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Jayeson Vance Leading Tour at Alcatraz, 2012 ; Business at the Crossroads - Ogden City is a project to collect oral histories related to changes in the Ogden business district since World War II. From the 1870s to World War II, Ogden was a major railroad town, with nine rail systems. With both east-west and north-south rail lines, business and commercial houses flourished as Ogden became a shipping and commerce hub. ; The following is an oral history interview with Jayeson Vance. The interview was conducted on October 10, 2013, by Lorrie Rands. Jayeson discusses memories of Ogden and 25th Street. ; 35p.; 29cm.; 2 bound transcripts; 4 file folders. 1 videodisc: digital; 4 3/4 in. ; Oral History Program Jayeson P. Vance Interviewed by Lorrie Rands 10 October 2013 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Jayeson P. Vance Interviewed by Lorrie Rands 10 October 2013 Copyright © 2014 by Weber State University, Stewart Library Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in Special Collections. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description Business at the Crossroads - Ogden City is a project to collect oral histories related to changes in the Ogden business district since World War II. From the 1870s to World War II, Ogden was a major railroad town, with nine rail systems. With both east-west and north-south rail lines, business and commercial houses flourished as Ogden became a shipping and commerce hub. After World War II, the railroad business declined. Some government agencies and businesses related to the defense industry continued to gravitate to Ogden after the war—including the Internal Revenue Regional Center, the Marquardt Corporation, Boeing Corporation, Volvo-White Truck Corporation, Morton-Thiokol, and several other smaller operations. However, the economy became more service oriented, with small businesses developing that appealed to changing demographics, including the growing Hispanic population. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management Special Collections All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Vance, Jayeson, an oral history by Lorrie Rands, 10 October 2013 , WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Jayeson Vance Leading Tour at Alcatraz 2012 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Jayeson Vance. The interview was conducted on October 10, 2013, by Lorrie Rands. Jayeson discusses memories of Ogden and 25th Street. LR: Today is October 10, 2013 doing a phone interview with Mr. Jayeson Vance who is currently residing in San Francisco, about 25th street and Ogden. My name is Lorrie Rands and I will be conducting the interview. Jayeson, I, again, appreciate your time and your willingness to help us out with this. Let's begin with the simple basics of when and where were you born? JV: I was born at the old St. Benedict's hospital on 29th and Polk in Ogden, on June 26, 1947. LR: Where did you reside, where was your home in Ogden? JV: Our home was, when I was a boy, we were, first we lived in a post war housing, emergency housing for the GI's. My dad was at Hill Field as an Air Force Sergeant, an Army Air Corp Sergeant. That was at the old Bonneville Park, as they used to call it. It was an old cinder block, post war or emergency housing that, I don't know who paid for, probably the federal government. Then they, at some point around 1950 or 51, they destroyed those homes and we, my dad was able to get a home on 1362 Hudson, between 5th and 6th on, at just above Harrison, and we were just a quarter block below Polk. That's where I spent my early years and then we later moved to 108 Harrison, at first and Harrison. LR: So was Harrison at that time, was it paved all the way through? 1 JV: Yes, Harrison was paved, Hudson was primitive, it was unpaved, thank you for asking. We actually did not even have a phone in the house and my mother had to walk to Hudson and Polk, to a little phone booth as did all the neighbors in order to place a phone call. Actually, it seems funny now, and the street was dirt and it had a curb and gutter but it didn't have the sidewalks and it didn't have, you know, it was very primitive. It was like living out on the frontier in a way, and my grandfather used to say, "You can hear the coyotes at night up there where you live." He lived on 256 Harrisville Road which is still there, that structure is still standing. LR: You grew up then in that part of Ogden? JV: Yea, on that northeast bench, I went to Ben Lomond High and then my dad had gone to Weber and my mother, actually my mother was a USU graduate. I just said, "Well," I couldn't decide what to do after I graduated from Ben Lomond, so I decided on Weber, which was a great choice. I was pleased with, I always thought it had the best—a lot of people say about Weber that we had better professors than bigger schools because you didn't have teaching assistants teaching classes, you had Ph.D.'s teaching classes quite often and so I think in some ways we got a much better education at Weber than people maybe at the University of Utah had in some ways, so anyway, it was a good time to go to Weber. I briefly was the sophomore class president for a brief while, filled in for Mike Howe I believe was his name, cause he couldn't finish his term. My name at that time, I changed my name in 1982, and my born name was Clark Walker. So that's always strange, and I have to explain that, that I 2 changed my name. I was one of those kids that had kind of an identity crisis and so my legal name is Jayson P. Vance. I don't know how much you want to know about my personal life, but just to explain, if you look me up, you'll find me under Clark Walker. Weber State records, well, except I changed my diploma reads Jayeson Vance now, so I had that changed. LR: So, I'm just curious, why did you choose Jayeson Vance? JV: It was just one of those things that I had a friend who was a counselor, which said, "It's time for a change." I had just left a federal job and I wanted a new start in life and she said, "This would be a good time to change." She had done this to, she had changed her name and she said, "I don't know, it's great," and she was able to persuade me that I should do it. Then once you do that, and we'd had a house so we had to change the mortgage records so then and I had to go to court, to district court and officially change my name by law. I can't ever use the old name again and legally, so anyway, I have, for better or worse, that's my name. So I just have to accept that. In some ways I felt shouldn't be changing that because it's my family history, but then as I researched my family history, I found out that my father's father, who was an English immigrant during World War I, which is kind of odd, how do you get to where my father was born in California? It's a long story, but his father deserted the family, his name was reputedly, Sylvester Hodgson Walker. He deserted this mother and this infant boy, who was my father and said, "I'm a British subject, I don't want to have a kid." And he ran off to Canada, and he said, "You can't touch me, I'm a British subject." I don't even really know the man's name, I never saw a picture of him 3 and it's one of these great mysteries of life that I would love to see at least what he looked like and how did he end up in California during World War One. The British would have wanted any young man to be in the Army or something and so it's a—was his name really Walker, you know, all these mysteries like that. I didn't feel troubled about dropping the name Walker, so that's, anyway, we got off on a tangent. LR: No, that's great, I asked so, let's go ahead and go back then. You said that your dad worked at Hill Field as a sergeant in the Army Air Corps, what did your mom do? JV: My mother was a teacher in her later years, well, when they were first married she was a school teacher, then she dropped her job as a teacher to be a house wife and about 1959 she went back to Ogden public schools, worked at Edison school teaching second grade. Her name was Bonnie Ruth Murphy Walker and she passed away this month, just earlier this month, ten years ago the start of this month, she's been dead 10 years now. The family is all gone, my brother, my father and my mother are all gone and my wife and I live here. LR: You're kind of cutting out on me. JV: Oh, maybe if I hold the microphone up closer here. LR: I'm not sure if it's you or if it's me. That seems to be better, okay. I hate it when I get off on my flow. As you were growing up, what were some of the things you liked to do for fun? JV: I used to draw maps of the city actually. I loved history form early on. I read Land Mark Books, I was a boy scout. I got an Eagle Scout Award, I was an Eagle 4 Scout. I was very interested in police and crime, the FBI. I wanted to be an FBI agent at one time and I studied the history of, I was reading adult literature written for adults about the FBI, you know like the FBI story by Glen Whitehead I think it is, when I was twelve. I was trying to—it was not easy to read—but I was trying and I was just obsessed with that stuff and I saw the world very black and white, in a very black and white way. I remember giving—I had some really conservative, very, very conservative opinions about law and order and I wanted to—we had some milk stolen and I wanted my mother so badly to call the police department because I wanted to look at a real policeman in the face and we hardly had any crime in that area. I was so excited that was my amusement, anything to do with law and order or police, any TV show, Texas Rangers or Broderick Crawford, who starred in California Highway Patrol or anything like that. The Lone Ranger and all that stuff, I just loved all that. We played Army, it was post World War Two so we had, almost everybody I knew was the son or the daughter of a GI or a sailor from World War Two or a Marine. We had tons of Army Men and toys about World War Two and I had a whole Army and Navy set of toys that I just spent hours with. Then we would—the little kids in the neighborhood—we'd organize into tiny army, little army training things. Then I would build little model cities in the back yard with rocks and build a highway. I had a lot of fun doing that. I made a model of Ben Lomond peak at one time in my back yard out of clay and rocks and so I had a lot of fun as for Mount Ben Lomond and all that. I tried to make of Ogden out of rocks but it was a little over whelming. 5 LR: I'll bet. So did you ever have the chance to meet any Ogden Police officers when you were younger? JV: Yea, one of my friends, Gary Greenwood, became a police officer in Ogden and he and I were golfing buddies for quite a while, and I met him, just before I moved out of Ogden—I got married and moved away, I remember seeing him in his uniform with his shoes all polished. I was so proud of him and I so wished that I could be like him, be a policeman, but I never became a policeman, I became a park ranger. Not quite the same, but he was just kind of an inspiration when I saw him standing there with his highly polished shoes and his nice neat uniform and he was very proud of it, rightly so. I lost track of him, I would like to talk to him again but I tried to locate him on the internet and he was a probation officer for a while and I couldn't find any more about him. I haven't, if you know him or anybody knows him, I would love to talk to him. He was a great guy. I'm just joining the auxiliary law enforcement team here for the San Francisco police, I just applied to join that. It's a volunteer position, but my fantasy, my interest in crime and law and order has been lifelong. I guess it's no wonder I ended up on Alcatraz. LR: Did you ever hang out downtown? JV: Yea, we did, one of my stronger memories, my father would take me, well my father was a—after he left the Army Air Corps, he became a postman at the main post office and then later Gorder's station as they used to call the post office over there on the bench. He was, his route was the businesses along 25th and along Washington. He was the downtown postman, and he would drive all the 6 packages, they didn't have a UPS, and he would do all the package deliveries all over downtown. He was a gun lover, he loved guns and there was a gun shop on 25th that he loved to go to. He knew 25th very well, he knew the Porters and Waiters Club, he took me into the Depot Drug and there was some girly magazines one time. Oh, it was a little embarrassing, I was going through puberty. Oh we looked at those girly magazines a little bit, but that was among little things like that that I remember. Depot Drug was a hive of activity. It was scary, it was frightening, but it was exciting also. They had these barrels of toys. I loved anything with a plastic army man, or army soldiers like that, and they had just piles of that stuff. Even in the front window, or I think it could even have been on the sidewalk, I could remember my heart just pounding about it, and I only got to go in there a couple of times, but it was a just a hive of excitement. There was also a fear about 25th of course, the legend of all the possibility of heroin and prostitution and all those things that were going on around there. I could even I guess sense it in my father that he was a little bit on edge, but he never had anyone bother him or threaten him in any way while he was delivering mail. He had some rude business people that were pretty rude to him, you know, kind of abusive, but he didn't ever have any threats. He was very close with the black community in Ogden, he knew a lot of the black folks and he was very pro civil rights and he felt that they had gotten the bad end of the deal. The Porters and Waiters Club was famous, of course, for the railroad porters that worked on the Union Pacific that brought Jazz to Ogden. 7 It was also a street of sin certainly. Later in life, my best man at my wedding was Arnie Jacobson and his father was chief Jacobson of the Ogden police. Arnie told me some stories, but these are now second hand stories that he got from his father, so I don't have direct access to that information but it came through Arnie. His father put on black face because they didn't have any black police officers and went down onto 25th to purchase heroine, because the dealers on 25th were black. They did make some arrests and the Ogden police were known as the toughest police in Utah because of the street, because of patrolling 25th street they had to be tougher than the Salt Lake police, according to Arnie anyway. They would have this annual football, I believe football game between the Ogden Police and the Salt Lake police and the Ogden police would always win because they had to be tougher, even though it was a smaller department by far than the Salt Lake department. It really had quite a story there, I mean you could write a lot of, I could easily see someone writing a novel or a historical novel about it. Maybe that's what I should do, I don't know. Then my mother told me about working at the Union Laundry but she did all that Union Pacific linen as a young woman. She was a pretty young brunette and her father, Clarence Murphy, would warn her, he was a Union Pacific engineer. "Now Bonnie, you get down to Washington Boulevard and get on that street car and you run to Washington Boulevard," or somebody told her, or she told me that she was so scared on 25th that she ran all the way from Wall Avenue to Washington Boulevard as fast as she could run to get to Washington Boulevard to where she felt safe, and then get on the street car to go north to 8 Harrisville Road where they lived. She had a palpable fear of that street but she again never had anything happen to her so it just, there's a lot of stuff about that street. I've seen that, I don't know you've probably seen that DVD that that fellow put out about the history of Ogden I imagine. Are you aware of that one? LR: Yes, The one that was in 2007 or 11, not too long ago? Yes. JV: They explained that, I guess they alleged that Al Capone may have been on 25th, which I've never found any—I tried because I studied Al Capone quite a bit having been on Alcatraz where he was locked up for about five years, and I've never found any evidence, have you? To support that he was ever there. LR: I haven't, the only thing I have heard about are the rumors. JV: Yea, it's just legendary. When I worked on Alcatraz we'd have people from Canada and Saskatchewan Province was a place where he was reputed to have been. Oh, Al Capone, you hear this all the time, in Wisconsin he went to honey lodges and it is conceivable that he may have been in Ogden that he was really on, and it was called Little Chicago at one point. It was one of the nick names of Ogden, of that area of Ogden as you may know already. Of course, today, it's a very different street than it was and I'm looking at a picture of it right now, a modern picture. I guess there were some movies made there with that famous noddle parlor sign? LR: Yea, the Star Noodle, the one with the dragon? JV: There was a little China town there too of course, from the Chinese workers on the railroad. My grandfather, as a boy, his mother died when he was a youngster and his father was of course a railroad worker too, an engineer, and he was 9 basically raised himself on the streets. This would have been about 1900 or 1905 around in that era, used to run opium on a bicycle around China, the little Ogden, and helped these opium dealers. It was legal at that time to sell opium, and he would, as reprehensible as it sounds now, would sell opium to the Chinese, and make a little money that way, because they didn't have much money. He and his sister and his father, no mother, were kind of, you know, they had some kind of rough edges in his early years, and he remembered being pretty mean to some of the Chinese as a teenage boy, pulling there queue's. They used to wear their hair in queue's on the back of their head, doing some mean things like that and of course the Chinese were abused everywhere. Out here in San Francisco they were abused even more. The word Chink was frequently passed around. It was a racist time it was not fun to be black or Chinese in those days. It was rough for a lot of people. LR: So did you ever witness any of that discrimination in that part of Ogden? JV: No, that was way before my time. I think it went underground, I'm sure there was a feeling that Asians were odd or you know, they were kind of a curiosity. I don't remember. We used to eat at the Utah Noodle Parlor a lot and have the other—I forget the other noodle parlor name on Grant there. We used to, and we enjoyed all the food, the chop suey and all those things. So you'd hear little remarks like that, that were racists but it was, and of course it was. My grandfather had actually been a member of the Klan when he was a youngster. He had no education, he was brought up on the streets and he picked up whatever he picked up, and he picked up a lot of racists attitudes. I remember he, as a young 10 man—he wasn't that in his older years—but as a young man, there was a Klu Klux Klan Chapter there in Ogden. The Klan was all over the United States if you study the history of the Klan and it was very powerful in the early twenties and that's about the time he was starting his family. My grandfather was out there on Harrisville Road, but he I guess they had some Klan meetings up on the foothills in the early twenties where they burned crosses and stuff up on the foothills above. You can imagine how it must have felt to be a black person and see that going on, especially a tiny minority, there in that part of the world. A feeling, you must have been pretty much an emotional, a very unpleasant emotional experience anyway for a black or an Asian too. I think they were pretty mean to Asians, the Klan was, as well. He never said much about that, he did