIC FAST quarter on foot, which is a walk of about 20 or 25 minutes. If transportation is used, the distance must be greater in proportion to the kind of conveyance, the d!fficulty of the road, and the condition of the traveler. The inconvenience of the trip by conveyance should be equivalent to the inconvenience of a walk of a mile and a quarter. For a healthy person and a good road, it would seem that about forty minutes by car, or thirty minutes by bus, or twenty minutes by bicycle, would be a long journey in the sense of this law. Where the road or the weather is bad, or the person old or unwell, this distance may be shortened proportionately. Since water no longer breaks the fast, it is noted that a priest celebrating more than one Mass may take the ablutions in each Mass, but using only water except at the last Mass. However, the Holy Office makes an exception to this in the case of Christmas and All Souls Day, if the priest celebrates three Masses on these feasts without interruption. In this case he should observe the rubrics of the missal which require the omission of the ablutions in the first two Masses. If on these two days the priest should take the ablutions with water, he would not be breaking his fast but he would be violating the rubrics. The Holy Office says that if the binating or trinating priest in-advertently takes wine at the ablutions of a Mass before his last one, he may still celebrate the subsequent Mass or Masses. Some commen-tators hold that this permission is granted only if the priest has some special need to celebrate the subsequent Mass, e.g. because it is a sched-uled Sunday Mass. But others say that the law does not necessarily mean any particular need for the Mass, and that the priest may pro-ceed with his Masses for no greater reason than his own devotion. It would seem that if the priest inadvertently took the wine ablu-tion into the chalice in his earlier Mass, and noticed it before con-suming the wine, he would not be obliged to dispose of it some other ~vay, but could consume it. However, if he deliberately took the wine ablution at Mass, not intending to binate, and later the need for another Mass arose, he could not celebrate again .unless there were sufficient need to allow him to celebrate after breaking his fast. But in view of the present mitigation of the law, one might be less severe than formerly in weighing this need. Having seen the concessions for priests who will celebrate Mass, we come to the concession for communicants. This concession, simi-lar to but somewhat different from the preceding, is the one which 311 HILARY Rz WERTS Re, view/or Reli~lious rules the reception of Holy Communion for all non-priests, even though they be religious or clerics in the major orders of subdeacon or deacon, and it also applies to priests who are to communicate rather than celebrate, as for example, priests who do not c~lebrate Mass on Holy Saturday. The concession is given for three exclusive causes of grave diffi-culty, namel~, fatiguing work ¯before Communion, late hour of. Communion, or a long journey before Commianion. The concession requires consultation of a confessor, as seen ~above for the infirm. When the" concession is allowed, the communicant may take .liquids as often as he wisheL from midnight until one hour b~fore Com-munion, and of course water at any time. No solid food,or alcoholic drink is allowed after midnight. Note that the hour is measured be-fore Communion, while for the celebrant we saw that it is measured before the beginning of Mass. The period of fasting must be a full hour and if in doubt about the exact time of Communion one must leave some margin Of time; or risk arriving at Communion before the full hbur is completed and thus be deprived of Communion, for there m'ust be no diminution of the hour. There are various opinions as to the application of the three causes of grave difficulty. One opinion requires not only the exist-ence of one of these three causes, but also the existence of at I~east a moderately grave difficulty in fasting from midnight for this particu-lar communica.nt, A second opinion holds that if one. of the three, causes exists, we may presume that it is actually difficult for any par-ticular person to observe the fast" from midnight, and so he should be allowed to use the concession unl.ess it is clear that fasting causes him no difficulty. A third opinion holds that the only difficulty required is the actual existence of one of the three given causes. For example, if one must make a long journey to church, he may be allowed to use the concession without inquiry as to the inconvenience he would suf-fer by fasting from midnight. TJae practical application of these¯ different opinions will be the same except in border-line cases in which the third opinion will cre-ate less anxiety in the confessor and the comrrluriicant than will the other two opinions. This third opinion has the fewest supporters,. ¯ but I adopt it'as the easiest to. apply and as defensible according to the meaning of the law. Although the tenor of the law is that it in-tends to relieve those who experience grave difficulty in fasting from midnight, it also states that there is grave difficulty in certain cases 312 November, 1953 ¯ THE EUCHARISTIC FAST given as examples. The C0n~titution also insinuates that some cir-stances which do not ~eem to be serious in a single case may have a serious cumulative effect over an extended period. Thus 'the Consti-tution says that the burden of a priest's Sunday ministry unques-tionably undermines his health; the conditions of work in the mod-ern economy and the conditions of modern living especially after re-cent wars have caused a general decline of health. The Constitution, norm V, grants the concession "because of grave incon.venience-- that is, because Of fatiguing work, or the lateness of the hour . or the long distance." (italics supplied), signif~ring that these three conditions are actually grave difficulties. The introduction to the ¯ Instruction says the concessions may be used by those who find them-selves in the particular conditions specified in the Constitution, which in this.concession are the three given causes. The Instruction states 'the concession to the sick conditionally,."if because of their illness~ they are unable without grave inconvenience, to observe a complete fast," signifying that illness may or may not be a cause of grave in-convenience. But in the concession to communicants who are not ill, it states directly that the three enumerated circumstances are (not rna~] be) causes of grave inconvenience. Furthermore, the spirit of these, documents is very lenient, considering a mile and a quarter as a gravely inconvenient walk and nine o'clock as a gravely inconvenient late horn:, if these are considered as.generally grave, there seems to be little room for a reasonable decision that in some.exceptional cases they are not grave. To draw a line betw,een grave and not grave in this matter seems to be practically impossible and the attempt to do so would lead to anxiety and scruples. So it seems to be in accord' with the meaning and spirit of this law to allow the concession to all communicants who are in one of thd three given circumstances, without trying to measure the gravity of the difficulty of fasting for each communicant. ¯ The first cause given, fatiguing work, is illustrated in the law by the cases of night workers in factories, ships or other transportation, ~hose who spend the night in the'service of the sick or as watchmen, and mothers who must perform domestic duty before going to Com~ reunion. The work may be an all-night occupatign, or it may be work done in the morning for a period long enough to make it fa-tiguing, or it may be work done during some part of the night with some sleep afterwards, as when a nurse is called at night for some emergency. An hour's heavy work in the morning would seem to jus- 313 HILARY R. WERTS Reuieto /:or Religious tify the use of the concession. Work done late in the evening does not seem to be ordinarily included in this cause, but .such work and even work done earlier might sometimes be so fatiguing that it would permit use of the concession. The law also mentions pregnant women,rand probably considers them subjects for the concession in-dependently of any work they must do before Communion, merely by reason of the pregnancy. The second cause is the late hour at which alone the communicant can receive. The late hour is not defined, but since nine o'clock has been defined as a late hour for the celebrant, it must also be a late hour for the communicant. Perhaps it was not defined because it maC/ happen that a time before nine o'clock will be a late hour for those who must rise very early. The Instruction gives the example of Communion in a place where a priest is not able to say Mass early because he must come from some distance, as happens when on.e priest has charge of two or more churches. Although the Constitution says: "The ,lateness of the hour at which alone they can receive," this must not be understood to mean that it is absolutely impossible to receive earlier, but rather that it is difficult to receive earlier, or there is some necessity for waiting until a late hour. The concession could be allowed to these: the parent who must care for the children while the other parent goes to an early Mass and then himself goes to a .later Mass; one who is awake until a very late hour at night and so needs to sleep late in the morn-ing; one who needs a late sleep on Sunday or a holiday to rest from his week's work; one who must choose a late Mass to keep peace in the family; the altar boy who is assigned to serve a late Mass, even if he could go to another earlier Mass; a worker who could.conveni-ently go to noon Mass down town but would find it inconvenient to rise early enough for Mass before work; some special reason for a late Mass, as when the bride and groom wish to receive at a late nup-tial Mass, or the family wishes to receive at a late Requiem Mass; and in general, whenever in view of the person's accustomed rising hour, the time of the first conveniently available Mass is relatively late. But one may not without some necessity freely choose the later of two Masses in order to be able to take liquids before Com-munion. A special case of a late hour, mentioned in the documents, is that of children who would have to go to church, communicate, and then return home for breakfast before school. In order to obviate this 314 Nooernber, 1953 THE EUCHARISTIC FAST difficulty, these children may take liquid nourishment up to an hour before Communion. It must be admitted that this concession is not without its own problems. Although a child could have a sufficiently nourishing breakfast made up entirely of liquids, still it might not be a satisfying breakfast for those accustomed to a more substantial meal, and the liquid breakfast might require that the child and hi~ family rise earlier than usual in order to finish it an hour before Com-munion time. From this case of the school child we may conclude that some-times the hour may be considered late because the available time be-tween Holy Communion and other duties does not permit the com-municant to obtain breakfast, readily after Communion. This may be the case not only for school children, but also for college students, and for people who work away from home and do not have conveni-ent time after Mass to return home for breakfast. The third cause which allows this concession is a long distance to travel to church. The distance in this concession is to be measured in the way explained above for priests, i.e., a mile and a quarter walk, or the equivalently inconvenient ride. Here again there must be some need for the travel. One could not choose a more distant church when there is a nearer one unless there was some fairly serious reason for doing so. Sufficient reason might be some special solemnity at the distant church, e.-g., the first Mass of a member of the family; a group Communion of a family or of the Holy Name Society or the Knights of Columbus; .an alumni or father-son Communion-group at a school; a baccalaureate Mass; the close of a M'ission or novena one has attended; but hardly the mere devotional desire to communi-cate in the distant church rather than in a near one. The final concession concerns evening Masses. These Masses are not directly permitted, but the local Ordinary may permit them on the days specified in the law, and he may permit them in all .the churches of the diocese, or in certain designated churches. He may also permit them in the oratories of religious. There must b~ some need for the evening Mass, for workers who cannot go to morning Mass, or for a gathering for a religious or social festivity such as a Eucharistic Congress, a Sodality Convention, a business, labor or scout convention, etc. The evening Mass may begin at four o'clock or later. Some have thought that an eoenin9 Mass differs from a night Mass, and have tried to assign the latest hour at which this Mass may begin as some hour earlier than midnight, but the law does 315 HILARY R. WERTS not ~eem to set a final hour at any time before midnight, and the hour may be defined by the local. Ordinary according to the need. When evening Masses are permitted, all are free t6 go to the Masses and to receive Communion, but no one may communicate twice on the same day, nor may the priest celebrate morning and evening of the same day unless he may legitimately binate on that day. Neither priest.nor faithful need consult a konfessor under this concession. The Eucharistic fast required for evening Communion is a fast "of three hours from solid food and one hour from liquids, and the time.is measured before Communion for the communicant but before the beginning of Mass for the celebrant. No hard liquor is allow~d ¯ after the preceding midnight.Light alcoholic beverages such as beer and wine are allowed in moderation, but only during a meal. Some commentators hold that these beverages may be taken at only one meal, even if the person ~ats two meals before a Mass late in the evening, But it may I~e admitted with other commentators that the law does not intend to exclude the use of these beverage's from any meal taken before evening Mass or Communion. This new law of the Eucharistic fast is a generous help for the increase of frequent Communion. Priests and other teachers of the faithful can use it effectively, as the Holy Father wishes, to encourage the frequent reception of the Blessed Sacrament, and the faithful should take full advantage of these concessions to increase their re-ception of the'Bread of Life in proportion to the greatlyincreased convenience of its reception. " BOOK NOTICI: Over twenty years ago Father Bernard Hausmann, S.J., first translated from the German a notable book on-the devotion to the Sacred Heart written by Father Christian Pesch, S.J., under the title of OUR BEST FRIEND. World War II and other causes kept the book out of print for some years. Now the publisher has reset the book entirely in very legible type. Its thirty chapters, each acom-plete unit in itself, offer ideal reading matter for daily spiritual reading during the month of June; or for the Fridays of the year. The central thought of this work, that Jesus is t, ruly our best Friend, contains the strongest possible motive for fervent practice of devotion to the Sacred Heart. (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Cc~mpany, 1953. Pp. 228. $3.00.) 316 Motu Proprio ,Jubilee C.J. McNaspy, S.J. ~IGH MASS ~nd possibly an added toothsome tidbit, at least for the choir, mark St. Cecilia's feast in many religious com-munities. This year is likely to see a fuller fe.stivity on No-vember 22, the golden jubilee of Blessed Pius X's Motu~Proprio on ¯ sacred music. 'Everything about'this famed document is rwell known to music teachers and chant directors, who often have had to flourish it in defense of their innovations or renovations. But this fiftieth anniversary may be a fit .occasion for all religious, however unmusical, .to recall what the Church has to say about her own music. If the Motu Proprio were a dead letter no one would take the trouble to commemorate it. Blessed Pius himself saw to it that this would not easily happen by enshrining his prescriptions in tt~e pre-paratory draft of canon 1264. His immediate, successor, Benedict XV, not long after stated: "We do not wish that the lapse of time should weaken the force of these wise rules.; indeed, we desire them to have their full force." On the silver anniversary, 1928, Pius XI indeed bolstered them with a new papal document, Diuini Cultus, in which he expr~essed surprise "that some have declared that these laws, though so solemnly promulgated, were not binding on their obedience." .Finally, our present Holy Father devotes several pa.ragraphs to sacred music, alway~ stressing the sameprinciples, in his masterly Mediator Dei. No one, unless wi~h a peculiar axe to grind, can say that the Motu Proprio is out of date. Another unfounded notion one sometimes hears is th~t the Motu Proprio is a bit extreme and not practical enough for us to do anything about it. The full reply to this objection would be simply to read it through. By no means does it. state or imply' that one should use only Gregorian chant in sacred worship. Quite explicitly the Holy Father states that "modern music is also admitted in church, as it also offers compositions of such goodness, seriousness, and grav-ity that they are not at all unworthy of liturgical functions." And if this were not enough, the Holy Father explains that "the Church: has always recognized and favored the progress of the arts, admitting to the service of worship everything good and beautiful that genius has been able to discover throughout the centuries." No, only one 317 C. J. McNAsPY Review for Religious type of music is condemned in the Motu Proprio, and that by indi-. rection: the music that does not possess "the qualities proper to the liturgy, namely holiness, and goodness of form, from which spon-taneously there springs its other mark, uniuersaIit~t.:" It is hard to see how anyone could find this either radical or extreme. So much has been done, especially during recent years, to carry out the requirements of the Motu Proprio that another possible qualm may occur: isn't it all so obvious that we needn't discuss it any more? Mu~n personal contact with religious, younger ones particu-larly, is so encouraging that one is tempted to let down, feeling that the battle has been won. The ever-.widening conquests of the Gre-gorian Institute, Piu; X School, and other liturgical or musical or-ganizations must surely bring added joy to the Blessed Pontiff who so recently launched the whole movement. But when one leaves religious house and seminary to venture forth into parish, or even, in some cases, cathedral, the situation is dismal indeed. True, the more offensive, bumptious Masses usual in the last century will h~rdly now be heard. But in too many instances, what replaced them is little better. In fact, there are parishes, even deaneries, Where .the Motu Proprio would seem never to have been promulgated. Sad indeed would be the Blessed Pastor were he not already in heaven. It was with real poignancy that he had written, fifty years ago, while intro-ducing his great statement, of the "many prejudices so stubbornly held even~among responsible and pious persons"; not all of the stub-bornness is gone .today. Need we recall once again that all.discussion of the role of sacred music in divine worship must be situated in the total context of the very m. eaning of liturgy.? The question cannot be simply decided on a purely musical basis. It cannot be just a matter of aesthetic value, abstractly considered, if that were possible. Much less can it be just a question of "I don't know anything about music but I know what I like." ¯ Music that would ~ank high on some ecclesiastical Hit Pa-rade or even music performed in Carnegie Hall will not necessarily be suitable as worship music. Too often, even now, dubious standards are implicitly set up. A meditative reading of the Motu Proprto could remedy that. "Sacred music as an integral part of the solemn liturgy shares in its general, purpose, which is the glory of God and the sanctification and edification of the faithful." Thus far no cavilling possible. "Its principal function is to adorn with suitable melody the liturgical text 318 November, 1953 MOTU PROPRIO JUBILEE proposed to the understanding of the faithful." Here it becomes clearer that music's place must be secondary, that of a handmaid, as Pius XI would make explicit. If tb? sacred text becomes a plaything, or in any way obscured instead of pointed and intensified, then some-thing has gone askew; this may be good concert music; it is no longer liturgical music. Then the Pontiff enumerates the three qualities of sacred music which we gave above. By "holiness" he means ~hat all profanity must be excluded, "not only in itself but also in the manner in which it is presented by the perfgrmers." Farther on he explains that nothing may be admitted ~hat contains anything "reminiscent of theatrical motifs," or "fashioned even in external pattern on the movement of profane pieces." Music of a romantic or sentimental flavor (aptly called "googaudery") in which the."pleasure directly produced by music is not always kept within bounds," is evi-dently excluded under this heading. Next, music "must be true art, for otherwise it is not possible for. it to have that effect on listeners which the Church intends to achieve in admitting the art of music into bet liturgy." This precept is commonly violated in two ways: either by singing music of low artistic worth, music that would never make its mark in "the world ~vere it not put forth under the aegis of the liturgy; or by singing worth~(music in an unworthy way. The second fault, while often less grievous because prompted by good. intentions, can sometimes do more harm than good. People have frequently grown to dislike Gregorian chant or the Church's great polyphony because they were performed with more good will than skill. For this reason Plus XI insisted that at least seminaries teach "the higher and 'aesthetic' study of plainchant and sacred music, of polyphony and organ, which the clergy should by all means thoroughly know." As the seminaries turn out pastors competent in this field, it is likely that choirs will reflect their understanding of sacred music, artistically and liturgically. The third mark of liturgical music, "universality," means that "though every nation is allowed to admit into its ecclesiastical com-positions those particular forms that constitute, so to speak, the spe-cific character of its own music, still these must be subordinated in such a way to the general character of sacred music that no one of another nation may receive a bad impression-on hearing them." This delicate catholicity, a tension between unity and diversity, is perhaps 319 C. J. MCNASPY the hardest principle to apply. However,. ,the Pontiff goes, ,on. ex-plicitly- to condemn the operatic style of his own country. We wonder~ what he would think of certain rather eccentric efforts to produce Negroid or "western" sacred music for use.in our country. But popes are ever practical, and to prevent us from being too abstract in our approach, the Holy Father immediately gives concrete examples of what the Church does want. "These qualities are found, in the highest degree in Gregorian chant,~'' which "has always been considered the supreme model 'of sacred music." Then he sets down, in italics and as unambiguously as possible, the fol-lowing'rule: "The more closely a composition for church approaches the Gregorian melody in movement, inspiration, and flavor, the more sacred and liturgical it is; and the more it departs from that supreme model, the less worthy it is of the temple." It would" take real in-genuity to misunderstand that. Blessed Pius next forestalls a possible escape. Granted, one might object, that.the chant is so sacred and worthy; but isn't other music really more solemn? No, says the Pope, "it must be held by all as certain that an ecclesiastical function loses none of its solemnity when accompanied by no other music than Gregorian chant alone.'