express racist attitudes which were part of that generation, occasionally. I had that wonderful contrast in my father who just really loved the black folks in Ogden. Marshall White, the police officer who was killed there, who was a hero of the police department. After they finally got a black officer, and then he got killed, but it was a rough town. There was somewhat open prostitution, if I remember, right along parts of Grant Avenue and Lincoln Avenue. Even in my early years, even as late as maybe 19, probably about 1970 even, there was still open prostitution going on, it was very limited, but it was there. As I've studied the street I know there was a back alley that ran heroin and a tunnel that ran heroin from the depot all along, I think on the north side of the street. Maybe that tunnel is still there, I've seen 11 some references that indicate that the tunnel went all the way to the Ben Lomond Hotel apparently. Are you aware of that? LR: I'm aware more of the rumors. JV: I saw something online about historic tunnel tours of Ogden and they, if I remember correctly were going into the basement of the Ben Lomond Hotel and somebody was leading a ghost tour or something like that. They were able to go under Washington Boulevard possibly and they said, "Well, who knows." Of course they want to enlarge everything and make it more exciting so they bring in Al Capone and all that. The danger of history is always that somebody tries to enlarge things or exaggerate things. I was never able to see that myself and I didn't even know, I'd heard rumors about it but I've never been in it. LR: Well I know that most of the businesses now have closed up there tunnels, so most of the people we have talked to, yea, it's possible, but now they're all closed up so. But yea, we've had a lot of references to them, a lot of people that remember being down in them, but none actually going form Ben Lomond to the depot. We can't actually verify that, so. It's fun to hear about though. JV: Well that was the big fancy hotel, I guess the Ben Lomond was built about 1927, and being a big, the highest building in town and anybody who wanted a prostitute probably would have wanted to bring them in underground into the hotel or something like that, or wanted maybe drugs and happened to be at the hotel. It does kind of make sense if you were in the, in the world of vice and you had money enough to stay in a nice room there and you wanted something, knowing the hotel business as I do, because I worked with it for a while here, 12 there are people in the hotels are bribable a lot of times, and if you want—they want some cash and if you have the cash, they'll find a way to get you what you want. Who knows, I wouldn't be surprised, I don't have any evidence of it, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was something like that going on. LR: I wouldn't be surprised either. Do you remember any of the people that used to live or work on 25th street? JV: Yes. Well, my mother worked at the Union Laundry I guess it was called as a— this would have been—she was born in 1919, so it would have been roughly around the time she graduated from Ogden High in 1938. So she was working at the Union Laundry, and that's where that tale about running down the street as fast as she could run, her heart pounding came from, that era. And then my grandfather, Clarence Patrick Murphy, a real Irish name, half Danish, but in fact his mother was Danish. He was working there from about age 16 and he was born about 1885 I believe, so he would have been there about 1901 and he was already working as a fireman as a teenage boy. He couldn't finish school, at Sacred Heart School on upper 25th where he went. He would bend over all the way to Wyoming shoveling coal. He told a tale later that even as a 16 year old boy of working with his back bent to shovel coal all the way from Ogden to Evanston and back just almost constantly shoveling coal to get up that grade to that high plateau in Wyoming. It was not the life that any of us would want to live I am sure, to spend back breaking hours to make a living. He was a devoted member of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineman and Firemen throughout his life and was a lifelong democrat of course, because of the 13 Democrats alliance with the labor unions. He was also one of the shop stewards of the Union Pacific in his later years. He also worked on the old Oregon Shortline Railroad, which was, he fondly would say, "Oregon Shortline," and his eyes would drift off as he thought about it. I guess the Oregon Shortline was, ran from Ogden to Pocatello, if I'm not mistaken, and didn't obviously it didn't go all the way to Oregon. He was the switching engineer which would be, he would build trains by bringing cars from one train and hauling them to join another train and then back and forth all day in the yards of Ogden. He'd go over those yards, and of course today, there's even I guess some activity there, but back in those days the yards were just a hive of energy and the sound of the rails and the squeaking of the iron against iron and you would hear all the noises associated with all that. The station where I went as, this would have been approximately 1955. My grandmother, my California grandmother, my father's mother, would come up from across the Lucin Cutoff across the Great Salt Lake on the Union Pacific from Promontory Point to West Weber and she would, we'd meet her at the Union Station whenever she'd come to visit us. That's where I got to see the Union Station quite a bit as a boy. There would be three or four taxi cabs, several cars coming and going and people were dressed—in those days the women wore gloves and hats and high heels all the time and the men wore business suits and big fedora hats. The railway express, REA railway express agency had a large outlet in the foyer of the station. 14 Just going in to the foyer of the Union Depot was to me, one of the most exciting things of my childhood because I would go in there and look around and seeing people coming and going, people making orders and carrying tickets, porters carrying baggage and porters with red caps on and white uniforms and white jackets. All black men, the only black people I had ever seen at that time in my life were down in the depot. Sorry, I get a little emotional sometimes when I'm talking about these things. I have to take a breath here for a moment. There was a very busy barbershop with an old fashioned striped aprons that, or whatever they called those things that they, smocks, that they would put around people being, having their hair cut. They had the talcum powder brushes and the barber clipping away furiously, and people in a hurry to get on, "I don't want to miss my train," and all those things. The station itself, getting inside was just, it seemed like the biggest building I had ever seen in my life at that time, probably was, and it, the big chandeliers and it was just, in its heyday was just packed with passengers and train schedules and the public address system announcing what was going on. I didn't even know what the people were doing as a boy, I had no concept of what riding a train was because we didn't actually get on the trains, so we never went out on the platforms and so all I saw was just the results of all that. What I observed was a little confusing because I didn't put it together that these people are coming from California or Chicago or wherever it may be. This really was the junction city of the Mountain West and it really was a big deal. It was so sad to see the old down town, as I'm sure you've heard from a 15 lot of people, to see what happened to that wonderful downtown on Washington Boulevard. Again, that's another subject for a book you could write about, Washington Boulevard in its heyday. Beuhler Bingham and B and B Clothiers, the Blue Door and all those fabulous clothing stores and Fred M. Nye that were able, because the economy was so powerful then with Hill Field and the Army Depot and the Naval Supply Depot and all those things, and then the railroad. Everybody was making money and it was sort of the golden age of Ogden. I guess from about the end of World War Two till roughly the time I graduated from Ben Lomond, about 1965, for about those twenty years that downtown district was just thriving. There was Watson and Tanner and 24th street was almost equal to Washington and its level of commercial activity and it was a really nice feeling to the town. There wasn't a lot of crime for the most part, you didn't hear about a lot of—we had, my mother had a friend, Officer Keith Burkdahl, who was a policeman. I remember she got—I guess one of the early beat nicks, there were a handful of beatniks I guess, in Ogden, that maybe were smoking marijuana and this guy hit her at 25th and Monroe. It was at night and he had dark glasses on, and he had sideburns and this would have been 1955 or 56 around the time Elvis was big. We just thought that was so bizarre that this fellow was dressed in this leather jacket and he had sideburns and he had dark glasses on and it's nighttime, you know, why are you wearing—it is kind of odd even now. Keith Burkdahl investigated this because my mother happen to. His wife was a good friend of my mothers and he was a patrolman and so he said, "Yea, we caught 16 this guy and arrested this guy." They finger printed him and everything. I was excited by that. It was, there were some rough characters in Ogden and who knows maybe he was using heroin or something too, or maybe he was associated with 25th street, but we never found out. Whenever I would encounter the Ogden police, I can remember in 1956, the Ogden Police had four brand new blue Fords that they got and they all, they had no markings, anywhere on the car. They were painted, I think, if I remember correctly they were a dark royal blue and they had just about the size of a coffee cup, maybe a large coffee cup, on top was a red, just a red light, and that's all, and a radio antenna, and not anywhere on the car did it say police, anywhere. It just is so funny to look back at that, we'd walk through City Hall Park and of course that was the police station back then. It was in the back of the city hall building, and you'd walk through city hall park and I'd see maybe eight or nine Fords with that bubble light on top, and maybe a couple of unmarked cars. That was the, such as it was, the Ogden police at that time. There's another story, you could do the history of the Ogden Police because they must have some tales to tell if you come across one of the retiree's from the Ogden police or somebody, the son of a police officer, I'd bet you'd get some great stories. Arnie Jacobson might be a good source because his dad. I don't know what became of him, I haven't been in touch with him in years, but his dad, I know was the chief about 1970, they had the police radio in their house because his dad was the chief, so he would hear all the radio calls in Ogden as a 17 boy. You get into some personal information sometimes, but he got run out of the house. LR: Well speaking of growing up, did you ever attend any of the theaters downtown? JV: Yes, the movies? LR: Yes. JV: Yea, we loved the Orpheum, thank you for reminding me. The Orpheum and the Egyptian, but the Orpheum even more so, it was sadly destroyed. The most exciting, fun thing we ever did I think was about 1959 and Ogden was just in its glory days at that time. We, there was a girl next door, Susanne Sylvester, who I had a crush on, and I forget who else. Anyway, we were all about 12 or 13 years old and our parents escorted us, and we got all dressed up and went to, I put on a tie and a sports coat and the girls were dressed up and we just, we just thought that was the most fun we had ever had. We went to the Orpheum and saw a movie, I can't remember what the movie was now. It was just going to the theater down, either the Egyptian or the Orpheum was just one of the special things about that time in life when you are coming of age. I think for almost anyone who was there at that time would remember it well. LR: So is that the theater that had the Popeye Club? JV: I don't know. You know, I don't know about the Popeye Club. Actually when you said that it was the first time I've heard that term. LR: Oh really, okay. JV: I must have missed out. LR: It might have been Paramount. I get my theaters mixed up, I apologize. 18 JV: The Popeye Club, maybe the Paramount was, Popeye Copper Club, Ogden, or Popeye—it says here, I am doing a little web search. I remember the Paramount was where the Paramount Bowl was, is that right? LR: I'm not sure. JV: Where the river, by the river bridge? Where the Ogden sign, is that right? LR: I'm honestly not sure, I thought it was downtown myself. I know the Orpheum and the Egyptian were. I thought the Paramount was too, so. JV: Let's see here, we had a friend who lived right by the Ogden bridge, the Ogden sign, where the Ogden sign in on the east side of Washington. There was this very interesting neighborhood there that reminds, as I got older and look back at it, I thought, "Oh my gosh, that's a lot like big city's back east." It reminded me of, in some ways. I remember the Paramount Bowling alley. When you said Paramount I thought more of a bowling alley then I did of a theater. Then there was a drive in too, and there may have been called the Paramount, there was the Riverdale Drive-in, and there was a drive-in on the south end of town was the Riverdale and going up towards North Ogden was, that Harrisville area there was a drive-in out that way, the North Point Drive- In. The drive-ins, of course, when you're a teenager in those days, it was where all the necking and all that went on. Exciting dates or all the wishful thinking for boys mostly was going on. I know there was a Paramount theater, maybe if I put movie theater, Ogden Utah, my search engine isn't generating a lot right now on that. Let's see, as it opened on the, oh, here it says, "The Paramount theater opened as the 19 Alhambra theater, March 17, 1915 with a concert by the Ogden Tabernacle Choir." There's one reference there, its Cinema treasure. Oh, here we go, 2429 Keisel Avenue. LR: Ah, that's right. JV: Oh, the Alhambra. So here is a, I vaguely remember this photo, I mean this store front. It's located on Keisel, just off of, I think just off 24th, because that looks like the Fred J. Keisel building. LR: Yes, it would have been on the opposite, it would have been closer to 25th. It's actually not there anymore, they tore it down. JV: Yea, I bet it's gone. That's my granddad's era for sure, those old street lights and globe street lights and the old early automobiles. LR: What are some of your favorite memories of downtown Ogden then? JV: Well, to be honest, it was the pretty girls you would see. You would see very, very pretty girls, you'd see dozens of girls that would just you know, traffic stop kind of thing where you'd go, "wow." It was also just the feeling that it was exciting, it was a pleasant city. There was a lunch counter near 25th and Washington, Keeley's Café. You'd go in, it was a bustling café, downtown café—going in and having lunch there. There was also a toy shop near there, and my grandfather doted on me, I was his favorite, out of the five grandchildren I was the oldest one and he liked, I don't know, he and I just bonded and he would take me in as a boy and bought me a pistol set, a cowboy pistol set from this store and I don't know the name. It was a toy store near the Broom hotel and it had just all kinds of cowboy toys all 20 over the walls, and this was a pretty big, pretty large, you know, reasonably large toy store and he bought me this holster and toy gun and toy bullets and I think it was probably one of my happiest moments in childhood. Then going on that date to the Orpheum was another one. The Utah Noodle Parlor was always fun to go to and having the big butterfly shrimp that they still make I think, I think they're still there somewhere. LR: No, they actually closed down. JV: Oh, they closed down? LR: Yea, it hasn't been that long, but Utah Noodle is no more. JV: Oh, that's too bad. That was a great tradition, but I guess Jimmies Flower shop is still there probably. That was a great flower shop. I didn't know the Glassman's, I guess you've come across A L Glassman, the name A L Glassman, but he was the operator of the Orpheum it says. Have you come across the Name Ira Huggins? He was the great attorney, probably the most famous attorney in Ogden. LR: I'm not sure. JV: Ira Huggins was—my mother would speak of him very fondly. I found a URL here, its Cinema Treasures, and it has a lot about the Paramount Theater, 2429 Keisel. This might be a page you want to look at it. It's Cinematreasures.org/theaters/26282, [some of the information that follows come directly from this website.] This is a lot of information I wasn't aware of here about the publisher . Glassman, of course, owned the Standard Examiner and apparently owned this theater also at some point and one of its premier 21 attractions was Cecil B. De Mill, The Ten Commandments. In 1925 it was leased by Public Theaters and renamed Paramount Theater so it started as the Alhambra, I guess. Glassman also owned the Orpheum but he bought the Alhambra in 1923 and then, according to this web site, during the summer months, Orpheum Vaudeville moved to the Alhambra, so they had Vaudeville, wow, now that's very interesting. In 1925 the Alhambra was leased by the Publix Theaters and renamed Paramount Theater, so that's where they got the Paramount. It underwent a complete renovation and seating was reduced to 1900 one of its premier attractions was Ten Commandments. Not the one in the 1950s but the original. By 1927 the theater was under the direction of Brooklyn-born Louis Marcus, who also owned major theaters in Salt Lake, including the Capital and other theaters in Idaho. Fanchon & Marco "Ideas" supplemented the screen attractions at the Paramount. With the demise of the American Theatre in Salt Lake in 1929, the Paramount boasted being Utah's largest theatre. Wow, I didn't know any of this. In 1929 Marcus said he was selling his interest to Publix Theaters and retiring. He was elected mayor of Salt Lake from 32 and served four years and died in 1939. 1934 it came under the ownership of Paramor Theatres who also operated the Orpheum Theatre, Lyceum Theatre and Colonial Theatre. The local Ogden Theatre was an independent. So there is quite a story there of just the theater industry in Ogden. In July of 1954, Paramor Theatres completed renovations which gave it all new seating and a 42' by 21' screen. In time for Christmas 1954, a new marquee and Paramount vertical sign in addition to the Formica snack bar 22 was added to the interior. And that's when "White Christmas" came out with Bing Crosby. So, you'll probably want to look at that website for sure. LR: Yea, I wrote it down so I'll be able to. JV: It's not that much information but it has this one wonderful old photo of the Alhambra. LR: Hmm, that's cool. JV: Yea, also, I would recommend to you to see UCR.edu. LR: Right, I wrote that down too. JV: Yea, and if you can't—that website is a little obtuse—it's something like digital newspaper survey and it's California papers, but remarkably, like I say, especially the San Francisco papers, have lots and lots of Ogden's lore and stories, especially around the time of 1890 to 1930, which would be of great value to anyone doing research at the university there. Then you can form a partnership with the UC Riverside, maybe the two schools could maybe get together on helping each other, because I know that educators always need support and they have to help each other and there is always the threats of budget cuts and things like that. I know he was, that fellow at UC Riverside was saying, "Oh we've got to prove to the regents of the university that we are doing something of value to the community so that they won't shut us down." I wrote, personally when I was a park ranger, wrote a couple of paragraphs saying how much value I've gotten out of it. You're able to, or course with your printer on your computer, you're able to print stories up if you want, or photos. They also have photos too, because you're looking at the actual paper and you can see the old historic ads. 23 LR: Right, that's fun. JV: Yea, it's really fun. You sound like you're a history lover too, so you'd have a field day with that probably. LR: I have two more questions if that's alright JV: It's been a lifelong love for me. ___________ being a park ranger, it was one of the great joys of being a park ranger was being able to give history tours, you know how it's just limited to Alcatraz history, which has quite a colorful history of course. LR: I know it's kind of getting, this has kind of gone long, but I have two more questions if that is ok. JV: Yeah, sure. LR: My first one is, you talked about your grandfather being involved in the Klan in Ogden, do you know much about that? JV: No, he was, I think he was a little ashamed of it. He, I know, it's really unfortunate I can't ask any of these folks any questions or maybe my aunt, who is still alive might know something about it. She lives in Portland, Oregon. I could ask her but she would have been embarrassed about it too. I know that he talked in racial terms about when he would watch the prize fights, Gillette Prize fights on television and he would, there was definitely a palpable racism present when he would—see a black man fighting a white man or something in a Prize fight. The only reason I know about the Klan was that my mother told me that, he didn't tell me himself he was a member of the Klan. I think he was embarrassed. He was certainly not proud of it. 24 I heard, now, I'm trying to place where I heard the recollection by some, probably from my mother, that they had put some burning crosses up on, I think the north east bench, up around, somewhere around where Ben Lomond High stands today. Up on 7th or 7th street, upper 7th street probably or somewhere where it would be seen for miles around or hoped anyway. Just to terrorize the poor black folks a little more, and probably it would have been, I'm sure they didn't like Asians either, or Jews of course. There were a handful of Jewish people too in Ogden so those groups would have been not too thrilled, I'm sure, to see that. I could try and ask Aunt Patty, she's Jennings Olsen's sister by the way, my aunt. He was the professor there at Weber for many years. She may know something about it also, and if you want, I could call you back if I'm able to find out more. The KKK was organized in all 48 states in the 1920s per public television documentary. LR: It's just a curiosity. I will leave that entirely up to you. It was just a—really, someone who was involved, so I wouldn't complain but I don't want you to feel like you have to do that or anything. JV: Well, I'm always willing to help, it's fascinating. What I have found with history and the more you dig, the more interesting it is. LR: Well this is true, I agree. JV: You reminded me of that little neighborhood around the Ogden sign there on the east side of Washington that, I wish I could relive that. Also there was something— I went to visit a friend who lived right there. There was a little alley that shot off of Washington and I think it said Paramount Bowl and it was across 25 from Bigler's Desert Inn, which was an old structure that is no longer there either. We fished in the Ogden river briefly, just once, it only happened once, I went to see him and we fished in the river. It was kind of odd, it seemed like, because here it is almost like in downtown but also almost like out in the country at the same time. It was a really nice little district there that I haven't seen any photos of, but I can picture it in my head as I close my eyes I can see it. There were store fronts right the river and I think a concrete fence or something against the river bank itself, but I'm sure it's all gone now. All that's left is the historic sign there now, but it's fun to reminisce anyway. LR: Well, my last question is this, how has Ogden changed since you were growing up here, do you think? JC: It had that timing, you know, 24th and Washington was the heart of the city and it was the heart of Ogden, it really was like the heart. It was just like a human body has a heart, it was the heart of the city and it was a thriving heartbeat. I remember a young boy yelling, "Standard," and he used to actually hold up the newspaper in his arm and wave it and people would run up and buy a newspaper. It was from the Bon Marché store which was at 22nd to about 26th or 27th along Washington, was just bustling with traffic, excitement. The ladies were dressed in their finest clothes and men were dressed in business suits, and not everyone dressed that way, but it was certainly a thriving place and then along 24th, almost the same scene. It's just sad to see that, well it's happened to many cities; it's not just Ogden, that the core of the city got gutted and changed irreparably. It's too bad 26 that it couldn't have been like what was done with Trolley Square in Salt Lake where they at least maybe changed the buildings, but don't gut every, just don't tear everything completely. The W. T. Grant store was a big deal on 24th and Washington and there was the Kiesel building and the Eccles building and the First Security Bank building and it had this little sky line and it was just, I don't know, it just seemed like a really, really positive. Overall, 25th kind of gave you the vice and a little excitement and drama, which was also kind of fun, and it just kind of was a really nice place to grow up. It sort of represented America, to me. I wrote a little article when I was a boy about it and I took a world book and I followed the outline they used to write about Chicago or New York and I just took every element, and Ogden had it all, in miniscule amounts. It had a little Asian neighborhood, it had a black neighborhood, it had everything in America and it was a, in a microcosm, it was the country. It's sad to a, I'm sorry, LR: It's okay. JV: Makes me feel bad to see that all that is lost. I know there is some of it there still. The Egyptian Theater is still there, but, LR: You're right, most of it is gone. JV: We would get, to go down to Washington Boulevard was a big deal and we would put on our best clothes and we would, yea, it was just a big deal. Even when I started working at the highway department on 17th and Wall or near, just off Wall, at the Utah Highway, Utah Road Commission, we looked forward to driving along Washington Boulevard just for the fun of seeing people on the street and seeing 27 all the excitement that it used to represent. I don't know, it's just, thank you for letting me share all that, and if I can come up with some more goodies I'll certainly call you. Also you're always welcome to call me if you need any more that I can provide, and thanks again for what you are doing. LR: Well, thank you for being so willing to help us out, I appreciate that, and for your stories, they've been wonderful and I appreciate you're willingness to work with us and to do this. We've been on the phone now for almost an hour and 20 minutes so I appreciate your time and your willingness, it means a lot. JV: Well great, Okay Lorrie, keep in touch, and any time I can be of assistance, who knows, maybe your or I or both of us may write books about it, who knows. LR: That would be fun. JV: It's worthy of some good books, I can think of three right now that would be worthy books about that era. But anyway, have a great day. 28

Don Garside, August 8, 2013 ; Business at the Crossroads - Ogden City is a project to collect oral histories related to changes in the Ogden business district since World War II. From the 1870s to World War II, Ogden was a major railroad town, with nine rail systems. With both east-west and north-south rail lines, business and commercial houses flourished as Ogden became a shipping and commerce hub. ; The following is an oral history interview with Don Garside. The interview was conducted on August 8, 2013, by Melissa Johnson, in Stewart Library. Garside discusses his experience with 25th street. Don�s sister Anne Metcalf is also present for the interview. ; 34p.; 29cm.; 2 bound transcripts; 4 file folders. 1 videodisc: digital; 4 3/4 in. ; Oral History Program Don Garside Interviewed by Melissa Johnson 8 August 2013 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Don Garside Interviewed by Melissa Johnson 8 August 2013 Copyright © 2014 by Weber State University, Stewart Library Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in Special Collections. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description Business at the Crossroads - Ogden City is a project to collect oral histories related to changes in the Ogden business district since World War II. From the 1870s to World War II, Ogden was a major railroad town, with nine rail systems. With both east-west and north-south rail lines, business and commercial houses flourished as Ogden became a shipping and commerce hub. After World War II, the railroad business declined. Some government agencies and businesses related to the defense industry continued to gravitate to Ogden after the war—including the Internal Revenue Regional Center, the Marquardt Corporation, Boeing Corporation, Volvo-White Truck Corporation, Morton-Thiokol, and several other smaller operations. However, the economy became more service oriented, with small businesses developing that appealed to changing demographics, including the growing Hispanic population. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management Special Collections All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Garside, Don, an oral history by Melissa Johnson, 8 August 2013, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Don Garside August 8, 2013 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Don Garside. The interview was conducted on August 8, 2013, by Melissa Johnson, in Stewart Library. Garside discusses his experience with 25th street. Don's sister Anne Metcalf is also present for the interview. MJ: Today is August 8, 2013. We're interviewing Don Garside as part of the Business at the Crossroads 25th Street Project. We are here in the Stewart Library, my name is Melissa Johnson and I'll be doing the interview. Recording the interview is Sarah Langsdon, and also present is Don's sister, Anne Metcalf. So start us off, Don, with where and when you were born. DG: I was born uh May 4, 1934, in Riverton, Utah, on the kitchen table. MJ: Wow, on the kitchen table. DG: On the kitchen table. We moved to Ogden in the late 1930's, probably 1938 or 1939. We had stops in Provo and Salt Lake along the way because we got here in time for my brother to start elementary school, which he would have started in 1938. MJ: Why don't you tell us a little bit about your family as well? DG: I had an older brother, and my sister, and a half-sister. My current family or back then? MJ: As much as you would like to share. DG: I have two children, eight grandchildren, and ten great-grandchildren. If you add in the step ones that's another fifteen. MJ: Quite the clan 1 DG: Yes, it's quite a clan, quite a clan. We make a lot of noise. MJ: I bet, but that means you're having fun, right? DG: Yeah, yeah. MJ: Well, good. What were your parent's names? DG: My dad was Arlyn Myers Garside and my mother was Ruth Alice Lloyd Garside. MJ: Great, now you got here to Ogden in about 1938. How old would you have been then? What grade were you in? DG: I wasn't in school yet. MJ: Oh, that's right. You said your older brother started. DG: Yeah, I would've been about four years old. MJ: About four years old? DG: Yes. MJ: So what do you remember about Ogden when you were a child? DG: I remember the first place we lived was on Monroe Boulevard between 27th and 28th and then we moved into a duplex on the corner of Monroe and 27th street on the northwest corner—we had the west duplex. Then from there we moved to 25th street, and I was there until I was 19. MJ: So what kinds of things did you do for fun when you were growing up? DG: Well, the war was on, so of course, one of the things we did was play war games. We had several places we could play; the Sacred Heart Academy had a lot of open places. Over on 24th street was one of the Browning mansions and they had quite a yard there and they didn't seem to care too much that we played 2 in there. Then, in the middle of the block there was a construction company. There were a lot of their old trucks. We would go in there and we would make forts, dig trenches, and then cover them all with boards and cardboard and dirt on top of that. Just play war games and usually used war guns. We made them out of wood and shaped them like a pistol, but they had a long barrel. Then we would cut up inner tubes in strips and tie a knot in them. Then on the handle we would put a clothespin and the end of the barrel was notched so you would load it from the barrel to the back but usually you had to do it between your legs so a lot of times there were accidents. One of the rules of the game was no shooting above the neck. Also on the block there was a fellow who had a lot of junk cars. We talked to him and he let us take the liners out of the headlights because at the time all of the headlights were usually on fenders, and we made those into helmets. Then, of course, our wagons, the good old Red Rider was the Jeep and my friend and I would usually end up being the motor. My brother was usually the driver, the commander. We made our own games. We were from that era where if you wanted to be entertained you did it yourself. We played ball in the back alley, we played different tag games, and just anything that amused ourselves. We would create ball teams and challenge another neighborhood to a game. AM: Pineview Reservoir DG: Oh yeah. There was a neighbor who lived by us that every day went to Pineview, and if we had our parent's permission we could go with him. We would go up there and we would play on the beach and he would swim across the reservoir 3 and then swim back—I always thought he was an old man—but then he would bring us home. So that was a lot of fun. About every place we wanted to go around town we either walked or rode our bike. One of the challenges was to ride your bike up 25th Street to about Pierce and then come back down. At that time there was a light on 25th and Harrison, so the game was: we started out, but you couldn't hit your brake—and of course it was all the single speed bikes—so hopefully we would hit 25th and Harrison on a green light. One time we were coming down and one of the guy's the chain broke on his bike so he didn't have any brake, and you figure we were past Harrison so we had come down about a half mile and we still had about a half mile to go to my house. Didn't know what he was going to do so finally he just went up on the sidewalk and went into some bushes. It was better than hitting a tree. MJ: A little bit of a softer land. DG: Yeah, and a lot of times we were over at the Sacred Heart Academy. They had a half block and the west portion of it had fruit trees and there was a canal that divided it. They had apples, plums and all of that, and the other side was fairly open. The grass would get up, well for us it was about to our waists. We would play games in there, but we would have to be out of there by 7:00 p.m. because that's when the nuns went to bed. They would yell at us from the fourth floor, and if that didn't do any good the caretaker came out with his double barrel shotgun. The whole area was surrounded by a hedge—and they were basically piracantha bushes if you know what a piracantha is. We made areas in the hedge that made 4 somewhat of a tunnel. He came out one time and—we found out later on that he had a load of rock salt in shotgun shells—and this one friend of mine couldn't find the opening so he made one. He was a mess when he got out on the other side. We did a lot of things that people would think were nuts, but we had a good time. We enjoyed ourselves On Saturdays we would usually go to the movies. We would go down to the Paramount Theater that was on Kiesel between 24th and 25th. For a dime we could see two full double features, the news, and probably about ten or so cartoons. Then they would have a program in between where they would have a contest for a bike or something like that. If we liked the movie we would stay and sit through it again. Didn't make the parents too happy because we were late getting home, but it was a good way to spend the day. We always went to the Paramount because it was cheaper. The Egyptian and the Orpheum charged a ridiculous price of about twenty cents, so we went to the Paramount. One time we had a basketball team and we were challenged by a team at the Industrial School on 200 North Washington. We were in junior high school so we biked from our house all the way out there, played a basketball game, then hiked all the way back. So we did a lot of walking and biking. It was just natural for us, not like it is anymore. MJ: You mentioned before that your father owned an ice cream shop. DG: Yeah. MJ: That was at the house on 25th? 5 DG: No, that was over on 26th and Monroe on the southwest corner. There was a grocery store there—well it's still there, but on the east portion of it we had an ice cream store and it was called Collins. His partner's last name was Cole and dad went by Lyn so it was Collins Ice Cream. He made all the ice cream for the store and of course we had the local people in the neighborhood as most of our customers. We were also only a block away from Central Junior High so we had a lot of those students coming over. In the winter, Mom would make a big pot of chili and then we would have to get it over to the store. Then she would make sandwiches, tuna fish sandwiches, and ham and cheese sandwiches and we sell them. Didn't have to worry to much about the health department at that time. She was pretty good at it. So we sold those things and between the four adults they pretty well ran the store. We would open at noon and then we would close usually about 9:00 at night or so. As we grew older, one time dad let me build a guy a banana split and I thought I did a good job, but one of our chores we didn't particularly care for was when people would come in and stick their gum underneath the counter, and our job was to clean it off. So we would spend a day underneath the counter getting all those people's gum off from underneath the counter. It wasn't too bad. Dad would give me the yard stick and I could get underneath the coolers we had to keep the ice cream frozen. They were off the ground a couple of inches so I could get the yardstick in and any money I could get I could keep. MJ: That was your payment for the day. 6 DG: It was. There was a gas station across the street and kitty-corner. A lot of their customers would come over when they were getting their car serviced and have a sandwich, or have a sundae or a malt. One of the great things was when dad made ice cream. He would put it in the cardboard containers and there was always some left so we got the leftovers. He made all the different flavors, it was interesting to watch him make it. MJ: About how long did he run the ice cream shop? DG: He had a full-time job at the same time. He was a milkman at the time and his partner worked for one of the bread companies so we got a lot of the stuff from them. I would say we had the store about five or six years and they sold it. I think it was about the time he decided he was going to be a police officer because during the war he worked at Hill. Before that he delivered milk and then after the war he started to deliver milk again. One morning he was driving to work, of