.' How-ever, he adds, "the qualities mentioned above are also possessed in an eminent degree by classical polyphony, especially by the Roman school, which in the sixteenth century reached its highest perfection in the work 6f Pierluigi da Palestrina. . Classical polyphony is quite close to the supreme model of all sacred music, namely Gre-gbrian chant, and for that reason deserved to be received together with Gregorian chant in the most solemn functions of the Church." A fir~al scruple: is this not reactionary,, or at least over-conserva-tive? As an interesting corroboration of the Holy Father's stand I believe we could give quotations from almost every leading con-temporary music historian or theorist. To cite only the most recent,, and surely, one of the most eminent, Harvard's Professor. A. T. Davison, a no/~-Catholic. " His new book, Church Music: Illusion and Reality, could almost be called a commentary on the Motu Pro-prio. After calling our chan~ "the unchallenged example o~t:, worship become music" and speaking of Palestrina and other polyphonic corn- .posers in terms of the highest pr~iise, Dr.Davison states in reference to both: "It may appear to the reader that this music of the Roman Cath-olic Church has been rather aggressively held up as a model.If this 320 November, 1953 COMMUNICATIONS is so, it is only because of a conscientious attempt to deal objectively with the matter; for that particular music, it would seem, fulfills two all-important requisites of true church music: first, in vying with the greatest music in any field, sacred, secular, or instrumental; and second, in creating an atmosphere of worship wherein not man but God appears as the important figure in the transaction." . Surely no fine~ tribute to the sainted Pope and his liturgical work for Christ could be offered. Communications Reverend Fathers: The September issue of the REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS reached me t£day and I should like" to cl~arify a reference made by WilliamGrem-ley, in his article entitled "Intergroup Relatiohs," pages 231-241. The quotation given by Mr. Gremley from This Is Our Town appeared in the old edition of the book. I have since revised all the Faith and Freedom" Readers and the particular story referred to by Mr. Gremley is no longer in the new edition. Mr. Gremley gives 1952 as the date of copyright which is also in-correct. The story referred t0 in This Is Our, Town appeared in the 1942 edition. The re~;ised book was published last spring and has a 1953 copyright. There is no 1952'edition of this particular volume. --SISTER M. MARGUERITE, S.N.D: Reverend Fathers : His Excellency, Bishop Gonzaga, of the Palo (Leyte) diocese in the Philippines; has asked me, during my brief visit to the United States, to try to interest some American Sisterhoods to undert~ike educational work in his diocese. Will you allow me to publicize his request through your e~teeme'd columns? The Holy See has entrusted to this zealous and schokirly Filipino prelate the spiritual welfare of over 1,000,000 Catholics on the large island of Leyte. During my twenty years in the Philippines, I have had the privilege of. long acquaintance with him, and know well his situation. With only about sixty-five priests (some of whom are old and sickly) and only three schools conducted by Sisters, he is in desperat9 need of spiritual reinforcements and most anxious to obtain American Sisters, and also priests, for his diocese. 321 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Reoiew/or Religious Anyone acquainted with our own country realizes that we have many regions at l~ome which need additional laborers in the vineyard of the Lord. It is this situation, no doubt, which is preventing many of our high-minded ecclesiastical, and religious superiors from allow-ing their .American subjects to go to foreign fields. On the other hand, Catholic history from the time of the Apostles is replet~ with examples of how the Church has always been prodigal in sending missionaries to foreign fields, even though their home lands were not yet fully manned nor completely evangelized. And they have been richly rewarded by the Holy Spirit, \Vho has multiplied vocations to their ranks as a blessing for their sacrifices. Those interested in further details will please write .to the under-signed. REV. G. J. WILLMANN, S.J. P. O. Box.510, Manila, Philippine Islands --29~ There are members o~ a commun;ty ~;v;ng ~ogefber who bare not spo-ken to one another over a period of four or five-years. Is the local superior obliged to try to correct this situatlbn or should a higher superior who !~nows of the maffer take a hand? As a general norm local situations as far as possible would be handled by the local superior. For a good reason in a particular case it might be deemed advisable that some other than the local superior take care of the matter; t.he case could then be referred to higher supe-riots. Such a good reasbn could be discrepancy in age between the superior and the subject'.who needs correction, possible lack of ex-perience in a younger superior, a question of tactfulness, a clash of personalities, and the like. In our instance the higher superior is al-ready acquainted with the situation; hence the lotal and higher supe-riors might confer together regarding the more prudent and more efficacious way of handling the case. Is it the mind of the Church tha÷ S~sters who de~re and even ask for correction and guidance from their superiors be left wlthouf it on ÷he ex 322 November, 1953 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS pressed opinion that the Sisters are grown women and know what they are supposed fo do? Canon 530 strictly forbids all religio~s superiors in any way to indfice their subjects to make a manifestation of conscience to them. It does not, however, forbid subjects to open their minds freely, and of their own accord to their superiors; in fact, it encourages filial trust in superiors and, if the superior is a priest, it also recommends sub-jects to reveal doubts and anxieties of conscience to such a superior. Consequently subjects are free to go to superiors, even those who are not priests,~ with their problems, especially if the problem does not in~rolve a question of sin. Superiors on their part will usually lend a sympathetic ear. But the case might arise in which the superior did not feel competent tO handle a certain problem; or one could, en-visage a particular case in which the superior judged that it would be better for the individual to resolve some simpler difficulty for himself and thereby buiid up self-confidence. In these matters a great deal of tact and Christian charity is required on the part of superiors; but subjects also should practice charity in moderating ~he demands they make upon superiors. Some problems could easily be solved on the individual's initiative after prayer and reflection. A decade ago the REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS invited discussion on the topic of spiritual direction. In the concluding survey (II [ 1943 ], 187-201) the twofold prong of spiritual direction was indicated, namely instruction and encouragement. On pages 19 I-192 the con-clusion is voiced that need of instruction should certainly decrease with the i~assage of years to such a point that normally the intellec-tual help required of one's spiritual director would be mainly friendly criticism. "In other words, these religious plan their own lives, submit their plans to a director for approval or disapproval,. and then occasionally make a report on the success or failure of the plan." In regard to encouragement, the need is more individual ~nd is usually not lessened with the years. "At various periods in our lives, most of us need sympathetic help or paternal correction lest we lose heart or descend to low ideals." Both superiors and subjects might profit by keeping those considerations in mind. --31-- If a councillor is absent and the local superior, who is not a councillor, is called to a council meeting, does the local superior give her vote ~n ÷l~e order the absent councillor would have or after all the councillors? 323 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Review for Religious ¯ Canon 106, n. 5 says in part.that among the members of any college (collegium) the right of precedence shall be determined by the legitim.ate constitutions of the college; otherwise by .lawful custom; in default of that, by the norms of the common law. Hence, the con-stitutions of the institute should be consulted. If they make no pro-vision, then follow whatever has been the legitimate custom (which here means the customary way of acting), in this situation. If neither the constitutions nor custom provide a solution, canon 106, n. 1 states that one who represents another enjoys the precedence'that person has; but anyone who is in a council or similar meeting .as a proxy yields precedence to those of the same rank who are personally present. Accordingly, then, a local superior wl~o is not a councillor but who has been summohed to take the place organ absent councillor would vote after the councillors who are present in person. m32m Acjeneral chapter is held in a branch house. When the time comes for voting, does the local superior who is not a councillor .cjeneral vote before or after the ~ouncillors cjeneral? (It is customary for Junior Sisters 1.o vote first, followed by Senior Sistei-s.I The first answer is, consult your constitutions. If they say. nothing, the.n follow whatever has been customarily done in this matter. If no solution is forthcoming from either of those sources in the order enumerated, it would seem that the local superior in this case would yield precedence to the councillors general since the latter in this instance seem to be acting in their "general" capacity, so to speak. (Possibly some institutes follow a simpler method of having all capitulars vote according to strict seniority, upwards or down-wards, without regard to offices h~ld.) ~33~ Propositions to be presented to our cjenera! chapter are very often sent throucjh some member of our cjeneral council or fhroucjh the cjenera/ council. 'Has the cjeneral, councll the right to discard a proposition that pertains dlrec~ly or indirectly to the cjeneral council itself, since the cjen-eral chapter, wh[le in session, is the highest aufhorlfy ~n the concjrecjatlon? Perhaps your constitutions or legitimate custom indicate that proEositions intended for the genekal chapter are to be forwarded ,dlrough the counciI16rs general, and that these latter have the power to judge the feasibility of presenting any such proposition to the gen- 324 0, November, 1953 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS eral chapter. Otherwise, an answer (in part) appearing in the RE-VIEW ~:OR RELIGIOUS, XI (1952), 309-310 in response to a similar question .says: "Usually they [requests" or complaints intended for thegeneral chapter] are given to one of the delegates to'the general chapter who, in turn, at the proper time, turns them in to the special committee appointed for the purpose of screening such requests .and complaints. Those that are considered worthy of the attention of the general chapter are proposed to it in due time during the chapter of affairs. At the end of the. chapter, before a vote to adjourn is taken, .any delegate may ask tha~ a request or complaint which has been turned in but has not been submitted to the general chapter 'should now be read, and the chapter will then vote first on whether the request or complaint is to be considered or not. If"it is "rejected, that is the end of the matter. If the majority is for considering it, it will then be 'considered in the same way as .the other requests or com-plaints which Were already submitted to the general chapter." m34.- ~ One of our novices left religious llfe aboufa year ago because of ill health. Now she has fully recovered and would like ÷o re-enter our com-munity. We know she has ÷o make a new novitiate, but does she have to make a new postulancy? Unless your own constitutions require a new postulancy, the ap-plicant does not have to rbpeat the postulancy. There is no special provision in the°Code of Canon Law for this case, but the conclusion is reached by analogy with two other provisions in the Code. Accgrding to canon 640, § 2, if a religious who after making profession obtained an indult of secularization is readmitted later on to a religious institute by virtue of an apostolic indult, he must make a new novitiate and a new profession, but nothing is said about making a new postulancy also. Hence a new postulancy need not be made in that case. ~ Likewise in an institute which has two canonical classes of mem-bers, if a novice or professed passes from one ciass to the other, a new novitiate must be made, but no new postulancy is required (~ee canon 558). Hence by analogy with the above two provisions of the Code, no new postulancy is required in the case proposed in our question. (See also REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, I [1942], 357.) 325 Book Reviews RELIGIOUS MEN AND WOMEN IN THE CODE. By Joseph Creusen,'S.J. Fifth Engfish edition, revised and edited to conform wi÷h the sixth Frefich edition by Adam C. Ellis, S.J. Pp. xlv -f- 322. Bruce Publish° ing Company, Milwaukee, 19S~}. $S.S0. Religious superiors and subjects will welcome this latest edition of Father Creusen's vhluable work. In editing the fifth English edi-tion, Father Ellis has painstakingly made the various changes, addi-tions, and omissions found in the latest French edition. These emen-dations, due partly to a constant effort to keep the work up-to-date with recent pronouncements of the Holy See, serve to enhance the undoubted worth of this book. It should be kept handy alike for r~ference shelf and classroom study of the Church's law for religious. Something about the annual report and the new questionnaires for the quinquennial report is included. Appendix III gives an English translation of the questionnaire for the quinquennial report of dioce-san congregations and societies. As the author remarks in his preface: "We have not deemed it necessary to add a chapter on Secular Insti-tutes, since by no title' are they a form of the religious life nor are their members religious." There is a revised bibliography. A larger type has been used for the table of contents.--F. N. KORTH, S.J. FUNDAMENTAL PSYCHIATRY. By John R. Cavanagh, B.S., M.D., ¯ C.P., K.S.G., end James B. McGoldrlck, S.J., S.T.D., Ph.D. Pp. x Jr- 582. Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, 19S3. $S.50. For fifty years psychiatry has drawn man's psychic portrait across the medical horizgn without a spiritual intellect or will, with-out a spiritual soul. For decades the brilliant analytic theories and therapeutic techniques, often investigated with scientific precision, have been built upon a false psychic substructure of practical mate-rialism and ihstinctive determinism. The emerging portrait tends to be a distorted caricature of human nature and psychic life as a mere mixture of matter and determined instinct. As a net result, psychia-trists are now left without adequate goals in life to point out to their patients. To interpret, to correct, to refashion psychiatry on the same old base has long been unsatisfactory. The present authors challenge the jaded materialistic framework at every turn ,and discard it com'- pletely. They have produced a first-rate psychiatry textbook that 326 BOOK REVIEWS turns a new medical page and builds the young ~cience of psychiatry entirely upon the time-tested framework of traditional scholastic psychology. This book is important for its psychological structure and its emphases. Perhaps more than any other psychiatry book today it emphasizes, with scientific precision, the spiritual intellect, will and soul; volitional freedom at the root of mental disorder; character formation based upon intellectual, and moral habits; and .the need of an adequate philosophy of life for true mental balance taken from both reason and revelation. Pervading the book with regard to etiology is the author's insistence upon the psychogenic or nonmaterial origin of mental disorders caused by a misuse of man's spiritual faculties. The high caliber and clear structure of Fundamental Ps~chiatr~ reminds one of Dr. Strecker's excellen~ book Fundamentals ot: Psgt-chiatr~ l. It has seven major sections, thirty-one chapters critically written and well-documented, sixty-five thorough case histories, and rich bibliographical material. Publishers and authors have designed a clear and highly readable book. It opens with intr6ductory con- ¯ cepts, the extent of mental disorders, and a picture of normal per-sonality. Five major sections treat of etiology, the clinical approach to psychiatry, psychoneuroses, psychoses, and borderlands of psy-chiatry. The conclusion is devoted to psychiatry, philosophy, and religion. The growing importance of psychiatry makes thi~ an important and valuable book for Catholic hospitals, doctors, nurses, and coun-selors, and for those engaged .in educational and sociological 'work involving modern psychiatric pkinciples.--CHARLES NASH, S.J. MOST REVEREND ANTHONY 3. SC~HULER, S.J.,D.D.,FIRST BISHOP OF I:L PASO, AND SOME CIATHOLIC~ ACTIVITIES IN THE DIOC~ESE BETWEEN 1915-1942. By Sls~'er M. Lilliana Owens, S.L., Ph.D. Pp. xxiv -J- 584. Revls÷a Clatolica Press, El Paso, 1953. $3.50. This labor of love but also a heavily documented work intro-duces us into the career of another "first l~ishop" in the United States coming from the Society of Jesus. When the diocese of El Paso was erected in 1915, the second choice for this new See was the pastor of ¯ a church in Denver, Colorado. He had seen the southwest in earlier days and knew something of the complicated and almost insoluble problems that would have to be faced. But obedience imposed the task; with confidence in God's help the new bishop put his shoulder BOOK REVIEWS Review for Reliytotts to the task. For more than a quarter of a century he carried on, then handed over a well-established organization to his successor. Less than two years later death carried his soul before his Maker. The volume is prgfusely illustrated and well printed. Six ap-pendixes add materials to those cited in the course of the narrative. Thirty pages.of bibliography give a riotion of the industry that went into the preparation of this work. There is a carefullY-madE index. In the treatment the author in the main f~llows the topical meth-od, giving for each theme the background and carrying it through the whole period of the episcopate. ]3ecause of this we do not get a very clear picture of the growth of the diocese as a whole. In giving the background more is at times given than is needed for the purpose intended. Fo~ the most part the ]3ishop appears before us, not so much initiating projects of his own, but as discreetly promoting and supporting movements set afoot by others and at times making them his own and thus leading'them to a happy solution. In his administration Bishop Schuler faced unique problems with which he had to deal prudently. Such were the bilingual popula-tion in the diocese, its location in t~ro states, the onrush of exiles due to the persecution in Mexico, the dire poverty of a large portion of the faithful, the shortage of priests and of priestly vocations. Some of these themes are treated with some completeness while others are merely touched upon--the title gives warning that the work. is not meant to be exhaustive.