course he had to be to work at 3:00 in the morning. He was driving the car and he had his milkman's hat down and some guy went speeding past him and slowed down. I guess that's when he figured he should become a police officer. MJ: He was kind of giving the impression he was a police officer? DG: Yeah, I guess so. There were times I went with him on the milk route. He would do part and then pick me up. His route was usually up around Marilyn Drive, 27th and 28th area. Dad had big hands and of course all the milk was in glass, quart bottles. He could carry four bottles of milk in each hand; I could carry two. So I was carrying two and just running up to this house, running up the steps and 7 I tripped. I broke the bottles of milk. He asked me if I wanted to try it again so it was interesting to get out and go around and watch him do his job. MJ: So when he became a police officer you said he started as just a beat cop? DG: Yeah, he was a patrolman. He walked a beat—of course the whole city was patrolled, but most of it was patrolled by car. The downtown area walking beats, and of course the only beat he liked was 25th Street because there was always something going on. He said he would get into those outline areas and it was boring. He said on top of the city county building they had lights and antennas so they had to look there, and if a red light went on they either had to go back to the station or call in to see what was going on. He was always praying that the red light would come on because there wasn't much else going on. But he enjoyed 25th street a lot. Of course they all did, they were all trying to get that beat because it was exciting; there was something to do. MJ: So how long did he have that beat for? DG: I think he was only a patrolman for about three or four years I think was about all. Then he was selected to be on the youth bureau. Back then there was still a drug problem, in the late 1940's and 1950's, and he had a display case that was about that size [indicates with hands] and inside of it he had one of every type of dope pill that was known at that time. He also had a spoon in there where somebody had cooked something. He would go to different functions at churches and talk to kids about all this dope and what it can do to you and show them what it's like. Then of course, well marijuana was starting to go about that time so he figured he would grow a marijuana plant. We had it at the house and it didn't look very 8 good. He would water it and everything, but he finally decided it was ready to die so he took it down to his office down in the city county building. His office faced Washington Boulevard and he put it in the window and that thing flourished. My mom said it was the environment that did it. You could drive down the boulevard and you could pick out his window because it was the one that had the marijuana plant growing. Then he would pick leaves and show what it looked like. It was interesting one time they got a call that a guy was going to kill his son, so they got the address and he and his partner went to see what the problem was. They lived in a house with an apartment above it. They went up the stairs to the apartment, knocked on the door, and announced who they were. The guy told them to go away because he was going to kill him. So Dad opened the door and the guy was standing there with a 22 rifle pointed at his son and then he turned and pointed it at Dad. He told him, "Don't come any closer or I'll shoot you." Dad said, "No you won't." He said, "Yes I will." He was just talking to the guy and slowly inching his way in and the guy says, "What makes you think I won't?" Dad said, "If you shoot me my partner will shoot you." He said the guy had a funny look on his face, but kept walking towards him. Finally, he got close enough where he pushed the barrel to the side and grabbed the gun and took it away from him. He turned around to hand it to his partner who wasn't there—he had decided to try the back way to get behind the guy, but he didn't tell Dad that. He said his knees got quite weak there for a while. MJ: Close shave. DG: Yeah, quite a close shave. 9 MJ: So when did he take over the anti-vice squad? AM: Well, he sort of just moved into it. DG: Yeah, he was doing such a good job with talking to the kids about narcotics, you know, and things like that, and they solved a few burglaries that were committed by juveniles. They decided that they needed an anti-vice squad on the police department so he was selected to go on that. To me, he had a sort of sixth sense about things and was very perceptive about what was going on. So he got on it and he enjoyed it, he had a lot of experiences. He was not only working on anti-vice, but he was also handling a few murder cases, so he was written up in about three nationwide detective magazines on some of the cases that he had solved. Of course his big concern was good ol' 25th street because it was rather notorious. It was pretty active during the war because we had all the troop trains coming through with all the soldiers on there who were looking for activity. After the war the troop trains were still coming through, but not as often, so they were trying to cut down all the vices that were going on on 25th Street. There was all kinds of gambling going on, like slot machines. They even raided the Elk's Lodge at one time because they had slot machines in there. Bootlegging was a big problem because the state didn't like losing their tax money on the booze. The bootleggers usually brought it in from out of state. I remember he said that one time he was a patrolman on 25th Street and he went up one of the back stairways because he knew there was some gaming going on up there. He was in uniform, so he turned his hat around so the badge wouldn't shine and he watched them through the window. He knew a lot of the guys that were in there. He watched 10 them for a while and when he ran into them on the street a few days later he asked them how it hurt to lose that amount of money? Of course, one of the big problems was prostitution because it was more than just Rosie. It was up and down on both sides of the streets; the gals would be calling from the windows. They would organize raids for the gaming and prostitution. He said they would figure out where the gaming was and a lot of times they were in the basements of the buildings. They would go into the building next door in the basement and drill holes through the wall and watch the people there at the gaming tables. They had crap, roulette, and all of those. They would watch them and take notes, who was there that they knew. Then they would go back and plan a raid and as a courtesy they invited the sheriff's department to sit in on the planning. So they would have the planning of the timing, who all was going to be there and what they were going to do. Then they would pull the raid and the tables were gone and nobody was in there. This went on several times so they finally uninvited the sheriff's department and lo and behold they were successful. So they made a lot of arrests. The big problem, of course, was the noted Rosie from the Rose Rooms. He arrested her several times. They would take her in and have her booked, then they would have to turn her over to the sheriff because the jail was his. Dad said the next day he would be driving to work and Rosie's out sitting in the city park doing business. He would go find out why and the sheriff made her a trustee. Trustees could come and go and do different things. He said it just really got to him, that he had a tough time figuring out what he was going to do to circumvent that. He had 11 become pretty well known and he got to know quite a few of the federal officers out of the Salt Lake office. He was inviting them on raids, because they were also breaking federal laws. When the feds got involved the sheriff was a little more reluctant about letting people become trustees. MJ: He was a little bit more careful. DG: Uh huh. One time he was approached by the feds to become an agent, and he had a lot of backing to do that. When application time came and he filled it out they saw he didn't graduate from high school so they wouldn't take him on. He was quite disappointed because he felt he would've been a good agent. He was a good police officer, very intuitive about what was right and what was wrong. He got a phone call and offers that if he would stay out of certain parts of town he would be financially paid off. He just told them, "How the hell cheap do you think I am?" So then they doubled the offer and even when they offered thousands of dollars. Back in the 1950's that was quite a bit of money. So I said, "Why didn't you do it?" He said, "Because I knew that if I agreed to it, there would only be one pay off, but there would be somebody there watching and that would be the end of it. The money's not worth losing your job and losing what prestige you have in the community." He just knew it would be wrong. MJ: Did you ever go down on 25th Street with him? DG: Oh yeah, we went down there. One time we went down there, we were in his unmarked car. We went down and pulled into one the parking stalls and we were just sitting there. I think it was on a Sunday because there wasn't much foot 12 traffic on 25th Street, which was very rare. There were a couple of guys on the street who were conversing and he said, "Watch them." So we sat there and we watched them. Pretty soon the one guy nodded and they went into the doorway to one of the upstairs hotels. He said, "What are they doing?" I said I figured the guy was a bootlegger. He says, "Yeah, he's a bootlegger. He's making a sale." They came out and left and we pulled out. He says, "What was the number on the parking meter?" I said, "I don't know." "Well how can you prove you were there?" You had to remember those things, so it was a lesson. But we didn't go down with him too often. He had a lot of working nights, when all of the activity was going on, so we didn't really get to do too much with him in that regard. MJ: Looking at his notebooks that we have the copies of, he seemed meticulous on his stakeouts. DG: Yes. MJ: Noted everything. DG: They said you had to. You had to prove you were there and you always had to be thinking what are they going to do to mess you up? One time he said they had picked up a guy for bootlegging, and of course he had to be at the trial because he was the arresting officer. The defense attorney was giving him a bad time and he reached over to the table where they had the evidence and they pulled up this liquor bottle. He says, "What's this?" "That's the liquor I took from the guy." He says, "It's not full." Dad said, "That's the way I got it." He said, "There's a line on 13 this bottle, what does that represent?" "That's how much alcohol was in the bottle when I confiscated it." The guy says, "That's interesting because your line's up here, but the booze is down here." So the attorney was going on about how evidence keeps disappearing from the evidence room and all this. We got these upstanding police officers who would never do anything like that. Dad says, "Can I see the bottle?" He says yes and gives the bottle to Dad, who turned it upside down and he lines matched. So he had to plan ahead for everything because they were after you. Then there were two fractions on the police department and they were going after each other all the time because there were a lot of them that didn't want Ogden cleaned up. Dad had a lot of guys on the police department that he also had to watch. So it was pretty tough and you didn't dare make a mistake. MJ: You mentioned before that reputation and prestige that he had in the community, and you mentioned before that people on 25th Street really respected him. DG: They did. He would do his job, but he was fair about it. Once he helped the feds with a guy and they arrested him—his brother owned a bar on 25th street. He ended up in federal prison, but he held nothing against dad. He even wrote him a letter while he was in prison, and when he got out he met up with him. Of course, not all of them were that way. There was one time my friends and I were going to go to Yellowstone for a week and Dad was going to give me some money. I came the morning I was leaving—it was a Sunday morning. I said, "Have you got that money you were 14 going to give me?" He had forgotten about it so he wrote me a check. I said, "How am I going to cash a check on Sunday morning?" He said, "Go down to the club." So my friends and I went down on 25th Street and went into the club. Handed the guy the check and he looked at it and said sure. So he cashed it and he says, my friends were with me and he says, "Do you guys like candy?" We said, "Sure who doesn't?" So he got a brown paper bag filled with candy bars and stuff and handed it to us; said, "Tell your dad hello." Dad had raided him before and closed him down for violations, but there was no animosity. He was doing his job and they got caught. He had a reputation for being honest and fair, but he wasn't totally by the book. There was one fellow who he knew down there. He was a barber and he always went and talked to him. They ran into each other on the street and the barber had a nice new leather jacket. Dad asked him, "Where'd you get the coat?" He says. "Oh I bought it from so and so." "Well I tell you what, don't wear it into this store," and he gave him the name. There had been a robbery there a few nights before, but he had bought it from somebody. Dad couldn't do anything to him because he innocently bought the coat. But he appreciated the warning MJ: I'm just looking over here on my notes to make sure we are covering everything. You had mentioned Rose Davie. What else do you remember about her? DG: Rose was quite a character. She was always trying to get Dad to come upstairs, but he never would. The only time he went up into the Rose Rooms was when she had been taken to jail, then he went up there. One thing that Rose used to do, she would have to replace her linen supply periodically and my mother 15 worked at J.C. Penney's. Rose always asked for her even though mom didn't work in that department. She was on the same floor so Rose would get her to help her out. I think mom got a slight commission on that stuff so it was pretty good. Rose and Dad had their differences, but she had no hard feelings towards him. AM: But Bill did, didn't he? DG: Yeah, Bill did. Bill tried to disparage my father a few times, but he was never successful. He couldn't get any hard facts about him. They even called our house and my mother answered the phone. There was a gal on the phone telling her that Dad was having an affair with all these young girls downtown, and trying to cause problems. I know another time the guy called home and Mom answered the phone and the guy started telling her what he thought of her, you know, not very polite. So the guy finally got off the phone and Mom called the police station and had Dad call home. She told him, so he went down on 25th Street and he said the idiot was still sitting in the phone booth because he knew who it was. But Dad was pretty good. He weighed 225 pounds, was a pretty good sized guy and was quite athletic. When he started out at the police department he had what they called a sap, which had leather with buckshot in the end. It was braided leather and it would spring. It had a strap on it that you'd hook on your thumb and wing it around, because if you put it around your wrist and they grabbed it then they've got you. So you put it on your thumb and just let it go and it hurt. I tried it a few times on my hand. But then they came out with a yawara stick. It fit in his fist and just a little bit above the hand, and it was grooved inside. There were two 16 little spikes but they didn't protrude past the wood. There was a booklet that came with it. If you hit somebody in the shoulder with it would either break the collarbone or numb the arm so that you could turn it and hit them in the chest. It was a handy tool and he always carried it in the inside pocket. One night they were on 25th Street. He said the most horrible thing is to try to arrest a woman because everyone comes to her aid. So they arrested this lady, and they got her out of the bar and out on the sidewalk and some guys decided that they were going to protect her. They came after Dad, and Dad turned around to talk to them and the one guy hit him in the face. So he stooped over, didn't fall down, but as he went down he reached in and brought that out. He was going to hit the guy in the shoulder to numb it but as he came down the guy moved and he hit him in the face. He said the guy hit the sidewalk and bounced. Dad didn't have any trouble after that. They figured if he could hit a guy and make him bounce he must be pretty tough, so he put it back in his pocket and nobody ever saw it. MJ: What was it called again? DG: I think it was called the yawara stick. It wasn't very big. I know I played around with it when it was at home, but that wood was hard. You could hit a guy on the top of the head and it would knock him out. It was a defensive tool that they had come up with. MJ: What else do you remember about 25th Street? Like your interactions down on 25th Street? 17 DG: I didn't go down there very much. Now, I had friends in high school that lived down there. A lot of the Asian classmates lived between 26th and 24th in that part of town. The only time we would go there would be to watch the drunks and see who was going to fight who. We pretty well stayed away from 25th Street because every other building was a bar and there wasn't really much going on. There were some stores up towards the eastern end and that was about it. It was wall to wall bars. Of course, the only thing they could sell was beer and mixer. If you wanted a mix drink you had to bring your own bottles, so they would brown bag the bottle then they would buy a mixer. That's when the bootlegging was happening. People didn't want to go to the liquor store even though it was right there on 25th Street, so they would do bootlegging. I didn't go down there. AM: We used to go watch. DG: Yeah, we used to go watch a lot and that was about it. Especially during deer hunting season because that's when it was really active down there. We were watching one night, there was a steady stream of people going up and down the street and a couple came out of this bar and they stopped. The one gal says, "You S-O-B, you're supposed to be deer hunting." He says, "You're supposed to be tending the kids." So it escalated from there, but things like that were going on. It was interesting to watch, and how some of those people ever made it home I have no idea because they had trouble putting one foot in front of the other. AM: If Dad knew we were down there he wouldn't have been happy. DG: He didn't seem to bother when we went down there. AM: Well I mean we'd just go down and drive around the back alley. 18 DG: Oh yeah check out electric alley. AM: Yeah, look at all the girls and not really know what they were doing cause we were sixteen. MJ: You mentioned when we first met, the segregation on 25th Street. One side was— DG: Yeah, the south side from Wall to Lincoln was for the blacks. The whites would go over there, but the blacks wouldn't come on the other side of the street. I know that the Porters and Waiters Club was on the south side, run by Annabelle Weekly. It catered to the blacks who worked on the railroad, the porters and the waiters. They could go there and stay because none of them could go in any of the hotels in town. So that was about the only place they could stay as a visitor. She ran a pretty good operation over there. She didn't fuss or cause too much trouble, she was actually an asset to the community. That was about the basic on 25th Street as far as segregation. Of course, I think every American community was segregated because I didn't see any blacks in school until I went to junior high. I went to Madison and there weren't that many downtown, but when I went to Central they came from all over and we had a few blacks there, and of course, Ogden High was the only high school, so we had them there too. Our historian in our senior class was a black fellow, quite studious, and a pretty good athlete. I had never really thought about racial things too much until one night there were a group of us who went to a burger place. We went in there and sat at the booth. We had frequented the place quite often. It was usually on a Sunday instead of going to class we would 19 go get something to eat. I knew the owner and he called me over to the counter. I went over there and he said, "I'll wait on him this time, but don't bring him in again." That's when I first realized that there was something going on. I made excuses about how the owner had a punchboard he wanted me to play or something. I don't think he believed me, but that's about the only time I noticed it that much. MJ: So it wasn't just 25th Street that was segregated? DG: Oh no. There would be black entertainers that came to entertain and they couldn't stay in any hotel, not even in Salt Lake. Annabelle would take care of them. The whole state was about that way. It wasn't blatant. I think they in essence knew how things were. AM: Well, there weren't very many DG: No, there weren't too many, but yeah, I think of the ones we had in school not too many finished high school. I didn't think anything about it. MJ: So what do you remember about some of the other downtown areas? Some of the other businesses and people down there? DG: Ogden was a fun town to go down to. Back in those days there were six movie theatres in town and uh now were down to one, two now? Yeah, two. Of course, most of us went to the Paramount because it was the cheapest and none of the others had a double feature. Then we had a lot of nice specialty stores. There must have been five or six men's stores and there were a lot of women's stores. We had, there was Penney's, it was probably the biggest chain store. There was 20 Woolworth's and Grant's and all those others, but they weren't a department store. AM: You say Woolworth's and Grant's like she would know what that meant. DG: J.J. Newberry's. Those stores, they were there, but there were no big name stores. Well there was Sear's and C. C. Anderson's and that, but it mostly local people. All the men's stores were just local people and it was an interesting place to be. I remember at Christmas-time there would be a contest to see who could decorate their windows. It was a fun place, but what was strange about it was mostly everybody was shopping on the west side of Washington. I was talking to a guy when I was working at the post office and he said the difference in the rental fee for the west side of Washington from 25th to 23rd is almost double what it is on the east side of Washington from 26th to 23rd. Everybody's on the west side and what I thought was strange, you go to downtown Ogden and people always wanted to park on Washington, Kiesel, and Grant, but they didn't want to go below Grant and it was only a block. They didn't want to walk up the hill either, but the same people would go to Salt Lake and walk three or four blocks to a store, but they wouldn't in Ogden. If they couldn't park on the Boulevard or on those streets then they just thought it was horrible and ride around and ride around and ride around and wait for a parking place. That brings up another story. There was a group of us at a church function and it was getting a little boring. This one guy said he had a gun, so we made up our plan. We'd have three cars and the first car would come along Washington and the guys would get out (at that time there were a lot of the stores where the 21 store fronts were here, but you had to walk down to get to the door and there were display windows there) then another car would come by and we'd get in a fight on the street and then somebody gets shot and the third car would come by and get the body. So I was the body. We get out of the cars and we start fighting and the guy pulls out the gun and shoots and I fall on the sidewalk. So I'm lying there on the sidewalk and nobody comes, and nobody comes. Then the movie lets out there at the Egyptian theatre, were on right by the Egyptian. The movie lets out and I'm laying on the sidewalk counting pebbles in the concrete. People walking by and nobody came. So finally, I get up, walk between cars across the boulevard, and here comes the car. They decided to go around the block an extra time so we lost the whole thing, but it was mentioned in my yearbook a few times. AM: Did your dad know about that? DG: No, never told Dad about that. There were some things we didn't tell Dad. It was like Dad told us, "Don't ever do anything to embarrass me," and I said, "Like my brother climbing over the fence at the ballpark and getting caught." MJ: Well, was there anything else that we haven't talked about that you'd like to share? DG: Well, I think back in that time we had a lot more opportunities for employment, as far as kids for high school and junior high school. We had the canning factories there were three or four canning factories. Del Monte, out in West Ogden, I worked out there, and I worked at Blackington's on 7th street. For two summers I worked at the ice house. We iced box cars. The trains would come from 22 California and the cars that had ice bunkers on the ends to keep the fruit fresh. They would come into Ogden and then we'd have to re-ice because they'd come across the desert, so we'd have to replace it. We were handling three hundred pound blocks of ice we had an ice pick. It was that long [indicates with hands] and on one side was what they called the pusher. It came off the end to a point and under it was the puller, which curved. Then you would put it on the block of ice and you could pull it to you. It would flatten out and everybody had a file in their pocket because you would file it to keep it sharp. So we'd get a call that there was a train coming in. The ice docks went from under the viaduct to 28th Street and there were two of them, so we could work four rails at a time. One guy would walk down and open all the bunker tops and you could easily ice the one on this side. On the other side you had to put down a skid pad that made a bridge and acrossed to the other side. It got pretty hot out there in June, July, and August, but then all winter long they had been storing ice in a building that was about three stories high, but the only floor was on the bottom so all winter long their putting in these 300 pound blocks of ice and stacking them. They had a place called the Daily. They made ice all the time, but couldn't make enough to service the trains. We'd get a train come in with one hundred icers in it and the ice is lined up on the dock and we used it all up, so then you have to go to the store room. It's 100 degrees out on the dock, and then you go into this store room and it's 28 degrees. We had to ship all that ice out to the dock and when we'd get through with that and they'd say, "RV on three which 23 meant a Roseville train on track three, 100 icers. So then we would go back out to 100 degrees. AM: These are just kids. These are kids doing this? DG: Oh we were in high school; there were older people doing it too. AM: You were saying they were jobs. DG: They were jobs, it was a summer job because in the winter time all they did was put charcoal burners in the same bunker. But when you really would see the excitement was when a train would come in and they would ship wine in tank cars. They would come and you would see all these guys up on the dock looking at it, "There's a leaker." Pretty soon they'd disappear and guys would come out with gallon jugs and their thermos' and all. One guy was assigned to fill them up and the rest of them went into work. We had things like that. I worked at the Weber College for a year-round job. I was a custodian, and in school time we would start at 6:30 a.m. and work until 8:00 a.m. Then on Saturdays we would work from 6:30 a.m. until noon, and when I started we were getting a whole 50 cents an hour. After a while they raised it to 75, we got a 50 percent raise, which is pretty good. It was enough to keep us in spending money. It was interesting work. In the winter time you were assigned a specific area that you'd clean everyday. One time I had the offices that were in the old gym building and we'd clean the offices of the treasurer and the registrar and all that. Then another year, I had the gymnasium and the handball courts. I had to clean those and get all the black marks off the floor that people would put on. One year I had the ladies restroom. I had 18 toilets and 5 wash basins that I cleaned every 24 morning. The worst part about that job was the paper dispenser was in sheets, like out of a box. The gals put on the lipstick, blotted it and dropped it. The floor was always covered with paper, but it wasn't too bad. I would change the towels and all that, but you know an hour and half every morning wasn't too bad. Of course, I'd walk from home down to the college, and then walk back home, change clothes, and then walk from there to Ogden High until I met my girlfriend. I'd walk back with her until about Jackson, then run to school. There were a lot of things we could do and you had all the orchards. You could go pick all the fruit you wanted and just a lot of different things that we could do to occupy ourselves. Then the ice house was a very dangerous place to be. One guy had his ice pick and he was walking along the dock and he would spin it. He spun it, brought it back, and he put the puller in his leg; he went to the hospital. Sometimes, after they found a leaker there would be some hot-headed Hispanics who would get into a fight and use the ice picks as weapons. AM: The good ol' days. DG: Yeah, the good ol' days. I remember one guy, he was pushing on a piece of ice and he brought his ice pick back but the puller caught and it was pulled out of his hands. We watched it cartwheel about four tracks away and hoped there was nobody standing over there. AM: Those jobs couldn't exist today DG: No, they finally did it away. Now they're all refrigerated. We would work a lot of trains and you always took your lunch, but you never knew when you were going to eat. We'd start at 8:00 a.m., sometimes we would have lunch at 10:00 a.m., 25 and sometimes have lunch at 2:00 p.m. It depended on how the trains were coming, but it was interesting work. I know a lot of people who I went to school with worked at the canning factory, making the tin cans. I worked at Del Monte stacking cans and there were just a lot of different things to do. Made life interesting. MJ: Well good. Did you have any questions? I think we covered everything that I had on my notes we had from our first meeting so. DG: Okay. MJ: Do you have anything else? DG: I will give you an example of how things were back then. I was in high school and I was dating a girl who lived up on the 1400 block of Polk Street. We were going to go to the dance at the White City, it was on 25th Street. I walked from my house to her house, from her house to the White City and we danced at the dance. We went down to Keely's on Washington Boulevard, had something to eat, then we walked all the way back to her house. Then I had to walk all the way home. That was the norm. I think one of the things you talked about was segregation, things like that. I lived below Harrison so the rule was somebody who lived below Harrison couldn't date somebody who lived above Harrison. AM: A different kind of segregation. DG: Then you were frowned on. I got told about it a couple of times, "You're out of your boundary." MJ: Out of your place. AM: Out of your league. 26 DG: It was interesting. It was an interesting place to be. Like I say, in high school we had the whole city. We had millionaires and we had very, very poor people. There was one kid in Ogden High—we had 2,000 students at Ogden High because there were three classes. Everybody's wearing Oxford's except one kid, good ol' Charlie. He wore tennis shoes and he was the only one cause he was from a poor family. Everybody liked Charlie. Charlie was a little slow and we'd go up to him, "See that girl she really likes you. You oughta go over there and talk to her." He had buckteeth and blond hair. He'd say, "I can't." We would give him a bad time, but nobody ever teased him about his status or nothing like that because we were all the same. I could probably stay all day with this. 27

Part one of an interview with Rev. Monsignor Leo J. Battista.Topics include: The Monsignor's family history and how his parents came to the U.S. from Italy. His father's work experience as a water boy on the Clinton Dam and then as a barber. The Monsignor's education at Holy Cross and at Grand Seminary in Montreal. The history of his assignments with the Church. Speaking Italian at home and learning different languages. Attending the Italian missions in Clinton, MA. Fighting cancer around the time he was ordained. Working at St. Anna's in Leominster. The Monsignor's experiences as an Italian living, going to school, and working in different places. His father's experiences being and Italian immigrant. Local social clubs. What his mother's life was like as a house wife. The importance of education to his family. ; 1 LINDA: … Rosenbaum for the Center of Italian Culture. It's Thursday, September 13th, 2001, and we are at the home of Monsignor Battista. I would like him to just introduce himself and his address, and then we'll get started with the interview. LEO: Good morning. My name is Monsignor Leo Joseph Battista. I live at -- I reside, rather, at 35 Julio Drive in Shrewsbury at a facility known as Southgate, which is an independent living home for retirees. LINDA: I thought that we could start with just you telling us a little bit about yourself. For example, your date of birth, and… LEO: I was born on December 27th, 1923 in a small town called Clinton, Mass, which is not too far from here. And I was born of two Italian [non-born] parents, both having come over from Italy—my father, Vincenzo Battista, and my mother, Maria Perrone Battista. My father came over here when he was just 13 years old and began to work as a worker at the Wachusett Reservoir. LINDA: What is that noise? LEO: That's the bird. On the clock. LINDA: Oh, I see. Okay. Try if it will shut up. I wasn't sure if that was a real bird. LEO: No. LINDA: Okay. I'm sorry. So you were explaining when your father was arriving? LEO: He arrived in 1908, I believe he got here. He came over with his dad, and they settled in Clinton because of work that was being done on the Wachusett Reservoir at the time. And he worked here -- he worked there for several years and then went on to take up the trade of being a barber. My mother, of course, she was born in Italy. And I believe she came over here in -- she came after she married my father. My father went back to Italy to marry her. And then she came over, and she was always a homemaker. She never worked outside the home. LINDA: Which village were they from in Italy?2 LEO: They were from a place called Delianuova, which is in the province and region of Calabria. And they were from the large province of Calabria and in the smaller district of Calabria called Reggio. And their little town was in the mountainous area, and it was called Giulinova. LINDA: About their experiences in Italy? LEO: Well, they would from time to time, just how they worked. Not too much though, when I stop and think of it. Because my father was very young, he hadn't had much opportunity to find work there. But he – so, he didn't have any job from there. He just came over here looking for job, looking for work with his dad. And my mother was just a homebody, so to speak. She was just from a family of -- I believe there were seven in her family. She was one of the girls in the family, had two brothers and four sisters. And she just worked around the home. She never really had any kind of a job over there or anything. And they would talk about the different things they would do, the picnics that they would go on and the festivities that they would attend and tell us about those things. There wasn't too much exchange as to what they did over there. LINDA: Did you father ever share with you the voyage? How old was he when he came here? LEO: He was only 12. LINDA: He was 12 in age when he came. LEO: He didn't say too much about that…just that they came over. He didn't go into much detail about it. And I don't know, for some reason or another, we never really asked too much about his trip over other than he came over by way of a boat with his dad. They certainly didn't travel first class. They were part of the immigrants who came landing in New York and getting off at Ellis Island.3 And that was an interesting thing. I often wondered why they used to call him James when his name was Vincenzo. And he then related the story to me one time that the officials at the immigrant registration desk had difficulty in understanding the name Vincenzo. And to them it sounded like James for some reason, Vince for James. So they put down James Battista. And so he kind of assumed that name here; and as he went along in labor, he was more commonly known as James Battista rather than his real name, Vincenzo Battista. But it was one of those mix-ups at the point of immigration registration that I think many Italian people went through. I mean, the people here were just in a hurry to register the people coming in, and if they didn't catch the name in the way it came across to them, they would put in what they thought they heard. And people got these different names from time to time. LINDA: So he worked as a laborer at Wachusett Dam? LEO: He worked as a laborer at the Wachusett Dam as a water boy because he was just, you know, 12 or 13 years old. And then after working there for a while, he was able to get a job in the Lancaster Mills, which was in Clinton at the time. That was a big copper company, and he worked there as a laborer for a while. But then he had the opportunity to pick up the trade of barbering. And I don't know how it was that he picked up barbering, he just seemed to want -- he liked that trade for one reason or another. He never did it as an apprentice in Italy, which was common in Italy. Before you did anything, any kind of work, you always worked as an apprentice for a number of years, and you gradually grew into and then being able to go on your own. Now, whether it was in carpentry or masonry or brickwork or barbering or 4 shoe work, that's the pattern; that's the way they trained over there. They trained as apprentices for a number of years. I remember when I used to help him at the barbershop when I was in high school. And he always used to consider my beginning as an apprenticeship. And then he would tell me about how he had to be an apprentice for a number of years and how he had to just watch the fellow work; that he was training with cut hair before he actually did cut any hair or attempt to make any attempt on cutting hair or trimming people's hair. And I used to be very impatient with that, just standing next to him watching him cut hair and trim people's hair. And I would be going up -- but he said you have to watch the technique, the way it's done. And he then explained that that's just the way an apprentice goes. And at the time, too, there was such a thing as an apprentice license in barbering. You couldn't get a license, a full complete license, until you had accomplished your apprentice training. So going back to his work, that is the way he learned, and then he went into barbering and then was able to open up his own barbershop. LINDA: And where was that located? LEO: It was -- I think it was located in Depot Square in Clinton right next to the railroad