--AUGUSTIN C. WAND, S.J. I WANT TO SEE GOD. A Pra~:fical Synthesis of C:armellfe Splritualify. By P. Marle-Eug~ne, O.C~.D. Translated by Sister M. Verda C~lare, C:.S.C:. Pp. xxli -I- $49. F~des Publishers Association, .C:hicag~ .10, 19S3. $S.7S. This is the first of a two-volume work. The. second is to be en-titled, 1"Am a Daughter of the Church. ¯ Their grew out of a series of .conferences on the Carmelite theory and practice of prayer. St. Teresa of Avila, rather than St. John of the Cross, was chosen as the proxi-mate "guide." Of St. Teresa's writings The lnterior Castle, with its seven "mansioias," was taken as basic and typical and it provides .the plan for this exposition. St. John's doctrine is introduced here and there as a confirmation or completion of St. Teresa's, not as something that. is continuous a'nd unified in itself. Very often fu'r-ther confirmation or illustration is sought from St. Th~r~se of Li-sieux. The work as a whole has five principal parts, three of them being 328 November, 1953 BOOK NOTICES in this volume. The first part is called "Perspectives" and serves as a general introduction. "The First Stages" deals with the matter treated in St. Teresa's first three mansions. Therefore it is ascetical. Next follows "Mystica~ Li~e and Contemplation." In this section-- nearly half of volume .one--there is much that one would hardly ¯ think of in simpl~¢ reading the works of St. Teresa or St. John; for example, ch~apter two on the "The Gifts of the Holy Spirit." The two principal parts reserved for the second volun~e are "To Union of Will" and "Holiness for the Church." On the value of this study as a satisfactory synthesis of Carmelite spiritual teaching we' had better let the Carmelites themselves pro-nounce. Besides it would be premature to judge it before the second and much the more important volume appears. --AUGUSTINE G. ELLARD, S.J. BOOK NOTICES Highly recommended is THE NEW EUCHARIS:FIC LEGISLATION, by John C. Ford, S.J. This book contains the original Latin texts of the Christus Dominus and the Instruction of the Holy Office, an English translation of these texts, a stimulating and enlightening commentary on the documents, and some brief summaries that should be very useful for confessors, religion teachers, catechism teachers, and parish priests. (New York: P. J. Kenedy U Sons, 1953. Pp. vii -t- 130. $1.50.) Little less than fascinatir~g is .the story of Louis Brisson as told by Katherine Burton in So MUCH So SOON. Carthusiafi-minded himself, this man founded schools for boys and clubs for girls, and the Oblate Fathers and Sisters of St. Francis de Sales to conduct them. Of rare scientific genius, he planned his own buildings and invented various things to keep his foundations operating efficiently. With profound trust in Providence, he quietly saw most of his great works swept a

Issue 10.5 of the Review for Religious, 1951. ; A.M.D.G. . Renew for Religious SEPTEMBER 15, 1951. Christian Heroes . J. Pu~z Joy in Heaven . Richard L. Rooney ¯ PassionisHc SpirH'uallty . Fidells Rice Modesty ¯ ¯ ~ . ,~ .~ . C- A. Herbs÷ Grace o~ Our Vocation . P. De Leffer Communion for O~hers . . Clerence McAuliffe A Vocational Newspaper Questions and Answers Book Reviews ,VOLUME X i' =, NUMBER 5' RI:::VI W FOR RELIGIOUS VOLUME X SEPTEMBER, 1951 NUMBER GONTENTS CHRISTIAN HEROES-~3. Putzo S.J . 225 Heroism of Everyday Life . 225 The New Saints ¯ " . ZZ9 The New Beati . 235 JOY IN HEAVEN--Richard L. Rooney, S.3 .2.3.9 PASSIONISTIC SPIRITUALITY--Fidelis Rice, C.P .2.4.1 OUR CONTRIBUTORS . 246 MODESTY--C. A. Herbst, S.J . 247 ETUDE SUR LA PAUVRETE. RELIGIEUSE .2.5.2. THE GRACE OF OUR VOCATION---P. De Letter, S.J .2.5.3 COMMUNICATIONS--A VOCATIONAL NEWSPAPER . 260 OFFERING COMMUNION' FOR OTHERS-~Clarence McAuliffe, S.J. 261 MEDICO-MORAL PROBLEMS . 265 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS-- 20. Alienation of Property for $100,000 . 266 21. Alienation of Sacred Objects: Relics, Images, Vessels . . . . 266 22. Extreme Unction before Major Operation .268 23. Letters of Golden Jubilarians . 268 24. Novice Master at Coun~i~ Meeting . ¯ " . 268 25. Communion to Ambulatory Sick . 269 26. Hail Mary's on Feast of Annunciation . 270 I'~EW MEDITATION BOOKS . 270 BOOK REVIEWSw Pastor's History of the Popes; The Love of God and the Cross of Jesus; The Gifts of the Holy Ghost . 273 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS . 276 BOOK NOTICES . 278 TEN YEAR INDEX OF REVIEW--MAYBE . 280 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, September. 1951. Vol. X, 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.J., G. Augustine Ellard, S.J., Gerald Kelly, S.J. Editorial Secretary: Jerome Breunig, S~ J. Copyright, 1951, by Adam C. Ellis, S,J. Permission is hereby granted for quota-tions of reasonable length, provided due credit be given this review and the author. Subscription price]! 3 dollars a year: 50 cents a copy. Printed in U. S. A. Befoie writing to us, please consult notice on inside back cover. Christ:ian bleroe It~UR DAYS call for heroic living. The greatness.and diffi: ~ culties of our time are su.cb that no disciple ofo "~hrist.is allowed to remain satisfied with mediocrity." This, saying of Plus XI has often been quoted. The Holy Year was" meant-to stir up Christendom to greater fervor, that it might be an:active, l'eaven for'the much-needed renovation of the world. The numerous beati-fications and canonizations of this last year put beforeus outstandi'ng Christian heroes whose example is meant to stimulate our mediocgity~ Heroism is the test applied by the Church to candidates for .beati-- fication--not a human, stoic heroism, but a heroism inspired by personal love, by charity, and sustained by the Holy Ghost dwellin~ in the soul. At the beginning the typical saint was the ma'rtyr, th.e Christian who had been a witness to Christ by. dying for Him. ,But soon it was realized that, in the absence of persecution.s, there can be an "unbloody martyrdom" by heroic fidelity in liv'ing for Christ, Thus, by the side of martyrs, the names o,~f. outstanding "confes~ors~j came to be added in the martyrology. Heroism always remained the test of genuine sanctity, and the Congregation of Rites, .When studying the cause of'a confessor, has chiefly to discuss the hiroism his virtue. Is there evidence that he possessed in a herbic degree.the theolggical virtues of faith, hope, charity and the cardinal.~ri~tues :of prudence, justice, temperance, fortitude, with the virtues connected with them'? , .' ~ :: " , But what is required for heroic virtue? It is not easy tO dete~ mine thi's notion. Benedict XIV, in his treatise on'the beatification of the servants of God, has given all the elements, but he has:not made the synthesis, and one may say that the notion remained some:~ what indeterminate. This gave rise, 'within the ,Congregatigrl of Rites, to different conceptions of heroic, virtue. This. difference' de-layed the cause of the servant of God, A. Gianelli. The same reason may explain why until this year no child or ado.lescent ever passed the test, for the classical conception insisted 'on "extraordinary,~.' manifestatidns of heroism. There was room for progress 'tow~i'r'ds greater precision and, accor~ding to a recent articl'e by.~a consultor:of 22'5 J. PU~Z Reoieto for Religious the Congregation of Rites, the well-known Carmelite, Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, a distinct progress has been made during recent years. (Cf. Etudes Carmelitaines, 1949, pp. 175-88.~ This progress has not only a juridical importance for the process of beatification; it interest~ ascetical theology as well, since all Chris-tians are called to sanctity, and the type of holiness required by the Church for canonization determines the ideal of Christian perfection after which all must strive. T.he true Christian is the saint, and the saints are the standard by which we must guide and judge ourselves. Our imitation of.them must be based on a precise notion of what sanctity-~heroic virtue--consists in. Aqcording to Father Gabriel, the work of elaboration and deter-mination took place chiefly between 1916 and 1922, under the direct inspiration of Benedict XV. It can be followed in the decrees of the Congregation of Rites published on the occasion of the declara-tion of heroic virtue especially in the decrees concerning A. M. Gianelli (AAS, 1920, pp. 170-4)'and 3. N. Neumann (AAS, 1922, pp. 23-6). As a result, we are told, the Church is now in possession of a concept of heroic virtue more synthetic, less complicated and less abstract, more definite and easier to apply. This notion was clearly expressed in 1916 by Benedict XV, when he declared that "sanctity consists merely in conformity with the divine will, expressed in the constant and exact fulfillment of the duties of one's state." Sanctity, as the decree of April 11, 1920, explains, cannot be judged by an abstract standard. The saints cannot be reduced to one type. Heroism will vary according to each one's temperament, state of life, and other circumstances. It will not always show itself by extraordinary or stupendous deeds. For, as the decree' states, "these require a suitable occasion. But such occasions are rare and do not depend on the will of man; persecutions, for instance, plagues, or earthquakes cannot be produced at will. Hence, if holi-ness consisted in such deeds, it would follow that holiness itself does not depend on the will of man--which is absurd." The heroism to which all Christians can aspire is the exact and constant fulfillment of their concrete daily duties. "Comrounia sed non communiter,'" according to the motto of St. John Berchmans, doing common things but uncommonly well. What makes the saint is not the nature of his actions, whether extraordinary or common, important or insig-nificant; what counts is the intensity of his love that rules and in-spires all his actions. 226 September, 195 ! (]HRISTIAN HEROES Such fidelity implies real heroism, for nothing is more difficult to human nature than constancy. To be moved in everything by the will of God only, without being influenced by the ever-active sensi-bility, the sudden movements of the passions, the sense of fatigue, the ups and downs of one's n~oods.---such constancy supposes that the soul is under the perfect domination of the Holy Ghost and totally oriented towards its last end. Father Gabriel wrote in the same article, "If it were not so, if it were not perfectly purified, if other motives distinct from the love of God were still active (they can all be reduced to self-love, the root of all inordinate love of creatures), .then it would inevitably act more than once under the impulse of these motives and thus deviate from the pure fulfillment of the divine~ will." In such a soul "we admire a human nature tbat has reached a singular harmony and perfection--its spiritual forces keeping the sensible fac~lties in docile submission or completely conquering their resistance, so as to realize to perfection the task prescribed to it by the Lord: the perfect fulfillment of His holy will by a total, constant, ~nd generous fidelity to the daily duty." "Such sublime conduct, kept up over a long period, and without failure, is completely above the powers of human .nature left to itself . It alone suffices for evangelical heroism, for it makes man perfect in the way the heavenly ~Father is perfect." (Quoted by Benedict XIV in his treatise on beatification, III, c. 21, n. 10.) ! "'The heroism of the ordinary life has officially received a place by the side of the classical extraordinary heroism," wrote D. Pietro Brocardo. (Cf. Satesianum, 1950, p. 197.) Benedict XV's suc-cessor, the Pope who stressed the universal call of Christians to sanc-i. ,t~ty, often expounded this conception. Sanctity, according to Plus ~KI, is not something "exceptional," it is but the Christian life lived fully and intensely according to each one's vocation. Sanctity is but ~he fullest and richest expression of Christian life. It is the divine perfection proposed to all, from the humblest believer to the gigantic ~gures of hagiography. If not all are called to the same height of ~anctity, yet all are called to sanctity. His most famous pronounce-ment on this topic is his allocution published in Osservatore Romano, ~Jan. 6, 1928, on "the terrible everyday duty," given after the reading bf the decree of the heroic virtue of Brother Benildus, a humble leacher who had spent his whole life in elementary schoo.ls: "A humble servant of God, whose whole life was all modesty hnd silence, all very commonplace and very 'everyday.' But in such 227 Reoiew for Religious an. everyday- life how much there is that is not common! This everyday, always the same, with the same occupations, the same ~;eakness~s, the same miseries, has rightly been called 'the terrible ev'e'ryda3f:' How much strength is required to stand up to this ter-rible, this crushing, this monotonous, this asphyxiating everyday! An. un'c6mmon irirtue is very necessary to perform--not with an all too'° frequent negligence and superficiality but with attention and inner fe'rvbr of spirit--that series of common actions which fill our e'4ceryday life'. 0' "Holy Church is never a more equitable judge and a wi~er teacher of bdlinesk than when she honors these humble lights, so often unnoticed even by those who had the good fortun~ tosee them shine finder their i'er~, eyes. Extraordinary things, great events, magnifi-cei~ t enterprises arouse the noblest instincts: in the commonplace, on the:contrary, that is, in the flat and obscure everyday task, there is nothing exciting or fascin.ating. Yet this is the stuff the life of most men' is made of. How often do extraordinary circumstances present therfiselves in a lifetime? They are very rare, and woe to us if sanc-tity were reserved to extraordinary circumstances! What would the greater part of'~nankind do? For it is certain that all without dis-tinction are called to sanctity." " B'roth~r B~nil~tus was beatified twenty years later, on April 4, 1948. On that occasion Plus XII, too, spoke of the heroism of the ordinary life. Benildus was neither a founder, nor a mystic, nor a miracle-worker; h~.was a,~simple schoolmaster. His only claim to the honors' of the YChurch was his fidelity to duty--to his rules and the daily grind of the school. But such constant fidelity to the details of his di~ty, his radiant charity, his serenity in difficulties could only flow. frorrl a'ddep[and vigorous interior life and habitual union with Goal. ' :. ¯ During th~ Holy Year a variety of saints have been' beatified or e~rmn~zed." Maria Goretti w~s only eleven when she died, but she Was canonized as a martyr. Yet, even this extraordinary form of htroisrd;, the Pope pointed out, presupposes the "ordinary" heroism of the'daily life. Among the new beati is the first adolescent ever t'gised to the altars, Dominic Savio. So far, the youngest confessor ~fioni~ed is S~."Stanislaus; but he was a young man of eighteen ~nd, besides bein~ a religious, his life was out of the ordina.ry, Dominic died before he was fifteen, and his life was the very ordinary s~hool-b'oy life. The criterion of heroic virtue exposed by Father Gabriel 228 September, 1951 CHRISTIAN HEROES ,seems to havi~ made it possible for children and adolescerits to pass the test required for tl~e supreme honors of the Church. The eight saints canonized during the Holy Year of 1950 brought "the total number canonized by Plus XII tO twenty-two. Saints Emily de Rodat and Maria Goretti were also beatified by the present Holy Father. Among the canonized we find seven confessors and one martyr; one bishop, one priest-founder of a religious insti-tute, three foundresses of religious congregations, and three who attained sanctity "in the world": a middle-aged woman, a young woman, and a girl. Four are Italian, two French, one Spanish, and one from Latin America. Five belong to the nineteenth century, while the fifteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries each claim one. St. Jeanne de Valois (1464-1504) Jeanne de Valois, daughter, sister, and wife of kings, seemed to be so high-placed only to be the more cruelly humiliated and cast away. Her birth was a bitter disappointment for King Louis XI who already had a daughter and wanted a son who could succeed him. Misshapen by nature, she was sent away from the court and brought up by strangers. When still a child, she was bound by a political marriage to the young Duke of Orleans who detested her and who, when twenty years later he l~ecame King Louis XII, had his marriage annulled, makin,g of the rejected queen an object of public ridicule. But the greater her disgrace in the eyes of the world, the more clearly stands out her moral nobility and spiritual greatness. The "royal Cinderella," as she has been called, showed no bitterness, no morbid self-pity; she accepted everything with sincere humility, deep love for God and for men (including her husband for whom she never ceased praying and who became one of the best-loved kings of France), and whole-hearted application to the work God had given her. The king, on sending her away, made over to her the duchy of Berry, and during the six remaining years of her life she resided at Bourges, her capital, administering the duchy with such success that she earned from her pebple the title of "the Good Duchess."A'mid 229 J. PUTZ Review [or Religious the splendor of her court she secretly practiced" the most rigorous penances. In 1500 she realized a long-cherished project, the founda-tion of an order'of the Blessed Virgin, the Annqnciade. Its members were to take as their means of sanctification the imitation, the repro-duction of M~ry, by practicing, her "Ten Virtues" as found in the Gospel. She herself, though continuing to rule the duchy, made her religious profession and wore the habit under her worldly d~ess. She completed her work by founding a Third Order, the "Order of Peace,': whpse members, living in the world, were to work for peace and reconciliation. The Order of the Annonciade flourished for centuries, but was almost destroyed by the French Revolution. At ' present it has a half dozen bouses in Belgium, France, and England. When Joan died in her fortieth year she was immediately venerated as a saint. Her cult grew, miracles multiplied, but she was not formally beatified until 1742. Pius XII solemnlY proclaimed her a saint on May 28. In his homily the Holy Father stressed the saint's work for the promotion of peace; in heaven, he said, she continues to pray for the extinction of hate and for fraternal concord, so that the nations may form one great family, striving with united for~es to ensure prosperity and peace for all. On the following day, in an address to the numer-ous French pilgrims, he described the spirituM characteristics of the saint--spirit of faith, devotion to the Mother of Jesus ("an infallible test of the true. Christian"), union with Jesus in suffering--and gave her as an example tO French Catholics, particularly to the women of France "on'whom in the present crisis devolves a mission 9f supreme importance." SI. Mary Ann of Jesus (1618-1645) Born in Quito, Ecuador, of Spanish parents, this Saint of Latin America--"the Lily of Quito"--showed a precocious attraction for the things of the spirit. She took the three vows at ten and lived the live of a solitary in a room of her sister's wealthy home,.leaving it only to go to church and to visit the poor and sick. She practiced heroic austerities and was favored with sublime prayer. In 16~}5, when Quito was visited by earthquakes and a deadly plague, she publicly offered herself as a victim for the sins of the people. The skourge abated, but she was seized with a malady-which put an end to her short but intense life. She was only twenty-six. 230 September, 1~51 CHRISTIAN HEROES She was beatified by Plus IX in 1853. In 1946 "the Parliament of Ecuador declared her a "national heroine." Her canonizatiorl, the last of the Holy Year, took place on July 9.In his homily the Holy Father stressed three aspects, of her life: (1) immaculate purity; (2) ardent charity, which she practiced towards every misery, spir-itual and material: when she was powerless to help, she tried to obtain help from God by prayer, expiation, the offering of her life; (3) extraordinary austerity, inspired by the desire to expiate the sins of men. She offered herself as a~victim for the salvation