station. And he had quite a few really important people that used to come to him. For example, Senator David I. Walsh was one of his customers. And I can remember him going up to the site of David I. Walsh's house when the senator was in town, and he would go up there to either cut his hair or shave him and so forth. And another one of his major customers was Congressman Philip J. Feldman, who used to always come to the barbershop to have his hair cut, or he'd get a shave.5 And I remember how I used to like -- well, I wasn't around when Senator Walsh, David I. Walsh, was coming in, but I was around, working around the barbershop when Congressman Feldman was, and I used to like to kind of prepare him for my father's work on him, like getting him ready to have his hair trimmed and so forth or shaved. Because he used to always give me a nice big tip at the end even though I did nothing but just lather him up or put the apron on around him to protect him from the hair that might have fallen on him. LINDA: So you were expected to become a barber? LEO: Well, my father never expected me. He thought it would be good for me to learn the trade, and if I wanted to do it, to follow his footsteps. But he left it up to me pretty much as to what I wanted to be. And so he never -- I just helped him out. He had other barbers, too. But I used to help out too in the busy time on Saturdays and the weekends. But he never put any pressure on me to be a barber. I think he wanted something more for me because he would always encourage me about studying and to study and to go to school. And one of his high events, one of his great hopes and mission was that I would go to Notre Dame University. He was always talking about Notre Dame, going to Notre Dame. But to go to Notre Dame at that time when I was growing up and in school, in high school, it was during the Depression, and that would cost a great deal of money. And so in my deliberations about where I was going to go to the school or pick, I felt that I would have to go to school around here someplace and commute to school, you know, not to live on campus or that because I didn't think my family could afford supporting me as a boarder in college some place. LINDA: So which school did you go to? LEO: Well, I was all set to go to Boston College, and the reason for that was because generally there was a cost factor. I had a sister who was married and lived in Boston, and I felt I could live with her and commute to school 6 on the trolley, on the tram in Boston. And I was all set and scheduled to go there and accepted. But then one day -- I was an altar boy, and after sitting a mass, one of the priests at the parish said to me, "Have you ever been to Holy Cross?" And I said, "Up to Holy Cross?" And I said, "No." And he said, "Well, I've got to go up there." He says, "You want to take a ride up and see the school?" And of course, at that time I was -- I knew quite a bit about Holy Cross, and so father used to follow their football team and the like. So it was kind of a challenge to go up and take a look at them. Well, when I went up there and I walked around with him and I saw Holy Cross, the whole atmosphere at Holy Cross presented itself in a different manner than Boston College did. And I mean, it seemed to be more scholastically appropriate, I mean. So far as I was -- when I went to BC with my brother-in-law, that visit, it was during the year and there was a lot of commotion, a lot of activity, and a lot of things going on. It didn't seem like I was in academia, you know. But when I went up to Holy Cross with the priest, Father O'Connell, it was -- everything was quiet and there weren't too many people around. It was very [contemporary], so to speak, and I was really impressed with Holy Cross. And so I said to Father O'Connell, I said, "I like this school very much." And he says, "Come on, let's go and get an application." And so I went into the Dean's office, the Dean of Admissions, with him and we got an application. And I filled it in, and I was accepted. And after a few days, I got a letter saying that I was accepted to go there. So that's how I picked. And I felt it was close to Clinton, and I could commute from Clinton to Holy Cross maybe much better than being all the way down in Boston, so. LINDA: How did you commute? Did you have a… LEO: When I graduated from…7 LINDA: Put your hands further. Okay. LEO: When I graduated from high school, my father decided to go look at cars. He decided to buy me a car for graduation. A very good friend of his was a dealer, had taken this car in, and it was a 1937 Plymouth. And it was owned by a young woman who very seldom used it, and there wasn't very much mileage. And he got a terrific buy at the time. I think he paid $315 for it. So that was my graduation gift from high school, which enabled me then to use it to commute to Worcester every day to Holy Cross. And at the same time, there was already a young man in the town who was going to Holy Cross, and so knowing that I had a car, they asked if he could ride with me, and they would pay me so much a week for transportation. And that enabled me to keep the car up and get the gasoline and all that sort of thing. And that was every day, so that's how we used to travel to Holy Cross. LINDA: When you entered Holy Cross, did you… LEO: When I entered Holy Cross, I said that I would -- I put down that I wanted to be a priest or a doctor, let's say medicine or the priesthood. And I would take the AB pre-med course in case I wanted to switch, but it also would enable me to go on for a study of priesthood too because they were the same courses, practically speaking, until you get up into your junior year where you began to take more of the chemistry and biology and so forth. And so I went in with that intention, either to be a doctor or to be a priest. And what was, you would say, the deciding factor at all -- well, I was having stronger, really, desire to be a priest. But I liked medicine because I had two sisters who were nurses, had trained, and I used to get -- hear a lot about medicine and so forth, and that always kind of interested me.8 But then the war -- the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, and that was the year I began Holy Cross in 1941, having graduated high school in '41; and in September I went to Holy Cross. And when the Japs attacked Pearl Harbor in December, then -- at the time at Holy Cross, they were just starting -- it was their first year of starting the NROTC, the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps, and I was tempted to go into that. But then I said, if I go into that, how often -- that would interfere probably with my going ahead to be a priest. So I said I'd wait. But then when the war came, everybody on campus wanted to do something and get into -- be [in place], so to speak. All my classmates were either in the NROTC or they were joining up in the army or the navy or the marines or what. So I went up to join the Naval Air Corps, the D5, and I went into the office where you would sign up and fill your application in to join the D5 Program, which was naval training for air training. And when we -- this other young man with myself -- came up with me… we both had the same idea. Well, when we went in to see the priest who was taking the application, he looked over the thing, and he looked over what our admissions records said. So he turned and he said, "On this admission record you have here that you wanted to be a priest or to study medicine." And he said, "Do you still have that desire?" And I said, "Yes." He says, "Well, why are you signing up for this program?" And I said, "Because everyone else is entering the service." So he took my application and he ripped it up. And he said, "Listen," he says, "Uncle Sam will get all the men he needs in order to fight this war. But the church will need priests in order to serve these men. And if that's your desire, then you go and study for the priesthood."9 And shortly after that, about a month or so after that happened, a letter came down from the bishop in Springfield saying that if there were any young men at Holy Cross who wanted to study for the priesthood, they should now make plans to enter the seminary in the fall, in September. And so I went to see my pastor, and then plans were made for me to go into the seminary. LINDA: So was that in… LEO: No, I was at Holy Cross for three years. LINDA: Three years. LEO: Three years. Because we had gone -- this was in '43. Yeah, by the time I went into my third year and we were totally -- but after -- it was '42 when I went in to sign up for the -- well, I just thought that what he had said that he knew more about life than I did, and I always felt that they were always giving us proper direction. And so I thought, well, this might be the hand of the Lord telling me something, and maybe my time will come to share in some capacity or another, which, you know, it did later on because there again, too, then I was turned down from being a chaplain because I had an operation for cancer. I had a radical resection on my neck. I had three malignant tumors. And when I went to the navy, I went down in Boston to a Navy ad, and the bishop assigned me, called me into going to serve as a chaplain, and they refused my application on the grounds that I was -- I had cancer. LINDA: What year was this? LEO: Yeah, it was in 1951. It was the Korean War. So -- and then -- but that was years later. I always -- after I was ordained, I always felt at the time, well, not that I was being patriotic or anything, but I felt that all my classmates and the young men in my time had gone in and done their duty to the country and served. And so here was my chance in '50, in '51, and I was a priest, and I would go volunteer and then do my part. So I did. I volunteered, and when the bishop called me in to say that he was charging me to go and serve as a chaplain, I went down, but I was turned down.10 LINDA: Okay. Now when you left Holy Cross -- you left in 1943 to enter the seminary? LEO: Seminary. LINDA: And where did you go to seminary? LEO: We were all assigned to the Grand Seminary in Montreal, which was attached to the University of Montreal. LINDA: [Unintelligible - 00:26:40] LEO: No, our bishop then, Bishop O'Leary at the time, for some reason favored the seminary in Canada feeling that it was a very strict seminary, very rigid seminary, and that if you could last it out, then you really had a vocation. He felt that you really had the vocation. And they were very strict. But also there was -- it really wasn't because of the rigidity of the program, and it was a good program. But you know, intellectually it was a good program. But also, there were a lot of French people in the Springfield area, in the Springfield Diocese. And he felt very strongly that it wouldn't hurt to know one other language, for you as a priest to know another language in this area, which proved to be very true because after getting ordained, I used to hear a lot of French confessions even though I was in an Italian parish in Leominster. Parishioners from St. Cecilia would always come over to St. Anna's to confession. When I would go in to celebrate, even though I was in St. Mary's, the people at Notre Dame and Sacred Heart used to come to St. Mary's for confession. You know, another parish for confession. LINDA: Now why is that? LEO: And they were French. LINDA: Did they go to another parish because they didn't feel… LEO: Well, I think one of the things was that maybe they felt a priest in another -- it would be more private for them, you know? So they would come. And then there were other -- then too, it was the proximity of where they 11 were living. And sometimes our parishes were closer to them, the actual living residence, you know, for them to come to us. Those who lived would come to us. They wouldn't have to walk so far. LINDA: So you're saying that you did learn the French language? LEO: Oh, yeah. You had to then because in the seminary, everything was in Latin. Your books were in Latin. Your oral examinations were in Latin. Your written examinations were in Latin. Your texts were in Latin. Your class lectures were in Latin. And the only other language you heard was French. The spiritual lectures at night were in French. So you had to get to learn French. You know, we had to take French in the class, during classes there too. LINDA: Had you taken French at Holy Cross? LEO: I had taken French in high school. But at Holy Cross, I had taken the canon in Latin and Greek. But I never took French in college. But when we went up there, those two years, we had to study French. LINDA: So seminary school was two years? LEO: No, it was six years. LINDA: Six years. LEO: Six years. LINDA: Okay. LEO: So it was two years of philosophy and four years of theology. LINDA: That time, it must have been 1946. LEO: I was ordained -- I was ordained in December of '48, actually '49 was… LINDA: And where was this? LEO: My first assignment was in St. Thomas-a-Becket. LINDA: Where was that? LEO: In South Barre, Mass. LINDA: So maybe five months after that before you went to… LEO: I went from there to Leominster as an assistant, what we used to call a curate, the assistant curate. And I went down -- I went from there, from 1949 to 1951. So in 1951, I went to Leominster. And I went to St. Anna's 12 in Leominster in 1951 to 1953. And in 1953, I was then transferred to St. Mary's in Southbridge. And then in 1955, I was assigned to the Office of Catholic Charities in the diocese in Worcester; and I remained in Catholic Charities from 1955 to 1987. And then in '87, I was assigned to St. Anna's in Leominster, and then as pastor until 1992. No, no, no. Wait a minute. 1995. LINDA: '95? LEO: 1995. LINDA: And what happened after that? LEO: I was retired. LINDA: Retired. First of all, Italian. Did you speak Italian? LEO: I spoke a little at home. I used to speak with my mother, but my father always spoke English, so I didn't speak -- he didn't speak. My mother never really learned English. She would always speak Italian to us. She never even spoke any broken English but strictly Italian. 'Course we understood her. And then when I went into high school, I studied Italian. LINDA: When you were in high school? LEO: They started a new course, when I was in high school, teaching Italian in the public school system in Clinton. Then I took a couple of years of Italian there. That was funny. I was taking Italian, French, Latin, and English. And I used to sometimes get them confused a little bit, like sometimes my French teacher would say, "Well, that's an Italian word you're saying, not a French word." I had the facility to learn languages, and so I didn't mind it. I took -- I started learning languages and there just didn't seem to be any strain to the learning, you know, French or Italian or what. Then when I went to college at Holy Cross, my first three years at Holy Cross, I took Italian as a second language. LINDA: Did your mother urge you to become a priest?13 LEO: They always looked favorably upon it. They left it up to my decision. They never pushed me into it or anything like that. But they were always -- encouraged me along the way, you know, of what my intention was. My father was one who always said, "Well, you continue with school, and when the time comes, when you decide to be what you want to be, then we will do all we can to have you follow through." So my mother wasn't one that really, you know, would push us one way or another other than to be good and learn to do what is right in school and so forth. My mother never had much of an education herself in Italy and coming over here. Education was not a paramount factor in her life. She would just be very happy to see you succeed and so forth. I can find an example in the fact that they would go to mass and learn -- go to mission, canon missions and things like that, and their respect and reverence for religion before the Lord. I think those were the things that were the models for me. LINDA: Explain the Italian missions. LEO: Italian missions were -- because in Clinton, everything was in English. Every once in a while for the Italian immigrants who didn't speak English, the priest, the pastor used to have what they called a mission, Italian mission, and he would invite Italian-speaking priest into the parish for a week. And he would give a mission, like a retreat, you know, for just the Italian people so that they could go to communion and then go to confession, fulfill their obligations. See, at that time, it used to be like that you go at least to confession at least once during the year to fulfill your Easter duty and things like that. And this was the idea. This enabled them to go and speak with the priest, hear their language, hear the Word of God being preached to them in their 14 language that they understood, because a lot of them didn't understand English. LINDA: I had thought that the masses were said in Latin. LEO: They were said in Latin, but the sermons were always in English. Yeah. LINDA: So there wasn't an Italian-speaking sermon. LEO: No. The only ones at that time. There was one in Worcester. LINDA: Was that Our Lady of Mount Carmel? LEO: Yeah. And then there was one in Fitchburg. Those were the only two places during my growing up. And then later on, in 1937, St. Anna's in Leominster re-founded as a parish. But prior to that, there were only two locales in this area that had an Italian-speaking priest: Worcester, and later, Mount Carmel, and St. Anthony's in Fitchburg. LINDA: Now, when St. Anna's… LEO: You know, mother would go up every once in a while to go to confession there. But she would always attend mass at St. John's in Clinton. Because at that time, even though the sermon was in English, then the object was to attend mass, which was in Latin. And during the mass, they would pray and say their rosary and things like that. They had more personal devotion in celebration of the mass rather than in the sermon. The mass meant more to them than what was being said in the sermon. That was their faith, they were communing with the celebration of the mass, receiving communion, saying the rosary and prayers, and that meant more. Those were the acts of devotion, I think, for them. LINDA: Must have been… LEO: In Leominster. Yeah, I always worried more -- your first time or the ∂second time? LINDA: First time. LEO: Yeah. I was hoping that when I was ordained I would be assigned there. But for some reason or another -- I guess I was ordained thinking I was going to succumb to cancer. I had had the cancer operation my last year in the seminary, in my fourth year, and they didn't know whether I would be 15 living to be ordained in my class or whether they would ordain me before my time and before the rest of my class because of the nature of my illness. And at that time, when you were operated on for cancer, you had the -- they used to say the cure came -- wouldn't come until five years later. You had to wait five years to know whether you really got it or not. And so at that time, when I was first ordained, I know that the priest, the pastor who was at St. Anna's, wanted me to go there. LINDA: And who was that? LEO: It was Monsignor Gannon, Father Gannon. And I wanted to go there, too, because I liked him very much. But the bishop had other plans. He sent me to this small parish in South Barre, thinking, I suppose, for health reasons, it would be better for me to be in a small parish. But once Bishop O'Leary passed away and Bishop Wright became the bishop at the diocese, and Father Gannon or Monsignor Gannon then became the Chancellor of the Diocese, I was then sent up to St. Anna's in Leominster where he wanted me before and where I wanted to go before. So I was thrilled. To answer your question, I was thrilled to be at St. Anna's. I always loved that parish and still do. INDA: When you think of St. Anna's, what comes to your mind? LEO: Well, just I liked the people there, and I just liked everything about the spirit that prevailed there. I think I was young at the time, and the people were very cooperative. And no matter what you turned your hand to, it turned into success. And it was a source of great joy and great happiness for me to be working among these people and in the course they were going. LINDA: Were you the first Italian priest to be there? LEO: I was the first Diocesan Italian. When I was -- there was a pastor there when Monsignor Gannon went to become Chancellor, Father John Bassey then became the first Italian priest at St. Anna's, and I became the second.16 LINDA: Were your parents… LEO: Yeah. LINDA: How did they feel about you? LEO: Oh, they liked that. They enjoyed that, because they knew a lot of people too from the area, from Leominster. Leominster and Clinton are very close to one another. And there were a lot of mutual friendships that they had in this area. So they were very pleased with my being there. LINDA: What kinds of duties did you have, first as assistant? LEO: Well, you did everything, you know. You were in charge of the religious education. And you were having the altar boys, to take care of training the altar boys at the time. You had the religious education classes for the children who were going to public schools, setting up the classes for that and the courses for it. You had all of the duties, you know, like visiting the sick and going up to the hospital. At that time, at that time too we had, you know, a lot of activity for the youngsters, the different basketball teams that you were in charge of. But then also putting on activities, different activities. Each year, we put on a minstrel show, and we'd be involved in a lot of the direction of that. So there were all kinds of spiritual activities that you were involved in. You had your hand in almost everything except the administration in the parish. You really did all other work that was assigned to a parish and to a priest. LINDA: So it was much like being a pastor? LEO: Right, right, right. It was very active, very fulfilling. I enjoyed the task, I really did. As I said, the people were great. I mean, they cooperated. One of the great things was having a Humane Society, which was for men. I had the Men's Society; the pastor had the Women's Society. We had built ourselves up to over 400, about 450 men. We used to go to communion as a group every year. Every month we'd have 17 [unintelligible - 00:46:22] Sunday. That was a great joy and task, but I enjoyed it, at Leominster. And the other great thing was I had great rapport with the young people, and especially the high school youngsters and the football team. I used to hear their confessions before the football games. They used to come to communion every Saturday morning before the game. And you'd have all these young high school kids come in to confession on Friday night and then coming to mass on -- even public school kids. We even had the parochial school kids. And they'd come to mass on Saturday morning and they'd receive communion and go home and play football games in the afternoon. That was another wonderful thing that happened that I did. LINDA: Was there a school affiliated? LEO: At that time, no. But that was another great accomplishment that I was there to initiate the beginning of a school and to be in charge of developing a parochial school in the parish that we started. And then the task of setting up the classrooms for the first two classes, the pre-primary and the first grade, and building the classrooms for them and later on laying the plans for the school. So that happened in my time. And I remember saying to the bishop that this was the only thing that the parish lacked at the time was our own parish school. LINDA: When did the school open? LEO: It opened in 1951. LINDA: Was that when you were assigned to Leominster? LEO: It opened up in '53, I'm sorry… '53. LINDA: Okay. You accomplished all that in two short years? LEO: At the school, yeah. Like the first and second grade, but then I was transferred after -- then following that, the school was built. Right after I left, they started to build a school for the other grades that were to follow. LINDA: Okay.18 LEO: There were really no major areas of concern, I don't think, other than they wanted their parish, and then they wanted various services. They wanted educational programs for their children, religious educational programs for their children. And they were very -- the women were tremendous at St. Anna's. St. Anna's Society was a terrific group of women who worked hard and who ran spaghetti suppers and raised money in order to build and redecorate the church and keep different things going to provide for a rectory. And they were very tremendous and very, very much engaged in the parish in order to keep things moving and growing and building. It was really nice and remained -- it was impressive, you know. And at that time when I was there, they had a great program of religious devotions and activities and social activities that brought them together and enabled them to have a wonderful spirit within the community and the parish. LINDA: How did you feel -- I mean, not St. John's but Holy Cross? LEO: It didn't bother me at all. I mean, I just was treated very fairly. I never felt any kind of bias against me or toward me. And I felt I had every opportunity that everyone else did there. I don't think I was looked down upon in any way because I was Italian. I think the whole atmosphere was very good. It was all up to you to do what you -- I was going to Holy Cross because it was a good school and [congregation]. And I never had any -- being Italian never bothered me because there were so many other kids in my class that were Italian. LINDA: At Holy Cross? LEO: At Holy Cross. Especially, you know, from New York and the New York area, other areas of the country. It didn't bother me, you know. LINDA: Did you feel the same way at the seminary? LEO: At the seminary, it was the same. I really never felt that the Italian got in the way, you know, being Italian. The way people accepted you and 19 treated you was, you know, it was [unintelligible - 00:52:51]. You know, you may have to take this off. LINDA: Okay. We had an interruption. We stopped just for a few minutes to make sure that this is working. So please stand by. Okay. LEO: All right. LINDA: Did your parents always feel as accepted as you did, do you think, being Italian? LEO: I think my father had a hard time in the beginning when he came over because at that time, I know he had trouble going to church, in the upper church, that they were not allowed to go up and attend mass in the upper church. LINDA: What does that mean, the upper church? LEO: Well, at St. John's, there was a lower -- there was a church, a lower church and an upper church. You know, two floors, two levels. And in order to go into the upper church -- I think he used to have some troubles because if you didn't have what you called the coinage, the coin of the realm to go in, you were told to go downstairs to mass. And that bothered him. But then after a while, that changed, and it never endangered my father's faith. But it was very hard for him to take initially to be restricted as to where he would go in church, you know. So, you get over that. But I am… LINDA: And when did that stop? LEO: Oh, I think that stopped when he was older, when he was able -- when he became more [unintelligible - 00:55:10] and had the money to pay the initial [unintelligible - 00:55:14] lying on that seat, what they used to call the arbitrary fee in church. And he went in. 20 But see, the Gannon people never had to use money or to give money initially. The state financed the churches usually, so the people were never asked for money. LINDA: Let's stop for one minute, please. LEO: Yeah. LINDA: Linda Rosenbaum again, and we have continued the interview. … explaining about your father, how he felt a little different than you about being Italian because of probably the period of time. LEO: Right. LINDA: And you explained the church in Clinton, and then you were explaining the churches where they were not funded by the people. LEO: Right. And so that was strange for an immigrant, and especially Italian immigrants, to come over here and be expected to give money in order to go to church, for a seat fee and things like that, because they never had that practice in Italy. And at the time, they just didn't understand it. And they weren't ready for it then. But once he got on to the fact that this was the way it is here in this country, then he began to pay for his seat fee, as they called it, the pew fee, and then he -- then there was no problem at all. Although at times -- you see, in Clinton, Clinton was strongly Irish. It's an Irish community, a lot of Irish in Clinton at the time. The Polish had their church, and there weren't many French people in Clinton. The majority were either the Irish Catholics and Italian Catholics. I remember that's where Protestant people, especially in certain sections of the town. So at first there was -- at times, it was difficult to be -- yeah, some people would probably show great prejudice against the Italians in Clinton. In growing up, you know, sometimes you'd hear it. You know, you'd get a flavor of it. But it never seemed to be that much, and my father never 21 made much of it. He never, you know, exposed us to any difficulty in this regard or complained about any difficulty in this regard. He got along very well. He had a wonderful personality and then being a barber, he was well-liked in town, and he got along very well. And then they used to have their own little Italian community, their clubs, and they would go together and sit down, have their own socialization periods together. They would play cards or they'd have their own little friendly meetings in their clubs. And so it didn't seem to bother anyone. But every once in a while, you might get a flare-up of the Irish, being a little strong against the Italians. LINDA: Can you remember anything specific? LEO: Nothing really. I don't remember anything, none that I ever got hurt by, you know. You know, you just have that idea of having experienced or heard it said, you know, or some remark made. But then, you'd say, oh, it's that individual. It's not that whole class of people. It's that individual that has prejudice or bias. But there were feelings, there's no question about it, at times. Because you were Italian you didn't get the jobs or you didn't get the positions in school and things like this, you know. The teaching positions, the Italians didn't get a job as a teacher because of… But that was all political then because they would -- you had to run for an office or have somebody in office to kind of vote you in on the school committee. That was kind of a political thing where the majority of people voting for these committee members were Irish, and they would be the ones who would be in charge of making decisions for these appointments. So it was pretty hard to break the barriers there. But after, you know, really after the war, a lot of that all came crumbling down, you know. LINDA: After World War II?22 LEO: Yeah. During -- you know what I mean, everyone was involved in the war. And all families were there, and young men from all nationalities were involved, and so that whole idea of [unintelligible - 01:01:47] hear this, sometimes I did. But I know I didn't, no more than some place. Some of the Irish Leprechaun Club, you know, I was an honorary member of the Leprechaun Club, you know. LINDA: When was that? Was that in Clinton? LEO: Yeah. Yeah, that was some years ago now. But you know, I think that's -- you wouldn't see that, I don't think, around here now because they're in all kinds of professions in Clinton. LINDA: Uh-huh. LEO: And activities, and so… LINDA: So was that quite an honor, getting an award from the Leprechaun Club? LEO: Well, it was -- to me, it kind of showed that the biases were diminished, you know; that those who were not Irish were getting an award from this Irish Society, so to speak. LINDA: Do you remember about the year that you were awarded this? LEO: No, [unintelligible - 01:02:58]. LINDA: We can look for it later and I can insert that information. But it was not while you -- was it while you were living in Clinton? LEO: No. LINDA: No? LEO: No, I was there, but it was after I was a priest. LINDA: Okay. You were a priest. LEO: Yeah. LINDA: So tell me a little bit about the social clubs you had mentioned. I was thinking of a few things. A, there wasn't an Italian parish in Clinton. LEO: They had the Sons of Italy, the lodge of the Sons of Italy. And one group of Italians gravitated toward that. And then… LINDA: You mean from a particular region?23 LEO: Yeah. They'd be from different regions, you know, or different ideas, you know. There were those who felt that a man should have control of what the society has to say. They didn't want to be paying dues to national societies, you know. And for nationals to be taking away some of the money from the town in order to be supported. That was like -- that was the other group, what they called the Liberty Society; they [had too many progressive] Liberty Society. They were a group of Italians who felt that they had their own social group. But they would run things on their own, and whatever monies they made and so forth would benefit just them. And they would develop their own programs, their own health programs and sick programs and their activities, social activities programs. And so there were the two factions: The Sons of Italy and the Liberty Society. And there were groups, different groups, depending on who you were, and sometimes what sections of Italy you came from that was going to be different, these different groups. But it enabled the groups to have something, and they felt strength in their group, their union, and they were able to do things and accomplish things that would benefit them. So they were pleased with this. LINDA: Which group did your parents…? LEO: My father first belonged to the Sons of Italy, but then he decided to form and become a member of the other group, the Liberty Society. They didn't feel to try to be tied in on a national level. They felt that they could do more for themselves by having their own little organization of their own. LINDA: So did you say that he was a founding member? LEO: Yeah, he would have been a founding member in the Liberty Society. LINDA: And what year was that? LEO: Oh, boy. That would have been in the '30s sometime, early '30s. LINDA: And did your mother get involved with any of these societies?24 LEO: My mother was very -- was never very socially inclined, you know, in that respect. She was a homebody. Her home was everything. Her home and her family were everything, and her own little circle of friends. She had her own little circle of Italian ladies. LINDA: Were they all child-raising like her? LEO: No, no, they weren't. But they were in the neighborhood. They were Italian women in the neighborhood. They were never [unintelligible - 01:06:54], no. They were at different ones, some were in average homes. LINDA: Was there ever a language problem between the Italians? LEO: Between the Italians? LINDA: The different dialects? LEO: Not really. LINDA: No? LEO: No. I never encountered any. But my mother just would -- like, when I used to try to get my mother to go out to dinner, you know, she would always say, "No, we can eat at home." She just wasn't a really social butterfly. She was a hard worker and a great cook. Everyone used to love to come there to eat. LINDA: What kinds of things did she make? LEO: Oh, she'd make everything—[gnocchi], ravioli, lamb, all kinds of spaghetti, tortellini, manicotti, lasagna. She was a tremendous cook. One year we had the bar mitzvah. She made eggplant, you know, parmesan, veal cutlets, you know, all these wonderful foods, different types of chicken, cacciatore. She did all kinds of Italian cooking. And she used to bake, make her breads. She -- my mother used to get up early in the morning and prepare meals, you know. We only had a meal -- we always had three meals, you know, one with lunch and one with dinner at night. But then… LINDA: Was it just your sister?25 LEO: And my uncle. My mother's brother lived with us. Yeah. My four sisters. LINDA: Oh, four sisters. LEO: Yes. Four sisters and myself. [Unintelligible - 01:09:07] LINDA: Were you also the youngest? LEO: No, I was next to the youngest. But I always would get the choice piece. My mother would always make sure I was well taken care of. That used to get me angry at times because I didn't like to be shown favoritism at times. But she -- as I say, she didn't like going to these social -- these clubs. She just stayed at home. I don't know if she was shy or what. I think she was just happy in her home with her family, going with her family, going with her little group of friends. She had three or four Italian ladies, and they would come here. I remember them going out every week, they would make the circle, you know, go from one house to the other houses, spend the afternoon with each other and gab and knit and crochet. And then they had their little cordial drink, you know. And it was good. You know, it was always a great consolation. You know, you always come home and she'd always be there, you know. You never came home from school to an empty house or something. But she was always there. And if she wasn't there, you knew where she was. You knew she was at [the neighbor's], you know, this lady or that lady's home, whoever's turn it was. LINDA: It sounds like education was very important to your family. Was it important to your sisters as well? LEO: Oh, yeah. My father -- yeah, my sisters all -- they all wanted to learn, my sisters. One went to -- two went to training in the same business. One went to Boston College and earned a degree in nursing. And the other went to Georgetown and earned her degree in nursing. Then they went on and got their master's degree.26 And then my younger sister went to business school, you know. She picked up the business. She first started out as a lab technician, but then she didn't like it. And she then picked up a secretarial course. And then my oldest sister was a hairdresser. She wanted to be a hairdresser, so -- but my father always kind of encouraged education. He realized he didn't have it. And had he had an education, he would have done more. But he really maintained that we should go ahead and have a -- he encouraged us to go on. LINDA: What kinds of personal… LEO: Personal? Well, as a priest, it's kind of hard to tie into too many personal -- I got along. I tried to get along with everybody. I spoke up on personal things. They used to drive me around because we didn't have cars at that time. Wherever I wanted to go places or do something, I'd have to rely on somebody driving me, you know. LINDA: What were their names? LEO: One was [Analita Tarsey]. And then there was [Ben Veeny], and then the men of the parish. And [Bucky Angelini]. And [Chuck Antelushi]. He's around -- would be helpful to [unintelligible - 01:13:43]. Do you know Ann? LINDA: I don't know her. LEO: Yeah. And her husband. They're in this area. [Unintelligible - 01:13:58] Priest, you know, very personal. She'd do a lot to help me out. And then I was getting teachers for teaching religious classes, you know, religion classes. We had asked her to serve in this capacity. And I remember when I went back as pastor, I wanted her to become the president of the [Sahara] Society, which she did and did very well. And then when I suggested her name for Our Father's House for the homeless in the Fitchburg area, then she became the chairperson for three terms. So 27 I don't know how many terms she had. She must have been the chairperson for the [Madison] Society for a good ten years. Yeah. LINDA: What type of social clubs were there? LEO: They were -- each, it seemed that each province, different provinces of Italy -- you had the [Markagerian], the Singer or Giovani group where they had their own little social club. You had these -- I already said Giovani Club. We had the Santa Maria, their own convent, they were another group from Point [Saray] and St. James and those places. And then you had the Costo Novito, their group. And then other -- there were probably about three or four different. Salladini, the [Giovani], the Salladini Society. They were people from Pretaria and Commo and those places. Yeah, I would say there were about four or five major social clubs, Italian social clubs in Leominster. The only thing that ever united them was the church, you know. Otherwise, they would stay by themselves out here, you know. But the only thing that they kind of worked together on and would get behind together would be the church. And that was the unifying factor that brought them together in Leominster. They never -- and that was a funny thing, you know. You'd see them, the American Giovani would have their own club, the [Vergini] would have theirs. And then you have all the other people. I mean, they were all different groups. And, but then the church brought them together, and they'd get behind the church. And they were very strong and good. They worked together. They worked well together for the church then. But now most of those -- see, those were the old-timers. Today, you don't -- among the young, you don't see that. You don't see those clubs now in Leominster.28 But that was a way for them meeting together. You know, when they came over as immigrants, in the twenties and thirties, this is where they found their strength, in unity, in their own social gatherings, in their groups. Because, you know, no one else would bother with them, you know. LINDA: It's remarkable that they were able to contribute to not only -- there were conflicts there? LEO: Between each other? LINDA: In the church. LEO: In the church, no. LINDA: Perhaps… LEO: The church -- well, the reason was in the church, they had tremendous pastors. They had great leaders. They were with Monsignor Gannon, who first organized and founded St. Anna's Church. He was dearly, dearly revered by the people, and they would do anything for him. And then so on with the pastors who came along. I must say, they were very dedicated and devoted and loyal to their church and to their priests. They were always nice. They did church communion and would get along very well. LINDA: Did we -- I'm sorry. Go ahead. LEO: No, I just remembered, like the Holy Name Society when there were 450 members. And they'd each have their group line up and come to church, and they were from all different sections of Italy. They were unified in that communion of faith./AT/pa/ke/es