of others. This question of mortification needs special stres.sing in the mod-ern world, the Pope said. "Not all, especially nowadays, understand this kind of penance; not all esteem it as they should. Many of our contemporaries despise it or neglect it. Yet we should know that for our fallen nature penance is absolutely necessa.ry. Unless y.ou do pena.nce you will all perish. Indeed, nothing heli3s more efficaciously to conquer our passions and to subject our natural instincts to the control of reason. And when we have won a victory over ourselves it is sweet to exp'erience a divine joy which surpasses' al'l earthly pleasures." In his allocution to pilgrims the following day, the Pope re-marked that we "who. live in the full light of the deyotion of the Sacred Heart may well admire the holy intuitions of this innocent victim who, at the beginning of .the seventeenth century, was led to make of reparation the centre of her spirituality." St. Vincent Strambi (1745-1824) St. Vincent Strambi was one of the great bishops and upholders of the Church's independence in the face of totalitfirian rulers. After being ordained a priest in 1767 he was received into the Passionist Congregation by St. Paul of the Cross himself. He was a great preacher of missions and director of souls (among his penitents was the Blessed Anna Maria Taigi) and filled high offices of authority in his order. In 1801 he was, much against his will, appointed bishop of Macerata and Tolentino by Plus VII. He administered his dio-cese with the zeal of another Charles Borromeo. Preoccupied chiefly with the formation of the clergy and the diffusion of religious in-struction, he brought about a religious renewal among priests and laity. When he refused to take the oath of. allegiance to the ustirping regime established by Napoleon he was expelled from his diocese in 231 J. PUTZ Review for Religious 1808 until the fall of the Emperor in 1813. In 1823 he resigned his see and died soon after in Rome, where Pope Leo XII had made him his confidential adviser." In the midst of his intense activity and the vicissitudes "of his life he never relaxed anything in the austerity of his private life. He was beatified, in 1925 and canonized on June 11, 1950. In his homily the Holy Father made an application to the countries where the Church is being oppress, ed by the secular power: "The Church can be attacked, she cannot be conquered . If under the present difficulties--which in some countries seem graver than those referred to above--some souls are disconcerted, wavering, or anxious, they should remember the promises of Jesu~ Christ and try to imitate the invincible fortitude of this saint as well as. his other virtues." St. Anthony Claret (1807-1870) St. Anthony Claret was another great priestly figure of the nine-teenth century. Born at Salient in the north of Spain, he practiced for a tired his father's trade of cloth-weaving, but eventually was able to follow his heart's desire and join the seminary of Vicb. After his ordination in 1835 and a few years of pa.rish work, he conse-crate'd himself with extraordiriary success to ~he preaching of missions and retreats throughout Catalonia. His zeal inspired other priests, and in 1849 he founded the Congregation of MissioriarySons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, commonly kno.wn.as the Claretians. The same year he was sent to Cuba as Archbishop of Santiago, to b~ing about there a much-needed reform: In this post of exceptional diffi-culty he achieved considerable results, though several attempts were made on his life. After seven years he was recalled to Spain to become the confessor of Queen Isabella II. In the revolution of 1868 he was banished from his country. He attended the Vatican Council where he spoke eloquently for the definition of papal infalli-bility. Soon after, .on Oct. 24, 1870, he died in France. Besides preaching some 10,000 sermons, h~ was an ardent apostle of the press. He wrote 120 books and pamphlets (144 volumes), founded religious libraries, and promoted the diffusion of good literature. He was beatified in 1934 and canonized on May 7, 1950. The work of this powerful apostle is carried on by the Cl~iretians who in 1949 celebrated their first centenary. They count at present Over 4,000 members in 24I establishments all over "the world. Their chief work is education, missions and retreats, and the aposfolate of 232 September, 1951 CHRISTIAN HEROES the press. In Rome they ~un the Poliglotta Press and edit the Corn-mentarium pro religiosis et missionariis. St. Emily de Radar (1787-1852) .' At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the French Revolu-tion and the long wars that followed it bad accumulated in France and Europe immense miseries, spiritual and material. Then Provi-dence raised up numerous saints who, impressed by the needs of their time, devoted themselves to remedy them. Rarely in the history of the Church do we find so many religious institutes springing up every-where, dedicated to the prac.tice of various v~orks of corporal and spiritual mercy. In this providential reconstruction women had a prominent share, and this explains why among the saints beatified or canonized by Pius XII there ale so many religious foundresses of this period. Emily de Radar was beatified by Plus XII in 1940 and canon-ized by the same on April 23, 1950. Born of an aristocratic family, she was brought up by pious parents but passed through a period of worldly frivolity and religious indifference. Converted during the Holy Year of 1804, she decided to consecrate'her life to the service of God. After trying several religious institutes, her visits to the poor made .her realize the great need for Catholic schools: She immedi-ately set to work: she had found her vocation. With three other young women she opened a school, and thus the Congregation of the Holy Family was started. Today it has over 200 houses in Europe and South America--schools, orphanages, hospitals. The H01y Father, in his homily, stressed the precious services rendered by reli-gious institutes of women: "When we consider the admirable enterprises of this saint, when we remember what her congregation and the other religious institutes --almost innumerable--have accomplished, we cannot but proclaim that the Church and civil society as well owe very much to all these religious women. If we did not have them, if God by His heavenly inspiration did not continually and in every century raise them up, if He did not sustain them by His help, who could fill their place? Let all, then, learn to praise them as they deserve, to help them as they can . And may the religious zealously and strenuously strive to live up to their lofty vocation." Saints Bartolomea Capltanio and Catherine Gerosa (1807-1833) (1784-1847) , Bartolomea Capitanio and Catherine Gerosa founded together 233 the Italian Sisters of Charity, after the model of St. Vincent de Paul's Sisters of Charity. Bartolomea began her apostolate at fourteen, teaching, little children. Soon her simple and strong personality drew to her, as to their mother, the young, the poor and afflicted of her little town of Lovere. Seeing the need to organize the ever-increaging work she joined forces with another saintly worker of the same town, Catherine, who was twenty years her senior and had already opened a hospital for the sick poor. Bartolomea died a few years later, at the early age of twenty-six. Her spiritual notes and instructions, as well as a considerable number of her letters, have been published. She left the young institute to the care of Catherine (who had ~dopted the name of Vincenza), an extremely bumble woman, yet an efficierit worker and able organizer. During the fourteen years she had still to live, the congregation continued to expand 'rapidly Today it counts nearly 9,000 religious in some 500 houses. Barto-lomea' was beatified in 1926; Vincenza in 1933T.hey w~re canon-ized together on May 18, 1950. St. Maria Gorettl (1890-1902) No canonization war received with greater enthusiasm than that of the humble village girl who died for the preservation of her purity The ~tory of her martyrdom is. known to all our readers. Her popu-larity and the speed of her promotion to the highest honors of the Church ha~e been equalled or surpassed in modern times only by the Little Flower of Lisieux. Her cause was introduced in 1938 and concluded in 1945. The solemn beatification took place on April 27, 1947, and she was canonized three years later, on June.-24, 1950, forty-eight years after her death. " (Teresa of Lisieux died on Sept. 30, 1897, was beatified on April 29, 1923, and canonized on May 17, 1925. Aloysius Gonzaga was beatified fourteen years after his death, bu~ another' centu.ry passed before be was canonized.) In spite of her youth, Maria was capable of heroism, and this heroism showed itself also in the pardon accorded to her miarderer on her' deathbed and in. the superhum~t'n patience during the extremely painful operation by which,the doctors tried to save her, withou~ putting her to .sleep,. D.ur!ng those tWO. long., hours Mary never complained but kept invoking the help of the" BlEssed Virgin. For .sush :heroism, the Holy F,a.ther point.e~d 6ut.in his allocution, the 23~, September, 195 I. CHRISTIAN HEROES courageous child had prepared herself by the daiIy practice of the virtues of her state: "It is true that it is above all purity that sho~e in Maria Goretti's martyrdom, but with it. and in it the other Christian virtues tri-umphed as well. In that purity there was the most evident and sig-nificant affirmation of the perfect control of the soul over matter. In that supreme heroism, which cannot be improoised, there was the tender, obedient," and active love for the parents, self-sacrifice in the hard work~of every day, poverty accepted in an evangelical spirit and sustained by trust in Providence, religion embraced tenaciously, deepened ever more, ~ssimilated as a treasure of life and nourished by the flame of prayer; the fervent desire of ~lesus in the Eucharist, and finally--the crown of charity--the heroic pardgn accorded to the murderer. All this forms a rustic garland, so dear to God, of country flowers which adorned the white veil of her First Com-munion and, shortly after, her martyrdom." The beatifications of the Holy Year, like the canonizations were eight in number. The total of those beatified by Pope Plus XII at the end of 19~0 is now'fifty-two; this includes the twenty-nine Chinese martyrs. Among those beatified during the Holy Year we find one priest, one boy, and six foundresses of religious institutes: two Spanish, two Italian, and two French. All except one belong to the nineteenth century. Blessed Vincen~ Pallo~f~ (1795-f850). Vincent Pallotti was the apostle of Rome at a difficult period of histo~-y.-After his ordination and a double doctorate at the Sapienza, he started his apostolate among students and it soon became clear that Rome possessed a holy priest. He was made confessor of Propaganda College, the English College, the Roman Seminary. On all of them his influence was deep. But his preferences were for the poor and the workers; he opened professional and agricultural schools and pro-moted t?ade unions. His zeal embraced the whole world and every" need, spiritual and material. For this "universal" object he founded the Society of the Catholic Apostolate (a society :of" priests and Brothers living in common without public vows, commonly known ,235 J. PUTZ Reoieu~ for Religious as the Pallottines) and the Sisters of the Catholic Apostolate. He took a special interest in the conversion of England and sent to that country some of his best men. He realized, more than a century ago, the immense possibilities and the necessity of the lay apostolate, and Pius XI called him a "pioneer and precursor of Catholic Action." This bold and far-sighted planner was a man of incredible humility, considering himself an obstacle to the progress of the Church and accepting without a word the most cruel humiliations. He always kept his predilection f.0r the poor, giving them even his own clothes. He died of a pleurisy contracted as a consequence of giving his mantle to a destitute man. Today 3,550 Pallottines and 2,900 Sisters of the Catholic Apos-tolate continue the saint's w.ork in many countries. Vincent's beati-fication was the first of the Holy Year; it took place on Jan. 22, exactly 100 years after hi~ death. A few days later the Pope pointed out "this great sacerdotal figure" as an example to parish priests and preachers. His sermons, he said, were always directed to the ur~uro nec.essarium; his confessional was eagerly sought after and surrounded with extraordinary effects of grace, "May his spirit be renewed in every one of you and infuse into your apostolate that .irresistible glow of love which the doubting, uncertain, and suffering men of today need so much." Blessed Marla-Soledad Torres y Acosta (1826-1887) Maria started her apostolate of charity in a squalid quarter of Madrid. With her h'elp the parish priest opened a hospital for. the ¯ poor. Eventually she had to take charge of the whole work, which she stabilized and perpetuated by founding a religious congregation, the Servants of Mary. Her institute during her lifetime spread from Spain to South America. At present it counts some 1,600 members. She was beatified on Feb. 5, 1930. Blessed Vincenta-Maria Lopez y Vicuna (1847-1890) Vincenta was born of an aristocratic Spanish family. Sent to Madrid for her higher education, she became interested there in the charitable Work of her aunt who, shocked by the difficulties and dangers of the lives of domestic servants, had opened a home for them. Vincenta refused a brilliant match arranged by her father and 236 Se'ptembe¢, 19:51 CHRISTIAN HEROES took the vow of chastity. After her father's death she used her con-siderable fortune.to develop her work of social assistance. To further extend it she founded the Daughters of Mary Immaculate for the protection of young women. At'present they number, nearly 2,000 members in various countries. Their hostels for domestic servants, working-girls or students provide for the material and spiritual wel-fare of well over 30,000 young women. She was beatified on Feb. 19, 1950. Blessed Paola-Elizabeth Cerloli. (1816-1865) Like Vinc~nta she was bor~ of a noble family in Northern Italy. But at nineteen, not feeling called to the religious life, she followed the wish of her parents and married an old widower,Count Buzecchi, forty years her senior. After the death of her husband and three children she was then tl~irty-eight--she consecrated her time and income tO assisting the poor peasants and farmhands of the sur-rounding country. In 1857 she started a religious community, the Sisters of the Holy Family of Bergamo, for the care of orphans and morally abandoned children. In 1950 this institute counted some 300 members. The saint was also instrumental in founding a simi-lar institute for men, the Priests of' the Holy Family. The brief of canonization compares her with St. Joan de Chantal, an angel in four states of life, girl, wife, widow, and religious. She was beatified on March .19, 1950. Blessed Maria ~e Mattias (1805-1866) Maria was born in the diocese of Gaeta. When she was seven-teen, she attended a mission preached by the Blessed Gaspar del Bufalo, a friend of Blessed Vincent Pallotti and founder of the Mis-sionaries of the Most,Precious Blood. The holy preacher to whom she opened'her soul recognized her great gifts and entouraged her to take up the apostolate of Christian education. She began by gath-ering the little children in her parental home, and in 1834 she founded.a convent and a school. This was the beginning of the in-stitute of the "Adoratrici" of the Most Precious Blood, which today has 215 houses in Italy and 172 in other parts of the world, with some 2,000 members. She was beatified on Oct. 15, 1950. Blessed Anne-Marie Javouhey (1779-1851) The child of a farmer of Burgundy, she grew up amid the horrors 237 J., PUTZ Reaie~a [or Religious of the French Revolution, sometimes risking her life. in order to hide and assist priests. At nineteen she vowed perpetual Chastity and re-solved to dedicate her life to the education of children and the care of the sick. As other girls joined her in the work she c~nceived the plan of her new congregation, the Sisters of St. Joseph, called "of Cluny" from the place of the mother house. Soon she made founda-tions in mission countries, Africa, Pondicherry, French Guiana, and others. A woman of remarkable energy and intrepid enterprise' (King Louis Philippe said admiringly, "Madame Javouhey, that's a great man"), she frequently visited her missions, worked for the abo-lition of slavery and for the organization of public services in the colonies. From the start she realized the necessity of forming an indigenous clergy, and in order to accelerate the work she brought to France the first Negro candidates for the priesthood. Today the Sisters of St. Joseph are found in every part 'of the world, working in schools, hospitals, leper asylums, and other institutions. She was beatified on Oct. 15, 1950. Blessed Marguerite Bourgeo~ys (1620-1700) This blessed takes us back to the seventeenth century and to the great period of ~he Canadian missions. John de Brebeuf was mar-tyred in 1649. The Ursuline missionary-contemplative Marie de l'Incarnation died in Quebec in 1672. Margaret, who had first tried the contemplative life with the Carmelites and the Poor Clares in her native France, found bet vocation when .the Governor of Montreal came to France and tried to find a teacher for the children of the French garrison of Ville-Marie. She offered her services and in 1653 reached Montreal, where she .began bet apostolate by teaching the catechism and visiting the sick in their huts. In 1658, with some companions whom she bad brought out from France the previous year, she founded the congregation of Notre Dame of Montreal, which became an important educational factor for the whole of Canada and. since 1860, for the United States (at present 5,680 members). Margaret, "schoolmistress and itinerant mis~iorlary,;' opened mission schools ff;r Indian girls, many of whom became zealous Sisters in the institute. Thus, as the Pope remarked in his address to Canadian pilgrims, she realized among the "savage" Huron girls what St. Francis de Sales had dreamt of for France, a congrega-tion of non-cloistered "secular daughters." She was beatified on November 12, 1950. 238 September, 1951 JOY IN HEAVEN Blessed Dominic Savlo (1842-1857) Blessed Dominic, beatified on March 5, is the Benjamin of the confessors raised to the altars, since he was not quite fifteen when he died, The son of a modest but deeply Christian family, he very early showed a special earnestness and resoluteness in his piety. His First Communion, which he made at seven, .definitely set his will towards the goal of sanctity. In 1854 be was received by Don Bosco into the oratorio of Turin. Here~ under the saint's direction, and fos-tered by special graces, his spiritual life developed rapidly; but after two ~,ears a sickness obliged him to return to his home, where he died a few months later. His life was written by Don Bosco him-self. The decree declaring the heroism of his virtues was published in 1933. The beatification of this youthful masterpiece of divine grace--grace to which he corresponded heroically--will no doubt encourage new studies on the nature of sanctity and .especially of children's sancti~j'. [EDITORS' NOTE: The foregoing article is reprinted with permissi'on from The Clergy Montfily, a magazine published in India.] Joy in I-le ven Richard L. Roone}', S.J. "I,"HE Archangel in charge of the recording angels had called a | meeting of the guardians of religious. They were met in his skyey office high above the battlements of heaven. "Quite frankly, Angels, my aide~ are alarmed about this whole business," he was telling them. "The number of 'kicks,' complaints, criticisms and 'crabs' that l)hey have to record for religious is prepos-terous. They're even wondering if these human creatures will be satisfied and happy and content even here in heaven! They have found one hope, however. They feel sure that Purgatory will take all the 'kick' out of these kickers. You Gufirdian Angels do a grand job keeping your charges living up to their vows and observing the larger phases of religious life. It is time, nevertheless, that you went to work on this complaining business. It may relieve their human ,239 RICHARD L. ROO~EY feelings to 'crab' 6r to criticize. It doesn't add to God's glory or to their own merit however. So please, now, to business." The guardians, your own among them, filed out of' .the office and winged earthward. They came, each of them equipped with ques-tionnaires like the following. How would you answer them if your Angel Guardian put one before you during your next examen? 1. Do you find yourself complaining quite often? 2. What (or who!) is your p, et peeve? 3. Do you "kick" about the weather, the c~ll or the room you have, the house you are'in, the food you are. served, the work you have been assigned? 4. Do you ever "crab" about superiors or their directions? 5. Have you a few kindred souls with whom you get together to talk over the way things would be done if you were in charge of them ? 6. Do you firm., and vocalize about it. that the community is a pretty dull, or annoying lot? 7. Are you heaping up a pretty severe judgment for yourself by judging others . . . and that right severely? 81 There is a lot of sense in the little poem: Two men looked through prison bars; One saw mud, the other sad2 stars. Well, what do you see in the rest of us most of the time? 9. Do you accept the ordinary pin-pricks of daily religious life without grumbling? (Remember you are an especially selected member of a thorn-crowned Head.) i0. Can you put all of ydur words and remarks, both within the community and to externs, on the paten of tomorrow's Mass and know that they will be acceptable to God? After scanning the above you may find that it will be a good thing to take your particular examen off such undisturbingly im-practical generalities as humility or charity at large and particularize it at least on keeping a strict guard over your "kicking" tongue. If so, go to it! The best of success to you! Know that you will be a delight not only tO your. fellow religious but to the saints and angels and God Himself as well! 240" Passionist:ic Spiri!:uali!:y' Fidelis Rice, C.P. IN THE INFINITE 'reaches of eternity, within the secret council of the Godhead, the Wisdom and Love of God decreed that all of creation should reflect in.a unique way the ineffable perfections of God. Because God is absolutely infinite--that is, without any limits whatever--no creature could ever exhaust the divine imitabil-ity. Since the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Word, is the Exemplar of all that is, iherefore each creature is called upon in its own distinct way to teA1 us a little more. about the vastness, the goodness, and the perfection of the Word. "All things were madd by Him, and without Him was made nothing that was made." In the realm 6f souls our reflection of the divine holiness is to be accomplished by a participation in the Christ-Life. For each soul is predestined from all eternity to manifest in time the eternal Holiness which is God. There is a uniqueness, then, in the destiny of each soul. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who" has blessed us with spirftual blessings in heavenly places, in Christ. As He chose us in Him, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unspotted in His sight, in charity." (Ephesians, 1:3, 4.) Here the great Apostle reveals to us that our holiness is planned and designed in eternity, but according to the pattern of Christ. We are all called to mirror the holiness of the Word, but each soul in a different way. There is, then, a wondrous blending of unity and multiplicity in the pattern of holiness. Christ is one, the unique model of all holiness. But because of the limitations of our nature, because of our very creaturehood, each one of us will reflect the holiness of Our Lord in a so.mewhat different way, just as various artists in painting the same subject will use a varying contrast, a difference of light and shadow, greater or less use of chiaroscuro, until the completed can-vases, while basically the same, will manifest vast differences. ¯ So it is that in the various religious orders and societies, approved by the Church, there is a difference of pattern in the design for holi-ness, although, all are dedicated to the one supreme objective--the perfect imitation of Christ. The essential spirit of each religious order is imparted, first of 241 FIDELIS RICE Retaieto for Religious all, by the founder of the institute. Plus XI clearly states that the various founders of religious institute~ were guided in a special way by the Holy Spirit, who seeks alway,s to communicate to the Mysti-cal Body.of Christ the graces purchased by His precious death upon the cross. "For what else did these most illustrious men do in founding their institutes, but obey the inspirations of God? There-fore, let their followers show forth in themselves those characteristic traits which the Founders imprinted upon their several Institutes. Let them not fail in this." ("Unigenitus"; A.A.S., Vol. XVI, p. 133.) The key, therefore, to essential Passionistic spirituality is to ,be found in the life and work of Saint Paul of the Cross, and Passion-ists can be called "Passionists" only insofar as they adhere to his teachings and to his spirit. ° It was the unique genius of Paul of the Cross to combine in one Rule the best features of two apparently contradictory or opposing states of life. For he willed that his religious should cherish and foster the contemplative observance of choir monks, centering all in the liturgical, prayer of the Office, while at the same time fulfilling the sublime vocation of a missionary apostolate. In the mind of Paul of the Cross, missionary activity should flow spontaneously, from the life of prayer, thus verifying the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas that the function of the apostolate is "tradere contemplata aliis"--"to'give to others the fruits of contemplation." Because the consuming passion of the life of St." Paul of the Cross was love for the sufferings of 2esus Christ, he wanted his religious to share, in a special way, in the redemptive sacrifice of Christ. That is, the Passionist vocation is in a special way a vocation to a life of reparation. The inmost spirit of the Passionist Rule is the spirit of solitude, penanee, poverty, and prayer. In unforgettable language Saint Paul of the Cross described the spirit of his institute in a cir-cular letter which he sent to his religious for the Feast of Pentecost, May 2nd., 1750. "Most beloved Sons, you are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Therefore, as dead to all that is not °God, r~main in the most perfect detachment from all created things, in true poverty of spirit, and in detachment from sensible consola-tions. Assisted by the most holy grace of ,lesus, direct all your zeal to this end--to be recollected in interior solitude; then you will become true adorers of the Sovereign Good in spirit and in truth . Never withdraw from the holy Wounds of Christ, but ever strive 242 September, 1951 PASSIONISTIC SPIRITUALITY more and more that your souls become hidden in and entirely pene-trated by them." (Letters: Vol. IV, p. 226.) Saint Paul of the Cross was one of the most privileged of mys-tical souls with which God has endowed the Church, but his very mysticism bore the unique character of his vocation. For although he received the grace of the "transforming union" or "mystical mar-riage"-- the highest grace of mystical prayer--at a very early age, yet for over fifty years thereafter he continued in the profound suf-ferings of the Dark Night of the Soul, a fact which Father Garrigou7 Lagrange, O.P., calls almost unique in the lives of the saints. Because Paul of the Cross was a master of prayer, it is not to be wondered at that he should insist upon a spirit of constant prayer. for his followers. In his Rule .he states in the very first chapter that "Prayer is one of the chief objects of our Congregation." The Passionist Rule, as it is observed in our monasteries in the United States today, prescribes, beside the Divine Office, two hours of mental prayer each day--an hour in the morning, and an hour in the eve-ning. Including the time that is devoted to the Divine Office; the Passionist, in the daily routine of his monastic day, spends close' to five hours in prgyer. One of the features of Passionistic prayer is the observance of the night office, for Passionists rise ea, ch morning at two o'clock to chant Matins and Lauds before the Blessed Sacrament. This observ-ance lasts one hour, and the religious retire again at three, to rise once more at dawn for Prime and Tierce. This nocturnal observance is one of the cherished ~xercises of the penitential spirit bequeathed by Saint Paul of the Cross to his sons. In order that the spirit of prayer might always be preserved in the Congregation, Saint Paul prescribed most riggrously that Pas-sionist monasteries be built always in places of solitude, and with every safeguard that the spirit of solitude be not violated nor intruded upon. Hence, even when built in the heart of large cities, there must always be sufficient acreage for gardens and privacy for the solitary walks prescribed by rule. Many of our 'American "monasteries are now surrounded by teeming residential sections, but when they were built they stood alone, in the midst of solitude. The cities have come to the monasteries, but because of the wise prescriptions of the Rtile the spirit of solitude is still safeguarded. However, the spirit Of the Passionist Congregation is also a spirit of apostolic activity. As the present Superior General, Most Rev- 243 FIDELIS RICE Review for Religious erend Albert Deane, C.P., wrote in a recent circular letter to the Con-gregatio, n: "On the day it would cultivate the contemplative life ex-clusively, the Congregation would cease to be what 'our Holy Founder instituted. Nor could he be said to be a good Passionist, who without legitimate cause would'omit to do what he could to attain the apostolic end of our Congregation, although under the p.retext of better caring for his own salvation. His religious profes-sion demands otherwise of him." In this ~ame document, our Most Reverend Father General has beautifully epitomized the heart of the Passionistic spirituality: "For our spirit, dearest Sons, can be likened to a'pyramid, made of the spirit of prayer, penance, and the apostolate, but held together by the fire of devotion to Christ suffering, having no other apex to which the ~exalted Passionist life converges than our configuration to Christ Crucified, whom we must preach by word and by example: 'We preach Christ and Him Crucified.' This is what the words say which we carry engraven over our hearts; this reminds us, if perhaps we sometimes forget, of our very name itself, for we are popularly called 'Passionists'.',' . The primary work of the Passionist Congregation, then, is a reflection of its inner'spirituality--the preaching of popular mis-sions, and retreats to the clergy and religious, as well as to the laity. Passionists conduct no schools, except for the education i~f their own subjects. They engage in parish work only as an exception, and for clearly defined needs in a particular locality. They are above all, preachers of the Passion of 3esus Christ. To this end they take a special vow to promote in the hearts of others, devotion to the Pas-sion of oresus Christ. They do, however, engage in foreign mission work, and they are likewise working among the colored in the South. Saint Paul of the Cross was a staunch advocate of enclosed re-treats for the laity. Cherishing, as he did, the wonderful advan-tages of holy solitude, it is not surprising that he would wish to share these advantages and blessings with the laity. And so he wrote into his Rule the prescription that in each monastery rooms should be provided for lay retreatants. In most of our American monasteries we have special retreat houses for men, and a flourishing retreat movement is an integral part of our Passionist family life. Because Paul of the Cross was consumed by the love of Jesus Christ Crucified, he burned with the desire to bring the riches of His death to the souls of men. He was profoundly aware of the 244 September, 1951~ . PASSIONISTIC SPIRITUALITY meaning of the priestly vocation, and realized fully that a p~iest must always communicate to the Mystical Body 6f Christ the life purchased by the sufferings of Ouk Lord. But he knew, too, that the most fruitful apostolate is that which is the overflow of prayer, rather than a substitute for it. Hence it was that no matter how gifted a missionary might be, no matter how eloquent on the mission-platform, and no matter how great the demand for his services, Saint Paul of the Cross rig- . orously required that each missionary spend a suitable portion of.the year in the solitude and quiet of the monastery. Although far wise to reduce this to a mathematical formula, the founder of the Passionists imposed upon superiors and missionaries alike the obli-gation to. preserve always in the Congregation this time of with-drawal each year from the exhausting round of activity. The demands for our services have grown with the years, and no fixed calend,a'r tan be drawn up which governs the exact details, but our superiors still strive faithfully and sincere!y to arrange the schedule for-each mis-sionary, so that he may spend a sufficient amount of time.withih the mona.stery each year. Saint Paul of the Cross was profoundly con-vinced that "one Religious who is a. man of prayer and lover of solitude will bring forth more spiritual fruit from the ministry than a thousand others who are not such." (Letters, Vol. III, 418.) .,. The Passlonlst family circle is made up of three groups: tl~e priests, the students or clerics, "and the lay brothers. ¯ In most of our American monasteries all three groups are found, for most of our monasteries are also houses of study, or seminaries in which young men are preparing for the priesthood. Our lay brothers, a shitable time after the profession of their perpetual vows, are admitted to }ecreation with the priests; and the recreation is common ~f(;r these two groups. The students remain always in a separate r~creation. The day's horarium.is divided bet.ween prayer and study. The day is spent in silence, except for the two brief recreation periods each day. Three days of fast and abstinence are .observed each week-- Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. During the entire time of Ad-vent and Lent, Sundays included, abstinence from meat is the rule within the monastery. Paul 6f the Cross does not want his sons to forget that t,hey must bd men of penance. For this reason, too, san-dals are worn on the bare feet, and a ro.ugh woolen h.abit is worn the year round. The Passionistic ideal;" then, is to share as intimately as possible 245 FIDELIS RICE. o in the sublime virtues which shone, forth so re~splendently on Cal-vary. It is the vocation proclaimed so sublimely by Saint Paul the Apostle in his Epistle to the Colossians: "Who now rejoice in my sufferings foF you, and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ in my flesh, for His body, which is the Church." (Colossians, 1:25.) So it was that that other P~ul, Paul of the Cross, sought to instill into his followers a burning love for the Crucified, a love which would make them conform their own lives by penance, solitude, prayer, and poverty, to the ideals of Calvary, that they might go forth to preach the glories and the ignominies of the Cross of Jesus Christ. The r~assionist spirit might be summed up in one word, "Stau-rosophy," for "stauros" is the Greek word for the Cross.; ,The sons of Paul o'f the Cross must remain ever absorbed by the wisdom or the "philc~sophy" of the Cross. Wisely has the Church selected the Introit for the Mass on the Feast of St. Paul of the Cross: "Christ0 confixus sum cruci." . "With Christ I am nailed to the cross." (Ga-latians, 2:19.) No other words of Sacred Scripture could epitomize more simply the ess.dntial spirit of this great lover of the Crucified, and of the form of life which he has bequeathed to his sons, who wear that habit of mourning first shown to Paul of the Cross in vision, by the Mother of God, when she told him to founc~ an order whose members would devote their lives to mourning for the sor-rows of Her Son. OUR CONTRIBUTORS F1DELIS RICE, writer and missionary, is on the mission band at St. Joseph's Passionist Monastery, Baltimore, Maryland. J. PUTZ, the editor Of Clergg Month-lg and author of Mg Mass, and P.DE LETTER, a recent contributor to American ecclesiastical journals, teach at St. Mary's theologate, Kurseong, India¯ RICHARD L. ROONEY is on the Queen's Work staff and editor of Action Now. C.A. HERBST and CLARENCE MCAULIFFE are o£ the faculty of St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas, . , : PLEASE NOTE CAREFULLY The sul~scripfion pHce of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is now: $3.00"per year for" Domestlc.end ,Canadian subscriptions; $3.35 per yeer for all for~icjn subscrip-fio'ns. For further de~'ails please see inside back cover. 246 Modesty C. A. Herbst, S.J. ~4 ~t man's looks betray him: a man of good sense will make him-self known to thee at the first meeting; the clothes he wears, . the smile on his lips, his gait~ will all make thee acquainted with a man's character" (Ecclus. 19:26, 27. Knox version). This' is the Holy Spirit's description of modesty. Following His directive, St. Thomas teIIs us that this virtue is concerned with "the movement and actions of the body; that all of them, those gone through in fun as well as the serious ones, may be decent and proper." (Summa Theologica, 2-2, q. 160, a. 2.) Dress is also included. The cardinal virtue of temperance controls pleasure coming from food, drink, and ' sex, the most difficult things. Modesty, a part of temperance, takes care of the lesser. A subordinate in the hierarchy of authority takes ~in hand the little things. Modesty is therefore not at all the s~me thing' as chastity or purity, as many quite commonly presume, though it may be more or less connected with it. Not one's interior only but one's exti~rior, too, must be con-formed to the .norm of right reason. The easy and evident way for u_s to strive to achieve this is "to imitate Christ. "We must look with the eyes of the soul on that wonderful leader 'beautiful above the sons of men' in the ordinary dress He wore at home . Erect of body and with perfect composure His gait was neither too hurried nor too slow. There was nothing soft or effeminate, not.hiog childish or lackadaisical about Him. Neither could anything gloomy or exasperating be seen in Him, nor was there any assumed gravity. He was not singular nor finicky. His Whole being breathed sweetness, joy, kindness, majesty." (Le Gaudier, De Perfectione Vitae Spirit-ualis, Pars IV, caput xviii.). "Jesus began to do and to teach," first to tellus by His exampl~ how tb act, only later by His words. Our exterior modesty should be, as His, for the glory of God. "So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven." It should make us more like God. "God cre~ ~ted man to his 6wn image: to the "image of God he created him." Man's likeness to God is, of course, in the soul, in his interior sanc-tity, but that interior dignity and perfection should shine forth, so 247 ¯ C. A. HERBST Reoeiw [or Religiou~ to speak, in the ,modesty of his exterior as through a beautiful and translucent garment, or as the rays of the sun make a cloud all silver and gold. That "image of God" ou.ght somehow to be mani-fested in the body. "Because man's body alone of all the animals on earth is not bowed down to the ground but so made that it can better contemplate the heavens, it can justly be said' that it is made more t6 the image and likeness of God than the bodies of other animals, as Augustine says. But this must not be understood to mean that the image of God is in man's body but that the very form of. the human body represent.s the likeness of God in the soul like a trace." (S. Th., 1, ,q. 93, a. 6.) The importance of modesty in the life of a religious can hardly be overestimated. One is forced to this conclusion from reading the masters of the spiritual life and by noting the Christian tradition through the centuries. The statement made by St. Ambrose in this matter is a classic. "Modesty must be preserved in our very move-ment, carriage, and gait. Our habit of mind is reflected in our body. "Thence the real man hidden away in the heart, the light-headed 6r careless or turbulent man or, on the contrary, the more serious or steady or more upright or more mature man can be ascertained. The motion of the body, therefore, can be called the voice of ~he soul." (De Of Kciis, I, 18.) St. Bernard says: "Modesty is the greatest of orn~ments in reli-gious, especially in the young. This is so true that if they do not cherish it there is little hope of their becoming good or virtuous . Lack of external composure in the body is a sign of an indevout mind." (Ad Quid Venisti?, xvii.) Knowing how very closely bod~r and soul are united we are not surprised to hear Hugh of St. Victor say: "As of a wandering mind are born disordered move-ments of the body, so when the body is brought under discipline the soul is made strong. Little'by little the mind within is brought to rest when under the watchful eye of dis.cipline its disorderly move- "ments are not allowed to flow to the exterior." (Delnstttuttone' " " Novitiorum, X.) So exterior modesty m.akes even a greater contri-bution to the soul than it does to the body. St. Vincent Ferrer'thought that a warrior of Christ could never free his soul from disorder if he did not first endeavor to rid his body of what was unseemly. From all of which it would seem to be clear why modesty is so much emph.asized in the beginning of the re!igious life: modesty of action and, incidentally, "modesty of words," which 248 Septernber~ 195 l MODESTY is silence. Even a beginner.can superimpose upon himself external order in the blessed hope that from it will come to him an array of spiritual goods. For it is easier to bring one's exterior under subjec-tion than one's interior. Mqdesty has a great apostolic value. St. Basil says that a virgin should "be seen by those who n~eet her to be such in habit and gait and every movement as to reflect the likeness of God. The eyes of those who behoId her should be incited to modesty and their mind instructed in virtue. They.should hold that sight in honor and, as I have said, show deference to and revere that image of God. As pictures of' satyrs make one laugh and as sad pictures fill the mind , with sorrow . so a virgin, since she is the picture--nay, the very reproduction--of purity, should even if merely seen raise the thoughts of those who behold her up to God . Avirgin, therefore, should be very careful to reproduce in herself the divine image in all t.hings." (Patrologia Graeca, 30, 714-715.) St. Francis of Assisi was most eloquent by his modesty. "It is told ofthe blessed St. Francis that he said one day to his companion, ~'Let us go to preach,' and so went out, took a turn in the city, and returned home. His companion said to him: 'BUt father, are v~e not preaching?' 'We have already preached,' he answered. That sedate-ness and modesty with which they, went through the streets was a very good sermon; it moved people to devotion and to contempt of the world, to compunction for their sins, .and to the raising of their hearts, and desires to the.things of the next world. This is a sermon in action, more effectual than one in w6rd.". (Rodriguez, Practice of Perfection and Christian Virtues, II, x, 1.) The very sight of the young Saints Aloysius, Stanislaus, John Berchmans, and Gabriel of the Sorrowful Mother raised men's hearts to God. The gr.eat in-fluence for good of the pr.ayerfuI, recollected, and modest bearing of those who love God is but another striking instance of "actions speaking louder than words." That is why St. Ignatius said: "And hence it will follow that, considering one another, they will increase in devotion and praise our Lord God, whom every one must strive to acknowledge in another as in His image." (Constit. S.d., P. III, c. i, n, 4.) .The beginner must practice modesty, and by doing so he exer- Cises himself in many virtues. But modesty is also the mark of the perfect. A well-ordered exterior shows great interior'perfectlon. The man who has achieved this has already made great'prggr.ess. One 249 C. A. HER,BST Reveiu~ for Relig:ous who habitually and gracefully has his exterior under control has gone far in the direction of self-mastery. If one has to be mortified to be decent, as our novice master used to say, what constant mortifi-cation and vigilance must be necessary .to put on the modesty of Christ. For this, persevering and almost heroic self-conquest is neces-sary. In this connection it might be well to remark that if we put ourselves through the discipline and took all the pains from a super-natural motive to put on modesty, which is the etiquette of God's ch.ildren, that the children of .the world do to don good manners in public and social life, our merit would i~deed be surpassing great and our spirit of sacrifice supreme. "And they indeed that they may receive a corruptible crown; but we an incorruibtible one" .(I Cor. 9:25). But then, "the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light" (Luke 16:8). Founders of religious orders have given special directives, "rules of modesty," for regulating external deportment. As those given by St. Ignatius of Loyola even now influence many thousands of reli-gious, it might be well to give some of them here. "All must be exactly careful to guard the gates of their senses (especially their eyes, their ears, and their tongue) from all disorder, and preserve themselves in peace and true internal humility, showing it in silence when it is to be kept, and when they have to speak, in the circum-spection. and, edification of their words, in the modesty of tbelr coun-tenance, gravity of their gait and whole carriage, without any sign of impatience or prided' (Constit. S.d., P. III, c. 1, n. 4.) "In all out-ward actions there should appear modesty and humility, joined with religious gravity. The bead should not be turned this way and that way lightly, but with gravity, when need shall require; and, if there be no need, it must be held straight, with a little inclination forward, without leaning on either side. For the most part, they should keep their eyes dowfi, neither immoderately lifting them up, nor casting them now one way., now another. Wrinkles on the forehead, and still more on the nose, are to be avoided, that there may appear out-wardly a serenity which may be a token of that which is interior. The whole countenance should show cheerfulness rather than sadness or any less moderate affection. The lips must neither be too much. shut nor too much open. The pace should be moderate, without any notable has,.te, unless necessity should require it; in which case, however, a care of decorum should be had. In fine, every gesture and movement should be such as to give edification to all men." (Rule~ 250 September, .MODESTY or: Modesty.). St. Paul says in another connection: "When I was a child,. I °spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child. But, when I became a man, I put away the tlSings of a child" (I Cor. 13: 11).'A child must hear and see and taste and smell and touch every-thing. But when he grows up he is willing to put away the things of a child--nay, is eager to. We can hardly imagine a grown-up going on playing with his toys. A man loses taste for such things. So is one as he becomes spiritually mature gradually weaned away, as he attains to th~ full stature of Christ, from the surface pleasure of the senses and the allurements of sense satisfaction. This is the more true the more he grows to relish the things of God. Then the curious ears and roving eyes and anything unbecoming in the countenance. carriage, and gait of childhood give place to that maturity and serenity proper to men and women at horhe with their Father the King. The practice of modesty is not only for religious propriety, or edification, or mortification, or to foster recollection, or to make pos-sible and encourage spiritual development and high interior activity. It is also to keep, our soul from becoming sick or maimed by venial sin or perhaps even killed by mortal sin. "Death is come .up through our windows" said the prophet (Jer.°9:21). St. Bernard comment~: "Death enters our windows when, with prying eyes and itching ears. we insist upon administering to ourselves the deadly cup of distrac-tion." (Sermo 24 in Cantic.) And St. Ambrose: "Who, midst so many bodily passions, midst so many snares of this world, can go along safe and undefiled? The eye sees: the mind is perverted. The ear bears: our attention is drawn away. We sm~ll something: our thoughts are 9bstructed. The lips drink: sin enters in. We touch" something, and we are inflamed with desire." (De Fuqa Saeculi, cap. 1.) That is why Christ, so mindful of human, weakness, instituted for the very end of life a special sacrament for the removal of the re-mains of sin contracted through seiase experience. At the last anointing the priest places the~holy oil "'on the eyes because of sight, on the ears because of hearing, on the nostrils because of smell, on the mouth bedauseof taste and speech, on the hands because of touch, on the feet because of Walking" (Council of Flore~nce, Decretum pro .Arrnenis) saying: "By this holy anointing and.by His most tender mercy may the Lord forgive you whatever guilt you have con- 251 C. A. HERBST tracted." St. Thomas explains: "This sacrament was instituted to" heal us. For a bodily cure we do not take medicine that will restore the whole body but those parts in which the root of the disease lies~ So the sacramental anointings should be made only on those parts where is found the root of the spiritual sickness." (S. Th., Suppl. q. 32, a. 5.) In conclusion, let us listen.again to a few words from that great master of the spiritual Jife, St. Bernard. "With the brethren be re-served, gracious, modest, affable, gentle, and on your guard. Be .strict with yourself but not in such a way as to be a nuisance to others . Every gesture and word, your way of acting, look, gait should be characterized by modesty and reserve. Let there appear nothing con-ceited or stilted in you, no boldness or anything overbea.ring . As the fear of the Lord puts order into a man's lif~ and prepares his whole interior for blessedness, so modesty brings his exterior under subjection. You should not become so familiar with anyone as to be completely forgetful of propriety in his presence." (Ad Quid Venisti?, xvii.) After all, "we are made a spectacle to the world, and to angels, and to men'~ (I.Cor. 4:9). And His Divine Majesty is always pres-ent, too. "In him we live, and move, and are" (Acts 17:28); ETUDE SUR LA PAUVRETE RELIGIEUSI: The Sisters of Providence (Les Soetirs de la Providence) in Montreal have "trans-lated into French six articles on poverty which appeared in the REVIEW FOR RELI-GIOUS and published them in a booklet. The articles are: "M~y Religious Buy and Sell" (V, 50) and the "Gifts to Religious" series by Adam C. Ellis, S.J.; and 'The Spirit of Poverty" (VIII, 35) by" Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. The "Gifts" se-ries includes: "The Simple Vow of Poverty" (VI, 65), "Common Life and Pe-culium" (VII, 33), "Personal versus Community Property" (VII, 79, and "Some Practical Cases" (VII, 195). Copies of the booklet, called Etude sur la Pauvret3 2eliqleuse, may be obtained from P~ovidence Mother House, 2311, rue Ste-Cath-erine Est, Montreal 24, P.Q., Canada. Cost: 40 cents per single copy; 35 cents in dozen lots or more. ¯PLEASE NOTE C~AREFULLY The subscription price of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is now: $3.00 per veer for Domestic end Cenedian subscriptions: $3.35 per year for ell foreign subscrip-tions. For further deteils pleese see inside beck cover. 252 The race ot: Our Vocal:ion P. De Letter, S.J. [EDITORS' NOTE: In the March number of this year the author of "Why Do They Leave?" concluded the article with an inspiring section headed "Why Do We Stay?" In the present article Father De Letter's analysis of the grace of our voca-tion forms something of a theological counterpart and complement to the latter question. He points out the different graces included in the grace of vocation, namely, the grace of state, the grace of perseverance, the grace of progress, the grace of keeping the rules, and the grace of supererogation. He next gives the solid theological basis for trust in the grace of vocation and concludes by describing God's part, the actual graces of light" and strength, and ours, the conditions for our 'trust. "I will put great trust in the grace of my vocation," wrote St. John Berch-roans among the first of his watchwords. It is of this gr~ice of vocation that Father De Letter writes.] ~i~/JE 'OFTEN HEAR or read about the grace of our religious W" vocation. No doubt we often thank Our Lord for this most precious 6f His gifts. Wi~at exactly is it? Spiritual au-thors use the phrase in a twofold sense, first as the free divine gift by which God calls to the religious life, and secondly as the special helps of grace which enable religious, who have followed the divine call, to meet the demands of their state and to persevere in it till death. 'The second meaning, that of the special helps, of the grace of our vocation will be used. This grace is a reality of our everyday life.,If we allow it to play its part to the full, it may and does make a difference for our own pe£sonal interests and for the souls for whom we labor. For this reason it is well worth studying more closely what the grace of vocation implies and what is the basis of our trust in it. Then it' will be self-evident how we should exploit this God-sent treasure. Grace of State All religiogs, we are told, are offered and receive the grace proper to their vocation. As any other Christians, those who are called to a definite state of life with its definite purpose are offered by the Lord the graces necessary to pursue ,effectively the end of their vocation. This is true both of the general l~urpose of every religious life, which is to seek after Christian perfectioia.or holiness, and of the specific end of each particular order or congregation. Grdce of" Perseuerance in God's Friendship ¯ First'of all, religious are offered and, unless they'wilfully refuse, ~.ctual!y recei~re the actual graces needed to remain permanently on the path thatleads to perfection, "that is, to persevere in sanctifying grace. 253 P. DE LETTER Review for Religious These graces are needed. Theologians commonly teach that without the help of God's grace no one can maintain himself in His friend-ship, because fallen human nature is weak and inclined to evil. But these graces are always offered, theologians reassure us, to all who sincerely endeavour to 'please God and to preserve His love and friendship. And why? Because God's love is faithful: He does not allow to be sr~atched from His hands those who sinqerely desire to be His. If that is the case for all Christians in the state of grace, then it is more true for those whom a special divine call ~lestines for an ever growing perfection of grace. Religious, therefore, m~y count in a special way, by virtue of their very state in life, on the fidelity of the Giver of all graces. He enables them day after day and hour after hour throughout their religious life to avoid every grievous fault. Grace of Progress There is more than that. It is the fundamental duty of state for religious to advance continually in grace and perfection. That again is not possible without the help of God's grace. Our faith teaches us,. infallibly, that no good work for heaven can be performed with-out God;s gracious help. If that is so, and if religious grow in grace precisely by the works of virtue ' (and the reception of the sa.crame,nts, which grace enables them to do properly), then we must say that their Fathe~ in heaven, who is Love, cannot expect them to do thes~ works and not give them the needed help which He alone can give. That is why religious have and receive the graces necessary for the good works that are to lead them on to perfection, the goal of their vocation. ' Grace of Keeping the Rules and Obeying What are these good works? They are, naturally, commanded by the specific end of each religious institute. Concretely, they are laid down in the rules and constitutions: these outline the particular manner in which a religious vocation is to work out its ideal of Christian perfection, These laws and ways, therefore, differ for different institutes.' Hospital sisters, teaching religious, and contem-platives, are not expected to labour for perfection by exactly the same good works. Their respective rules point out to them "by which paths they are'to draw nearer to God. To follow these pathh ~nd no other, each one in the particular.office that is assigned him by the inst.itu, te and. in the community where obedience placed him, .is pnmista.kably the du.ty of state of. every re, ligious. And so all.~e.li- 254 September, 1~ 1 THE GRACE OF OUR VOCATION gious are offered each day the necessary grace to keep the rules and-fulfil their office: because fidelity to these duties is the concrete way for them to advance towards perfection and fidelity is not possible without these graces. Not every Christian, theologians teach, is at all times offered the grace needed for good works which are not of precept but are supererogatory, because, there is no clear indication that God's will demands these works from them. Only for such good works as are certainly willed by the Lord may we expect His grace to be guaran-teed. But the case of religious is a special one. Though the good ~works demanded by their rules are not, genera'lly speaking, strictly of precept (not at any rate when the religious laws do not bind under pain of sin) and are therefore in a true sense supererogatory, yet the very nature of religious rule implies that God clearly wills those works. His good pleasure and desire is expressed in the rules. By that very fact He also guarantees to ~eligious the necessary graces, ;¢¢ithout which they would be unable to comply with His good pleasure. , This conclusion applies equally to the acts of virtue which obedi-ence to superiors imposes on religious. Commands of religious supe-riors generally (exception being made for orders given in virtue of holy obedience, in whicJ~ the vows are involved) bring to their sub-jects the same kind of obligatiofi as the rules impose. As such, therefore, they do not bind under sin; yet they express to us unmis-takabl~ y the divine wishes. Religious receive the necessary actual graces for obeying the orders of their superiors as they do for keeping the rules. Though these acts of virtue, because not imposed under sin, are supererogatory in the strict sense of the word, yet they are, for religious, guaranteed as possible by the grace of their vocation. "Grace for Supererogatory Acts of Virtue There are additional virtuous actions which are not demanded of religious by rule nor by orders of superiors, but to which, they believe, a special inspiration of the Hgly Ghost invites them. Such good works, for example, extra .acts of mortification, or prayer, or humility, or kindness, are altogether free in the sense that no rule nor direction of obedience imposes them. These are not immediately covered by the grace of the religious vocation. To them will apply the teaching of theologians about supererogatory good works: not unless the invitation of God's grace be sufficiently proved genuine and ?eliablecan they count on His special help to follow up these inspira- 255 P. DE LETTER Review for Religtous tions. It should be added, however, that religious are, from their very state of. life, more opeh to these special invitations of grace. Why?" Because their fundamental duty of state is to aspire after perfection, and not all particulars that appertain to the practice of perfection are or can be determined by the rules or by obedience. Accordingly, religious need these special inspirations. Other things being equal, there is a greater probability that in the case of religious these inspirations of grace are genuine and reliable. To that extent and in that 'indirect way they also belong to the grace of the voca-tion. At this juncture the task of the spiritual director comes in to provide rehglous with sufficient guarantee that allows them safely to follow up these interior invitations. Without this sanction the danger of self-delusion would be real. That danger is excluded from all that falls within clearly known duty. Herein religious may and must depend on it that grace will not be wanting them, if only they themselves are not wanting to grace. Why is it so? Whai: is the dogmatic and theological basis of our trust in the grace of o.u.r vocation? Doctrinal Basis of Our Trust We have already hinted at the intrinsic reason why the grace of our vocation includes all the particular graces needed to fulfill our duties according to the rules and constitutions and the commands of the superiors. It is the following. God cannot command the impos-sible, because of His infinite wisdom and lo,;,e. Of religious He asks a constant strivin~g after perfection: that is the meaning of the reli-gious vocation. They find the concrete way to strive for perfection detailed in the laws of their institutes and the directions of their supe-riors. But to do all that is involved in keeping the rules and in obeying, many good works are needed which no man, religious not excepted, is able to do without the help of grace.: For two reasonsi both because these virtuous actions require a faithful effort which after original sin is not possible for long without grace; and because these acts are supernatural and of their very nature suppose the super-natural help of grace. If then God expected religious to live up to the demands of their vocation and did not at the s~me time give them ~he necessary graces, He would be demanding the impossible. Dogmatic Foundation The. ultimate foundation of this conclusive proof is nothing less than the highest possible authority on revealed truth: ,the infallible 256' ,September, 1~51 THE GRACE OF O~JR VOCATION teaching of the Church. The Council of Trent defined that it is not impossible for men to keep God's commandments; it condemned the contrary assertion of the Lutherans as heretical doctrine (DB 828). In St. Augustine's words the Council explained how men can, in spite of fallen nature's weakness, have the moral strength to do what God commands: "When He commands, He admonishes you to do what you can and to ask for help to do what you cannot, and He helps so that you can" (DB 804). Later. the Church condemned another heretical proposition of dansenistic pessimism which stated that "just men cannot keep some precepts of God even though they wish and try to do so, with the strength they now have; and the graze which would enable them to keep those commandments is also lacking" (DB I092). An infallible teaching, therefore, guarantee, s that we have the necessary graces to keep the commandments. That teaching aimed directly at those divine precepts which oblige under pain of sin, particularly of mortal sin. It may also be extended, though this conclusion is no longer infallible, to divine commands in a less strict serise of the word: to those expressions of the divine will which, though not binding under sin, .yet certainly manifest His desire ind. good pleasure. The Church's Authorit~I This latter is the case, as we well know, of the ordinary religious rules. We have a guarantee for it in the Church's approval both of religious life in general and of the particular religious institutes. The ¯ Church's sanction of the state oflife lived accordin'g to the three evangelical counsels is found in her age:old practice, which dates back td the early Cbristlan centuries, of approving and encouraging tbe monastic institute and the ascetical life. At the time of the Refor-mation it led to an infallible pronouncement, again at the Tridentine Council, by which she declared that the state of viriginity or celibacy is preferable to the state of Matrimony (DB 980). As to the appro-bation of particular institutes, theologians today are agreed in saying that in the solemn approval of religious orders the doctrinai judg-ment that the religious orders,, are apt means to reach Christian per-fection is covered by the Church's infallibility. In the less solemn .confirmation of other religious institutes, the Church's authority in-' volved is not the big.best; yet. that.approval also shares, according.to .the. degree, of the authority" that gives it, in the same fundamental guar.ant~.e:.of truth which is divine. Accordi,ngly? Catholic theology ¯' 257 P. DE LETTER Review for Religious is unanimous, in declaring that the obligation for religious to work for perfection according to the pattern designed in their respective laws is, because of the Church's approbation, the'clear expression of God's will for them. "On this doctrinal foundation rests the teaching of theologians who, like Suar~z, hold that the grace of a religious vocation includes the spe.cial supernatural aids required to live up to the ideal which is proposed to the religious by their institute. He wrote: "Since all ap-proved religious orders are deservedly regarded as founded by the special Providence of God, there is no doubt that each enjoys a'spe-cial divine assistance proportionate to its vocation, and hence greater in proportion as its institute is more exalted and difficult and organ-ized for the greater service of God and the more far-reaching good of the Church" (Rel. S.J., I, 6, 9). What holds good for reli-gious orders as a whole, also applies to the members. The graces of their vocation which effectively enable them to pursue the end of their institute are the concrete expression of the divine assistance that flows from God's special Providence over them. Religious, therefore, are building .their trust on the safe rock of Peter when they firmly believe in the grace of their vocation. More-over, does not the experience of the religioh~ life come to teach them that the Lord does not disappoint that trust? When and in the measure that they are faithful to their calling, they find out what these graces of our vocation mean in practice. Graces of Light and Strength As actual graces in general, so the graces of our vocation are of two kinds which, more often perhaps, are found together rather than isolated. First there is light for the mind, generally more affective and practical" than purely sp~e~uiative and cold (for they are meant to lead to action), by which the meaning and reality of the religious ideal, duties, privileges, favors, appear more clearly, more appealingly, and more exaltedly worthwhile. These' actual graces of light, on occa-sion standing out very markedly, at other times more dim yet really present, give a deeper and new understanding of the rules, of the ideal of poverty; chastity, obedience, of the community life and of our daily tasks of education, missionary work, medical charity, sacred "ministry so that the good works by which religious strive after sand-tity. take on their deep, often hidden, meaning. Together with that light goes a grace of strength and courage for'the will and heart, 25'8 September, 1951 THE GRACE OF OUR VOCATION tempering and steeling one"s whole moral an~ spiritual structure, actually enabling religious to live according to their light. These graces of fortitude, patience, and ability, make Jrpossible to keep up ¯ the effort for progress, and bravely and gladly to accept and take up the small and on occasion bigger crosses involved in the faithful ful-filment of their daily duties. These graces of strength, at times ex-perienced more forcibly, at other times, perhaps more commonly, perceived in humble and dim faith, smoothen the path towards per-fection which often is rough and always uphiIl. The remembrance of these graces received in the past is a precious confirmation" of Our faith and trust in the grace of our vocation. Condition of Our Trust That faith and trust is rightly ours on one condition: that we do, sincerely and hum.bly, what in us lies to answer the graces we receive. There is little need to insist on the first and foremost part in this cooperation with grace which we may take for granted, namely, that we live in the state of sanctifying grace. Progress in grace supposes the st'ate of grace. Unless the substance of the spiritual life be there, we cannot expect further grace~ for progress. These graces, according to the ordinary rule of Divine Providence, are usually given in proportion to oui" fidelity in accepting and answering them. One way of showing this desire of receiving and exploiting those graces is our faithful and insisting prayer for them. According to the hint of the Council of Trent we quoted above, our asking for graces may well be the condition for receiving them. We may even count on the abundant divine aids guaranteed by the grace of our vocation if we sincerely and generously trade for spiritual profit with those we receive. No doubt even then no one can vouch for it that he will never fail God's grace, even though grace does not fail him. We know it too well, human frailty remains in religious as well. And we need not be surprised at our daily faults of weakness which, we may confi-dently hope, involve but little guilty negligence. Provided. only we know how to exploit those very failings to deepen humility and a sense of our need of prayer and trust in the Lord, they do not seri-ously impair our fidelity to grace. Our desires and deeds continue then to express our sincere gratitude for God's great gift, our call to the religious life. Then we may and must always count on the grace of our vocation. 259' A Vocational Newspaper [Contact, a bright, four-page, two-year-old vocational newspaper from the arch-diocese of Boston, may be of interest to readers of the REVIEW who are not ac-quainted with it. The following description was written by a staff member of the publication. For further information write to: Director of Vocations, Room 622, 185 Devonshire St., Boston, M~,ss. ED.] Maintaining that "Personal contact between an interested priest or religious and a good potential candidate becomes the only real vocation program," Father Francis A. Barry, director of vocations in the Boston archdiocese, thought that a vocational newspaper might provide a natural occasion for conversation or 'even extended talks on religious vocations. The paper was given the significant name: Contact. Experience has shown the idea was a 'good one. Contact, a monthly during the school year, began publicati.o.n in October, 1949. His Excellency, the Most Reverend Richard J. Cushing, Archbishop of Boston, the founder of the special vocational program, is the adv.isory editor. The editor is Father Barry. He is assisted by eight associate, a makeup, and ten contributing editors. The latter include diocesan and religious priests, Brothers, and Sisters who write columns, features, reviews, and editorials. His Excellency financed the project during its initial year. The religious orders and congregations having houses in the archdiocese shared the major ex-pense since then. , Distributed gratis" to pupils of parochial or other Catholic schools, from the seventh grade through the senior year in school as well as to Sunday schools, rectories, and seminaries, the circulation now tops 50,000." Increased solely by ~ear-say advertising, the mailing li~t now re'aches out to thirty-one s.tates, the Philippine's, Cuba, Italy; France and Canada. The italicized, three-column, colored logotype carries the triple message: Information, Inspiration, and Action. To attract the young people's attention, each issue is printed with bright color spots, ac.cording to the season or month. Adjacent to some of the standing heads appears a small portrait of the editor of the column, showing his religio.us habit ahd giving his name and address. Feature pictures and action shots of'the apostolate of teaching or social service highlight each issue. Provocative headlines dot the pages: It Seems to Me . Horizons, Meet. some religious com- 260 September, 1951 COMMUNION FOR OTHERS ~nunity, Looking Out . thought from the seminary or the novi-tiate, Do You KnoW?, Parents" Column, and Around tile Diocese. Parochial high school reporters keep copy flowing to the desk of the editor of the last-mention~ed column. Contact reiterates the words of His Holiness, Pope Pius XII: "This vcJcation, thisloving call makes itself heard in manydifferent ways, as many as the infinite variety of accents in which the Divine Voice may speak: irresistible invitations, affectionate and repeated promptings,gentle impulses."--SISTER MARY REGINA, S.S.,J. Offering Communion t:or.Ot:hers Clarence McAuliffe, S.3. SISTER LOUISA sat placidly at her desk filling out the spiritual bouquet. It was the community's gift to Sistdr Mercedes who was to make her p~ofession next day. Sister Louisa was adding her contribution to the various specified good works-- rosaries, s{ations, visits, penances,, aspirations, Masses, Communions. It was an easy and congenial task and she contributed generously. But when she had finished, she found a question e.ngaging her mind,. a question she had never asked herself before. She had added five to the total of Commuriions to be offered for Sister Mercedes. 3ust what did it mean to offer Communion for somebody else? She ~had been doing it for many years. Her relatives and friends were always pleased when she told them that she would offer her Communion for them. Yet she had to confess now that she really did not know what she meant wh'en she told them that'she would offer her Communion for their intention. Many religious besides Sister Louisa have been puzzled by the same question. Nor is its answer easy to find. The purpose of this article is to clarify what we mean when we tell others that we are going to offer our Communion for them. It is important to remember that Communion produces certain effects that are inalienable. For instance, Communion automatically increases sanctifyin~ grace and most probably has the power,to con-fer more of this grade than any other sacrament. We do not transfer 261 - CLARENCE MCAULIFFE Ret~ieto for R'eligious any of this to others when we offer our Communion for them. Again, the increase of active love for Go~t and our neighbor which is the .special effect of the Eucharist and which depends on the fervor of our thanksgiving, is not surrendered by offering Communion for somebo~ly else. So too, the strength to resist temptations, the cooling of disordered feelings, since these are special though secondary effects of Communion and depend also on the fervor of one's thanksgiving, are incommunicable. The same is t6 be said of the additional right to a glorious bodily resurrection which is acquired by the worthy reception of Communion. Finally, the remission of venial sins which results automatically from Communion, if the recipient has sincerely revoked all wilful attachment to them, cannot be transferred to any other person. From all this it is ~lear that the principal benefits accruing from the Lord's Table remain with the communicant. In fact it might appear that no spiritual gifts remain which can lend real meaning to our promise to offer Communion for somebody else. But there are. When we ~o to Holy Communion we ordinarily do extra praying and a certain ambunt of mortification. We make a suitable prepara-tion and thanksgiving. We also fast beforehand. Now we all know that prayer and fasting are subjective acts of virtue, ~nd when made by a person in the state of grace, they have a three-fold value in the sight of God. For the sake of brevity, the theologians use tbre'e tech-nical words to express this three-fold efficacy. They say 'it is "meri-torious, satisfactbry, and impetrative." What they mean is that every act of virtue wins more sanctifying grace (meritorious efficacy), removes some temporal punishment (satisfactory), and pleads with God for spiritual and temporal favors (impetrative). In addition, therefore, to the sanctifying grace which comes spontaneously from each Communion, a person also gets more sanc-tifying grace from his acts of virtue elicited before and after receiving the sacrament. Since we can never give one iota of sanctifying grace, no matter by what means it is acquired, to another person, it is evi-dent that the grace proceeding from these acts of virtue at Commun-ion time is also retained by the communicant. However, the satisfactory and impetrative efficacy of these acts may be relinquished in favor of others when we offer Communion for them. Suppose we consider first the gift we make when we hand over the satisfactory fruits of our Communions. Ordinarily we are able to make a fitting preparation for the 262 oep*e,noer, I95 ! COMMUNION FOR OTHERS reception of Holy Communion. Not only do we fast, rise early, kneel down, but we also make acts of faith, hope, confidence, desire, humility, and perhaps acts of perfect love for God. Now each of these acts of penance and of prayer, by reason of our good subjective dispositions which accompany them, has the power to take away some temporal punishment. Moreover, since we are the ones who do the penance and say the prayers, we have the right to have our otot~ temporal punishment lessened by them. What happens, then, when we offer Communion for another? We transfer this incalculable benefit to the other party and, if he is in the state of grace, he receives it. The same is to be said of'the~ prayers we say at the moment when we receive our divine Lord and during the time that He remains pres-ent within us. We communicate the satisfactory value of all these prayers to the other person. Instead of shortening our own purga-tory we shorten the purgatory of another. We', so to speak, suffer vicariously and gratuitously for some one who has no real claim to our sacrifice. If we reflect for a moment, we shall also understand why the satisfactory efficacy of these virtuous acts preceding, accompanying, and following Holy Communion exceeds that produced by the same acts elicited at some other time. We suppose, of course, that our fer-vor (and by that we refer not to our feelings, but to our acts of will) would be equal in both instances. We shall also understand why Communion remits more temporal punishment than other prayers listed in a spiritual bouquet--for example, rosaries or visits to the chapel. We take for granted, of course, that our cooperation would be equally diligent and that the same number of acts of virtue would be made. Otherwise it could easily happen that a rosary re-cited devoutly and animated by many acts of virtue would remit more temporal punishment than a Communion prepared ~or and received listlessly and negligently. Buy other thin~s being on a par, there is an objective reason why Holy Communion should take away more temporal punishment than the rosary or other pious works. The truth of this statement rests .on the fact that ordinarily the acts of virtue we make in connection with Communion are more fer-vent (here again we do not refer to feelings of fervor) and more numerous than those evoked by other works of piety. This is pa.r-ticularly tru~ of the prayers we say during our thanksgiving' after Communion. And it should be noted that temporal punishment is 263 CLARENCE MCAULIFFE Review for Religious canceled in proportion to the fervor and number of our.tSrayers. But why should our prayers after Communion be more fervent? Because Christ is then physically present within us. As a result of His sacramental presence, both the number and the quality of the actual grac'es showered upon us are ~uperi6r to those which necessarily accompany every pious supernatural work. After Communion our Savior inserts a continuous stream of vivifying actual graces into our minds and hearts, and these graces have as their general object, not to arouse merely confidence or faith or humility, but love itself, the most noble of all the virtues. If we ponder these facts, we shall. readily see. why our prayers after Communion have a singular power to reduce the debt of punishment incurred by somebody else. So much for th~ satisfactory value of Holy Communion. We can be comparatively brief in treating of the sacrament's impetrati've fruit because it rests on the same principles we have been discussing. By offering Communion for others, v~e also mean that we trans-mit to them the petitional power of both our preparation and thanksgiving. The very same acts of virtue have not only a satis-factory, but also a pleading or intercessory value. They implore God to brant spiritual and temporal f~vors. Here again, since we are the ones who do the praying, we are the one~ who have a right to obtain the favors. But we,relinquish this right in fav~)r of other~ when we offer our Communion for them. We forget our own needs; we fore-go some benefits that would surely come to ourselves. ~re sacrifice ourselves for the other party. Of course, we must remind ourselves again that we cannot surrender those benefits that flow spontaneously from the Sacrament, such as the remission of venial sins, the growth in love for God and other people, the new title to everlasting glory and the curbing of unruly impulses. But there are many other spiritual and temporal favors that every person needs. There are .many that we ourselves need, even though we often do.not know precisely what" they are. Yet we forget our-. selves and transfer the intercessory vigor of our Communions to others when we offer Communion for them. It is like writing a let-ter of recommendation f6r som~ one else to obtain a benefit that you yourself need and have a right to; and it is a letter of recommenda-tion that you know is certain to be heeded. It is well to remember also that this impetrative efficacy of~Com-reunion is likewise of exceptional ~luality, just as the satisfactory efficacy, and for the same reason. The number and kind of actual 264 September, I~51 COMMUNION FOR OTHERS graces stirred up in the soul after. Communion exceed those accom-panying other good works. .Consequently if we co-operate with them, our acts of virtue will be correspondingly more fervent so that their pleading value is enhanced. Unfortunately, most of us probably do not pray explicitly "after Communion for the person for whom' we offer the Communion. This is, of course, not necessary since our intention made beforehand suffices to obtain for the otber~the satisfactory and impetrative fruits of the sacramefit. However, if we do remember to pray expressly for the' other person after we have received Communion, we shall un-doubtedly increase the value of our gift for him. It stands to reason that our Savior' listens to our. requests with a more willing ear when He is actually present within us with His Sacred Humanity. We recommend, therefore, the practice of praying explicitly after receiving Communion for the person to whom we relinquish the benefits. We may even ask Our Savior to grant certain spedfic favors, especially spiritual ones, to the other party. In conclusion, then, we cannot give away to anyone else the ¯ principal fruits of our Holy Communions. These we have itemized in the beginnihg. In addition to those listed, we might also add that when an indulgence is granted for the reception of Communion or for some prayer said,before or after receiving the Sacrament, we can-not offer it for another living person. Nevertheless, we do a singular favor foi others .when we offer a Communion for their intention. We sacrifice'for theirbenefit the satisfactory and impetrative fruits which are won by our acts of virtue preceding, accompanying, and follow-ing Holy Communion. MEDICO-MORAL PROBLEMS Medico-Moral Problems, Part III, by Gerald Kelly, S.J., contains complete dis-cussions of euthanasia, therapeutic abortion, organic transplantation,, and adult baptism. Also included are discussions of co-operation in illicit operations, the delivery of a. hydrocephalic infant, and lobotomy for pain relief. The booklet is published by the Catholic Hospital Association of the United States and Canada, 1438 South Grand'Blvd., St. Louis 4, Mo. 50 cents a copy; 12 for $5.25; 50 for $,20;' 100 for $37.50. Parts I and II can be obtained at the same place and at the same prices. 265 uestdons and Answers --20- An unexpected opportunity has arisen to sell a piece o{ communlt~ property {or $100,000, which is much more than we could get for it under normal circumstances. But the property must be transferred.withln ten days, otherwise the offer will be wlfhdrawn. VVhat shall we do about gefflng permission of the Holy See? Fortunately His Excellency, the Apostolic Delegate, now has faculties from the Sacred Congregation of Religious to permit the contracting of loans, sales, and alienations of property belonging to a religious institute, when the sum involved does not exceed a half million gold dollars, provided that the conditions laid down in canons 534 and 1531 be observed. We take this opportunity to inform our readers that the Sacred Congregation of Religious has also granted two other special facul-ties to the Apostolic Delegate: to dispense.religious for the reception of Holy Communion from the obligation of the Eucharistic fast so that they may take something by way of drink or m. edicin~, when their physician considers the keeping of the fast injurious to their health; also to shorten or prolong the postulancy prescribed by the Code of Canon Law (see Bouscaren, Canon Lau2 Digest, Supplement 1943-1948, p. 131, under canon 858). m2 I-- I have heard that permission of the Holy See is required {or th~ aliena-tion of notable relics and images. Is it proper ÷o infer that relics and ¯ venerated images may be bought and sold? Does his include sacred vessels? To .buy and sell is only one form of alienation. Hence it does not follow as a general rule that relics and venerated images may be bought and sold simply because the Holy See at times gives permis-sion to alienate such things. Since three distinct things are included in this question we think it advisable to treat each class separately. Relics. Canon 1289 states very plainly: "It is unlau~[ul (nefas) to sell sacred relics." To do so would be to commit a sin of simony. However, it would not be sinful to charge and pay for the metal case in which the relics are usuhlly inclosed. Canon 1281, § I tells us that "notable relics or precious images, and likewise all relics or images 266 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Which are honored in any church with great devotion on the part of the people, cannot be alier~ted validly nor transferred permanently to another church without the permission of the Holy See." What is me~tnt by notable relics? Paragraph two of canon 1281 gives us a list of notable relics: the body, head, arm, forearm, heart, tongue, hand, leg, or that part of the' body in which the martyr suffered, provided it be "entire and" not too small." Such relics may not be alienated without the permissi6n, of the Holy See. Since it is for-bidden to sell. relics, alienation here must be taken in its other meaning, that is, to give away, to lend, and the like. The permission of" the Holy See would be required also to alienate relics which °are not notable; provided that they are honored in a church with great devotion on the part of the faithful. Small relics in the possession of private persons do not come under canon 1281, but they may never be sold. Precious [maqes. Ecclesiastical goods (church property) are shid to be.precious,when they have a ~pecial value by reason of artistic, historical, or material content (canon 1497, § 2). An image is said to be precious if it was painted by a great artist, or was made of precious materials, and has a notable valu&, that'is, over 1000 gold life (about $335 in our present money). Such images, as well as others which are not precious but which may be called venerable because of the great devotion of the faithful towards them, may not be alienated without the permissiqn of the Holy See. Sacred Vessels. Things are said to be sacred when they are .destined for divine worship by reason of their consecration or con-stitutive blessing. Canon 1305 tells us that "an article of sacred equipment which is blessed or consecrated loses its blessing or conse-cration . . . if it has been put to degrading uses 6r has been exposed for public sale." On the other hand, canon 1539 states that "in the sale or exchange of sacred things no account of the consecration or blessing is to be taken in determining the price." We may say, there-fore, that sacred vessels may be sold privately by one individual to another, or by one moral person to another (a church or community to another church or community) provided no extra charge is made for the blessing or consecration. But sacred things may not be exhibited publicist for sale without losing tbeir blessing or consecra-tion. This applies principally to auction sales and to the placing of a sacred object in the window or in the show case of a store open to the public. 267 QUEST, IONS AND A .NSWERS Reuieu) for'Religious We may conclude by adding that a consecrated chalice and paten do not lose their consecration'by being regilded (canon 1305, § 2). May exfreme unction be admlnls+ered before any major opera÷ion? For the valid reception of extreme unction the subject must be in " danger of death ¯from sickness or old age. If the person who is to, undergo major surgery is already in this condition, he is capable of receiving the sacrament before the operation. It may be that this is ge~nerally the case, but it is not necessarily so. Some operations which may entail a great deal of danger are performed for removing some chronic condition which might not become dangerous, without the operation, for a long time. Such patients cannot be anointed before the operation. In practice, it is not easy to decide whether to anoint a person. before an operation or t6 hwait the outcome of the operation. ¯ There is no universally-established practice; nor could there be: Some patients are clearly not capable of receiving the sacrament before the operation; others are clearly capable; and still others are "borderline cases." Moreover, the pastor or chaplain has not merely to decide whether the patient can be validly anointed l~ut also to judge when the anointing would be most appropriate and beneficial. Our ¢ons+ffufions +el[ us +ha+ "[eff~rs fo +he S~s+ers as well as +hose senf by +hem shall pass +hrough ÷he hands of +he superior who may read +hem," In view of +hls s+a+emen+, may a eAenera[ chap+er eAranf +o 9olden jubilaHans +he prlvllecAe' of seal[n~ +belt leffers before ~ivlng ÷hem ÷o +hl superlor7 "-['he general chapter has no power to change the constitutiofis, unless the constitutions themselves give it that power, which is not likely. On the other hand, since the constitutions' do not oblige the superior 'to read all letters which pass through her hands, the general chapter could recommend that superiors refrain from reading the letters of golden jubilarians, but it could not take away the right to read them which is contained in the constitutions. The general chapter may likewise request that the constitutions be changed in this matter, if that be the wish of the majority. Such a request for a change in the constitutions would be made to the local ordinary in the case of a diocesan congregation, or to the Holy See (Co.ngrega-tion of Religious) in the case of a pontifical institute. 268 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Ret~iew /:or Religious m24-- Is the novice master to be present at the discussion of the general council which follows upon his report on the novices who are preparing for first professlon? Canon 563 reads as follows: "During the course of the year of novitiate, the master of novices, conformably to the constitutions, must present to the .chapter or the higher superior a report con-cerning the conduct of each of the novices." Strictly speaking there-fore, the master of novices makes his report to the chapter (in inde-pendent monasteries! or to the higher superior, but not directly to the gefieral council, unless the constitutions prescribe this. Hence a written report should be given the higher .superior who, in turn, will communicate it to the general council. Many constitutions have an article based on art. 300 of the Norrnae which says that "whenever in the general council the novices or the novitiate is discussed, the mistress should be called, who will make known her mind on the subject under discussion, or submit opportune information." There will be no need (and certainly no obligation) for the master of novices to remain at the council session after he has given the infor-mation prescribed by canon 563. If necessary, h~ can always be called back for further information. ~-25-- Is it permissible for sick Sisters who are not completely bedridden to ¯ receive Holy C~ommunion by the cell of a Sister who is confined perman-ently to her bed. These Sisters can manage to get around although the doctor's orders are that they rest as much as possible. Likewise the sana-torium in which they stay has' an elevator and the chapel is on the first floor. The general rule is that all should receive Holy Communion in the chapel if they can conveniently do so. If the Sisters are so sick that they are obliged to miss Holy Mass, even though they are up and about their rooms or in the corridor, they may receive Holy Com-munion on the floor on which they li~'e. As to the elevator: if the Sisters use .it to go to'another floor for their meals, then they should use it likewise to go to the chapel to receive Holy Commu'nion. In general one may say that if going to the chapel for Holy Com-munion would lengthen the time for the Eucharistic fast, or would put ar~ additional strain upon a sick Sister who is not confined to her 269 NEW MEDITATION BOOKS Review [or Reh'gious bed, she may receive Holy Communion on the floor on which she lives. --26-- Is the practice of saying I000 Hall Marys on the Feast of the Annun-ciation ÷o be considered a superstition? Everything. will depend upon the motive a person has in re-peating the Hail Mary that often on the Feast of the Annunciation. If this is done simply out of love for Our Lady, there is nothing wrong with it, since, it is a laudhble act of devotion. ~If, on the other hand, the practice were based upon a ~purious ,revelation, or a sup-posed efficacy which it does not have of its own nature (that of intercessory prayer), then it might be superstitious. New Medi!:a!:ion Books Like St. Teresa of'Avila, many religious,need a meditation book for many years to help them in their prayer. Four such books, writ-ten as helps for contact with God in prayer, have recently been pub-lished or reprinted. The authors are a German Capuchin, an Ameri-can Jesuit in India, an American Benedictine, and a Hungarian bishop. The books vary in purpose, content, and form. Direct, ~arnest, Practical One of the books is the fourth volume of MEDITATIONS by Father Bernardine Goebel, O.F.M.Cap., translated by Father Berch- 'mans Bittle, O.F.M.Cap. Adapted for the use of the Friars Minor Capuchin, the direct, earnest, and practical reflections will help any follower of the Gospel. The present volume is for the'time from Trinity Sunday to the Twelfth Sunday biter Pentecost. The meditation for Sundays is usually on the Gospel of the.day. Some of the topics developed f6r the course of a week are the Eucharist, the Mass, faith, hope, char!W, and love of .neighbor. Each meditation begins with a brief sum-mary of the meditation followed by a brief introductory paragraph, develbps two points w.ith a consid,eration and*application, and ends with a prayer. (Province of St. Joseph, 1740 Mt. Elliott Ave., Detroit 7, Michigan, 1950. Pp. 264. $2.50.) Prodac~ of Missionarg Zeal From the 'mission.field ~f Ifidia comes MEDITATIONS FOR EVERY 270 " September, 1951 NEW MEDITA'FION BOOKS DAY by Rev. P. J. Sontag; S.J. It has recently been reprinted in an attractive two volume set. The first volume containin~ I87 medi-tations covers the first half of the liturgical year from Advent to Trinity Sunday. The second volume complete~ the year bringing the total number to 369. Most of the meditations are based on the life of Christ. Meditations on the Apostles Creed, the Our Father, the sacraments, on social justice and Catholic Action are included, as ¯ ycell as meditations for the First Fridays, the lit.urgical feasts, feasts of special saints, and over twenty meditations "honoring Mary. Though the meditations'were l~repared specifically for the l~iity, priests, seminarians, and all religious will find them belpful. Each meditation fias two or three (the. additional gives the account from Scripture) preludes and three ¯points which contain ample matter for reflection. For the colloquy, the author modestly hnd wisely con-fines himself to suggesting the person, Our Lord or a saint, to ad-dress. The set belongs to the Science and Culture Series and has a preface by the general editor, Joseph Husslein, S.J. (The Bruce Publishing Company, 400 N. Broadway, Mil,waukee 1, Wisc., 1950. Pp. I, xviii q- 476; II, ix q- 466. $10.00.) Goal ol: Monasticism Volume three completes THE.SCHOOL OF THE L, ORD'S SERVICE by, Rev. Bernard A. Sause, O.S.B. (author of "Bene, dicti~e Spirit-uality," REVIEW, X, 7). The set gives a meditation based on the Rule of St. Benedict for every day of the" year. The present volume for the ninth to the twelfth month contains the text of the Rule of St. Benedict and thirty meditations on ea'cb .of the foll~)wing four subjects: spirit of detachment: good zeal': practices, interpretations. and attitudes that have grown from the Rule: and intimate union with God. There is a bibliography and a composite index for the three volumes. Each meditation contains a carefully developed consideration, an examen for the day, and a practical application. The considerations are enriched by quotations, examples, and commehts ~arnered from Benedictine tradition, The sources are given after each meditation. The author's" development of zeal is especially noteworthy. He pre-sents the virtue of zeal in a concrete, appealing'manner by singling out for each day of the month a Benedictine monk, nun, or lay Brother who exemplified some aspect of zeal in his or her life. Not all of the exam, plats are canonized saints. The book deserves and 2'71 NEW MEDITATION BOOKS rewards a careful, prayerful reading. (St. Meinrad, Indiana: The. Grail, 1951.' Vol. iII, Pp. vi q- 575. $4.00.) Devotion and Inspiration Rt. Rev. Ottokar Proh~szka, bishop of Sz~kefeh~rvfir, who died on March 28, 1927, was an outstanding and saintly prelate and a gifted, prolific writer. His MEDITATIONS ON THE GOSPELS are brief, s.wift-moving reflections on the entire life of Our Lord. He presents a text from the New Testament, gives a few short reflections, and leaves preludes, affections, and colioquies to the exercitant. The meditations should be a source of devotion and inspiration to many. The author w!;ites in the introduction to his work: '"I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly.' I wish to serve this purpose of Jesus at His Incarnation, and to that end I am sending this book out into the world. It is intended to assist in the development of the life of Cbrist within our souls . Christ is God Himself in human shape, and I have to adore Him, and delight in His sublime beauty, in the depth and unique quality of His Soul, in the powerful originality of His mind, in the charm which He diffuses and in the life which flows forth from Him. My soul hangs upon His lips and hearkens to His every word. I see God reflected in Him as in a mirror; I bow my head upon His bands and surrender my heart to Him. He is God's Instrument; He will form me and harmonize thd conflicting elements within me." The present Newman edition bad three volumes fin one. The authorized translation from the Hungarian is by Margaret de Pill. Father C. C. Martindale, S.J., has written the foreword. (Wes.t-minster, Maryland: The Newman Press, 1951. Pp.: I, xiv + 229; II, ix + 322; III, viii + 282. $5.50.) SPIRITUAL BOOK ASSOCIATES (381 Fourth Ave., New York 16, N.Y.) September Selection--R. Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. Our Saviour and His Love for Us. $6.00. October Selection--Henri Petitot, O.P. The True Story of Saint Bernadette. (Cf. REVIEW, May '51, p. 161). $3.50. 272 ¯ 8ook Reviews THE HISTORY OF THE POPES. By Ludwlcj yon Pastor. Translated by E. F. Peeler. Vol. 36: Benedict XIV (1740-1758). Pp. 513; Vol. 37: Clement XIII (1758-1769). Pp. 4S8. B. Herder Book Co., St. Louis, Missouri. $5.00 per volume. This REVIEW (September, 1950) carried a notice of Volume 35 of the English Pastor, showing Pope Benedict XIV in the opening years of his pontificate working "with a pistol at his head," 'a weapon held by Catholic sovereigns demanding that he let them run the Church as well. ' It was particularly in m'eeting their concerted attack on the Society of ,lesus that Benedict XIV fought for his papal powers. Now Volume 36, the latter part of Benedict's pontificate, and 37, that of Clement XIII, come t6 hand, and their entire content is predominantly devoted to later phases of this titanic contest. Even so they bring the st.ory only to the end of the second last Act, and tfien break off while the~ translator works on the ddr~otternent. Will the Society, in the end, be suppressed? Will this regiment, of twenty-two thousand religious, in some forty provi,ces, 600 col-leges and over 1400 churches, be sacrificed? Read the next volume to foll~w shortly. To religious of both sexes, and members of whatever type of canonical organization, this story cannot but have deep and abiding interest. That it chanced to be the Ignatian Society against which the storm broke was because it was the "Swiss Guard" of the day, and the ruler of the Swiss Guard can expend his troops in battle, or order them back to the barracks to disband. Despite the faults and human weaknesses of the papacy's de-fenders, the story leaves them with the honorable distinction of. "canonical" death in the line of duty. Certain European monarchs were persuaded that the papacy had to be cut down to reasonable size. As the Minister Tanucci put it (37, 13) : "Certainly the primacy of the Pope was incontestable; he was the supreme head and centre of the Church; he had the right to summon a General Council, and he was infallible, but only when 15e made decisions in conjunction with the Bishops. But the Papacy in the form it had assumed in his day would have to. be abolished." 273 BOOK REVIEWS "The only way to treat the Pope was to . . . kiss his feet and bind his hands'~ .(28). So, under forms of exquisite politeness and courtly'deference, a violent strtiggle was waging. If the current tyranny of atheisti~ Commu, nism were being carried, on under the appearance of Catholic Leadership, if Marshal Stalin had his official minister at the Vatican to shape Catholic policy,.we could all the easier understand the high and mighty language of "unavoidable administrative necessity" that permeates these endless pages of eighteenth century despotism: It was proved with mathematical precision again and again that the mon-archs were but acting for the Church's good in withstanding the Pope, etc. Have we not heard these tunes being aired in our own day? Will it. be different in the twenty-second century, or the twenty-fifth? Details are all irrelevant; the contest wages still: evil has not prevailed, but it availeth much--GERALD ELLARD, S.J. THE LOVE OF GOD AND THE GROSS OF JESUS. By ÷he Rev. Regl-nald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. Transl~÷ed by Sisfer Je~n~e Marle, O.P. Volume Two. Pp. vi q- 461. B. Herder Book C;o., Sf. Louis, 1951. $~.00. This volume carries forward and completes Father Garrigou- Lag~ange's studies on divine love and the perplexing trials that are apt to befall souls fairly far advanced in the way of that love. Briefly this is the content of it. Part one deals with "crosses of the senses." These ar4 understood to be just what St. 3ohn of the Cross describes as "the night of sense," and hence here we ,have Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange's interpretation of that portion of St. 3ohn's doctrine. Correspondingly the second part is taken up with St. dohn's !'night of the spirit." Both sections, therefore, are concerned with what one might term the dark, distressing, disconsolate, phase of the mystical life. Part three is headed, "The Life of Union through desus and Mary." Among the themes considered are the inhabita-tion of the Blessed Trinity, the unity and sublimity of the apostolic life, the priesthood of Christ, His kingship, the Blessed Virgin Mary as a model of reparation, and St. 3oseph as a model of the hidden life and first among the saints. As parts one and two would com-fort'and strengthen one who is suffering, the rigors of the night of the soul, so this third part has much that is positively very magnificent and inspiring. The Three Ages of the Interior Life is expressly offere~l to the 274 September, 1951 BOOK REVIEWS public by Ft. Garrigou-Lagrange as a synthesis of this work and Christian Perfection and Contemplation (vol. I, v). Hence it shares in the merits and demerits of that larger and later work. These were discussed at length pro and con'in this REVIEW previously (Novem-ber, 19'49, pp. 297-317; March, 1950, 78-95). ' Since The Love of God and the Cross of Jesus was subsequently incprporated in The Three Ages and presented there in the form which the author now prefers, it seems rather surprising that it should be translated and published at this time. Except for scholars who wisl~ to see both studies, one who wants Fr. Garrigou- Lagrange's ideas on these matters should preferably seek them in the later and more definitiire work--AUGUSTINE G. ELLARD, S.J. THE GIFTS OF THE HOLY GHOST~ By John of St. Thomas. Trenslated fro~ the Latin by Dornin~c Hucjhes, O.P. With e Foreword by Walter Farrell, O.P. Pp. x -f- 293. Sheed end Ward, New York, 19SI. "$3.7S. Now Fr. Hughes has done, and in beautiful form, for English readers what Madame RaissaMaritain did a number of years ago for the French, that is, he has made a translation of the celebrated