The Mercury October, 1908 HEW THOSE WHO HELP US. The Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume. Cotrell & Leonard, ALBANY, N. Y. Makers of CAPS AND GOWNS i'o Gettysburg College, Lafayette, Lehigh, Dickinson, State College, Univ. of Penn B.i Ivnnia, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, "Wellesley, Bryn Mawr and the others. Class Contracts a Specialty. Correct Hoods ^ Degrees. Right Now is not too soon for the senior, the college man, to let us know whether he would be interested in any sort of an office, sales, tech-nical or teaching position. Your choice of location and lines of business. Twelve offices covering the entire country, each operat-ing a department for college men. Write stating line of education and location desired. Hp.pGrB©B THE MERCUKY. extent brought under the influence of a force over which he has little or no control. So great is the power of tradition, that many are wondering what really is the attitude of the present undergraduates in ques-lions of truth and falsehood, than which nothing can be of greater importance, if the practical end of a college course is to be "training good members of society." Do our students have any dominating sense of honor, or are they predominantly gov-erned by the stray survivals of an impalpable and damaging tra-dition ? Behold, says the world to the college, you have received our choicest young men, you are training those who are to be the iiower of our citizenship, the leaders of men, yet you surround them with an atmosphere smirched with the vestiges of a past which knew neither the glory nor the honor of our democracy. The skeptic sees in the little college world only a false and de-cisive transcript of the larger world. He wonders when students will cease their imitation of the small boy, who one minute reads the riot-act of manly independence, and the next pleads the baby-act of thoughtless irresponsibility. He wonders when fac-ulties will cease their skipping about from "in loco parentis" to '.he "on honor" theory. Those best able to learn the attitude of students toward ques-tions of truth and falsehood find much that is encouraging. None set for college officers a standard of honor so sensitively' high. Disingemiousness in a professor the students find intol-erable, and once discovered it may mean the permanent blasting of his usefulness. A man may lack extraordinary personal .•harm, he may yet gain and keep the confidence of the students by scrupulous candor in all his intercourse with them, but lack of this element of frankness is sure to call forth their condem-nation. In no department of life can you find a loftier standard than the one which students have set for themselves in their athletic "iiaining. If athletics were not accomplishing anything else that is worth while, the fact that they get and keep a lot of young men "in training," renders justifiable their demand for con-tinued support. To the extent of rigidity has the standard of honor in .atliletic training been elevated. A student has no J THE MERCURY. purer means of branding himself than the breaking of training. And what body of more mature men has a finer sense of what constitutes leadership? No one, therefore, need seriously fear that undergraduates are without a keen ethical perception. And yet, in spite of these healthy signs, we cannot disregard 'he discouraging observations of a scrutinizing world. It sees in the average undergraduate such little sense of proportion: open and gentlemanly as he is, he appears honest and honorable only in spots. A manufacturer requires that into the product of his plant his workmen shall put honest material and honest toil,—his success depends upon that requirement. Need we wonder that he should grow impatient with our institutions of learning, which claim to enroll the choice youth of an enlightened country, when so much of the work turned out by them has the ear-marks of dishonesty, —not to speak of the vast amount of work that is never done at all? Can the college rightly expect much sympathy from the man of business, when he observes so many annually leaving col-lege walls who have never learned the real meaning of work, never practiced strenuous industry or appreciated the value of iime? The community would not feel so keenly disappointed with the growing numbers who go to college more for the social life than for learning, if that social life were invigorated to a greater extent by the moralities which govern society at large, :md if it had at least a more certain tendency to promote the greatest of all arts, the art of living. Is the judgment of the world too harsh ? Is it not too exact-ing to demand that youthful immaturity be subjected to the ligid standards which logic and the community at large seem to approve ? Only those yet under the charm of tradition—be they slumni, faculty or undergraduates—look with complacency upon the happy-go-lucky codes the extravagances and distortions of our colleges. But happily the number of these is decreasing, and never before, we believe, has the time been so propituous for the obliteration of this damaging tradition. This is true even among the undergraduates themselves. They ma}' not be desir-ing increased supervision or more stringent regulation, but a great majority of them stand ready to be released from false-standards and to adopt sound and sane ones in their stead. C THE MERCURY. Is it just that the picked young men of America should any longer be brought into and permitted to perpetuate a delusive-atmosphere? An atmosphere in which acts of obvious dis-honesty and vice and inhumanity are socially elevated and put into good repute, when the perpetrators should be put into bad repute, certainly deserves no place in an enlightened country 'ike our own. Undergraduates are free to confess that in their excesses quite frequently they are but following custom and can oiler no other excuse; and by their very manner many of them indicate that a higher standard is struggling to gain ascendency. Who shall assist them in completely throwing off the cruel rhackles of tradition, or must they effect their own deliverance? If the purifying and the uplifting of college honor is to pro-gress, along sane and invigorating lines, what greater service can be rendered the undergraduates than to place among them a vigorous, guiding personality,—not a college officer, but one who, sympathizing with the students' own point of view, can liberate Ihem and act as their interpreter and guide. THREE SENSES, BUT A COMPLETE SOUL. MARY HAY HIMES, 'OS. JELEN KELLEB'S name is already too familiar to each of you to need a special introduction. The world of to-day knows it well and has accorded to its owner not a little fame because of her attainments. Though Miss Keller has to do without both hearing and sight she has achieved a position among her fellowmen which we must, in the circum-stances, recognize as surprising. She is now twenty-seven years old and her education has served to make her a writer of no mean ability. She is a college girl, having been graduated from Radeliff with the degree of A.B., in 1904, and she is now entering upon a career of service io bo wrought both by her own hands and through influencing ••(hers to favor and aid beneficent undertakings. But whatever THE MJ5RCURY. rhe does she will not neglect the task of improving her mind and she will continue to write. She has had the unusual privilege of knowing intimately many of the great men of her day such as Phillips Brooks who was her main instructor in things religious, Henry Drummond the mem-ory of whose strong warm handclasp she likened to a benediction, Oliver Wendell Holmes whom she called her beloved poet, John (Treanleal' Whitticr in whose home she visited the summer before he died, Edward Everett Hale whose friendship helped her over many of the rough places, Mark Twain from whose lips she read one or two of his good stories, and Joseph Jefferson who acted for her in private the most striking parts of a number of his plays ro that her education even in this line is not so defective as one might naturally suppose. Of these, her friends, she has written: "In a thousand ways they have turned my limitations into beau- : if ill privileges and enabled me to walk serene and happy in the shadow cast by my deprivation." Books have meant much more in Helen Keller's education than in that of others for they serve to bring knowledge to her which comes to an ordinary person through his eyes and ears. She has read widely and is thoroughly familiar with a large num- .,er of the best works in prose and poetry. She says literature is her "Utopia for no barrier of sense shuts her out from the dis-course of her book-friends. All these things have broadened and enriched Helen Keller's mind so that she is well fitted to exercise her natural bent to writing which lias won for her the excellent place that she oc-cupies in the literary world. She has written for many of this country's best periodicals and has been asked to speak in state legislatures and at hospital dedications in the cause of the deaf and blind! Her book called "The Story of My Life," has been sold by the thousands, and her articles which have lately been oublished in the "Century" are of unique merit. It seems nowise unfit ihat Miss Keller should be regarded as one of the most wonderful women that have ever lived when we note that she has attained this high position in spite of the fact that she has been deprived of the two of the five senses which are of such paramount importance to each one of us that we depend on them almost entirely, paying hardly any attention to the cul- 10 THE MERCURY. tivation or use of the three upon which she must depend alto-gether. Some of the knowledge which would generally come to one through his eyes and ears is brought to Helen Keller by taste, touch, and smell. Through these three senses sounds and shapes penetrate her consciousness and by certain mental processes of adding, multiplying, comparing what these senses bring her she gets definite ideas of whole objects, distance, degree and differ-mce. But there are concepts whose getting belongs to hearing or sight so particularly that we would think it impossible for a deaf-blind person to obtain them, no matter how high might be the cultivation of his three remaining senses. A great gulf here opens dividing the deaf-blind person from the hearing and seeing world. Yet in the case of Miss Keller we find no gulf there, for her soul in its activity and completeness reaches out and fills up the void. She makes use of the analogy between the material and the soul worlds and from the very fulness of her inner life is able to "mploy that whicli in her case has no correspondent without, to give her knowledge of that which her senses can never reveal. So far as the appreciation of music is concerned, she may have far better understanding of its nature than many a person with bearing ears but without any soul-intelligence to interpret what, through them, comes to him. We are made to feel this from her own account: "Sweet, beautiful vibrations exist for my touch even though they travel through other substances than air to i-each me. So I imagine sweet, delightful sounds and the artis-tic arrangement of them which is called music, and T remember '.hat they travel through the air to the ear conveying impressions somewhat like mine. I also know what tones are since they are perceptible factually in a voice." Her ideas of things which are revealed to us through our eyes are not lacking in clearness. She thus describes the way she gets her concept of color: "I have talked so much and read so much about colors that through no will of my own I attach mean-ings to them just as all people attach certain meanings to ab-stract terms like hope, idealism, monotheism, intellect, which cannot be represented truly by visual objects." Again she says: "The flash of thought and its swiftness explain the lightening's THE MEUCLTRY. H flash and the sweep of a comet through the heavens. My mental .-ky opens to me the vast celestial spaces and I proceed to £11 them with the images of my spiritual stars. I recognize truth by the clearness and the guidance that it gives my thought, and knowing what that clearness is I can imagine what light is to the eye. The utmost bound to which my thought will go is the horizon of my mind. From this horizon I imagine the one which the eye marks." It is only when we awake to self-consciousness that we begin to think. The awakening of the soul must come before we can know how to use the knowledge which reaches us through our reuses. There are persons who, having all five senses yet walk blind in the midst of the beauty which can only be seen through • lie windows of the soul. "Our blindness," says Helen Keller^ '•'changes not a whit the course of inner realities. Of us it is as true as it is of the seeing that the most beautiful world is always entering through the imagination. Faith is a mockery if it Reaches us not that we may construct a world unspeakably more complete and beautiful than the material world. And I, too, may construct my better world, for I am a child of God, an in-heritor of a fragment of the Mind that created all worlds." Indeed as we read the works of Helen Keller we often be-come conscious of the flutter of the spirit wings and we feel that in her flights of soul we axe somehow uplifted and refined. All this tells a wonderful story about the real nature of the soul, its dignity, energy, and power. It puts to route those phi-losophers who would hold this wonderful part of man subject to the petty rule of flesh, who claim that the possession of all five senses is necessary for a full and complete knowledge,—that the soul is dependent upon sense for its full life. It shows the soul to be something separate and apart from the body in which it dwells and utterly independent of it. The loss of any of the senses affects one's soul as little as the loss of a hand or foot would affect his personality. The soul has wonderful capabilities of growth and action which nothing but its own will need limit. Nothing need be a prison-house to the spirit, such power does it possess. It has KIeh unexplainable and wonderful qualities as man has always been drawn by his nature to reverence and worship—truly he 12 TUB MERCURY. bas been made a little lower than the angels. It is the soul which each man must respect within himself. Of what significance, then, is this in disclosing the nature of" the life of the sonl? If the soul is not affected by the small changes as they occur in the body, will the final destruction of the body by death lay chains upon the spirit and drag it down to nothingness? If man were a merely natural being, Nature's des-tiny would be his also; but we have seen that the soul is super-natural, able to mount over the barriers imposed upon the na-tural, and therefore deserving a different fate. What then do we face but immortality ? If eternity be not for the soul, man's very greatness, his capacity for thought and action and for ideals were direst mockery! Is it not rather that the soul sojourns-here for a time in the physical body as in a prison from which death will set it free to dwell forever in that unseen world where its real interests are and where it will remain after all earthly end material things have passed away? Having the great gift of eternity and a soul active and power-ful to do what it will, does not one's destiny rest in his own hands? If he learns to enjoy the soul-world by thinking of it here and earning a place in it surely happiness will await him in the future. We have seen that Helen Keller is making wonderful use of" her powers and know that she is building firm and strong. Her wonderfully courageous fight stands a firm rebuke to our sloth-ful spirits, and her victories in overcoming the obstacles in her way hold great encouragement for those on the verge of despair. THE MERCURY. 13.-. A CLEAR AND A GLOOMY DAY AT COLLEGE. L. W. TAYLOR, '08. HE day dawns gloomily, and at the last possible moment the heavy-eyed student rolls out of bed and gazes through a streaming window into the dense fog which has settled over all the campus, hiding from view every beautiful feature of the place. No vigorous heart-beats stir his torpid blood as he buttons his raincoat about him in anticipa-tion of the weary trip to breakfast and the not-altogether enjoy-able chapel service following. But such a day must be endured, and the only remedy is to dispel the gloom and forget the rain—if possible. The college student is an adept at this and although all is dismal without. the dormitories seem filled with merriment. The pipes are pro-duced, and dense clouds of smoke soon arise and fill the atmos-phere as though in opposition to the clouds of mist outside. Here and there groups of students settle down to a friendly game of cards, while others, perhaps, coil upon a pile of cushions to enjoy an interesting book. From various quarters comes the tinkling of mandolins and guitars, sometimes accompanied by snatches of song. But despite all this assumed gayety, everyone feels a spirit of' depression which he cannot well shake off. It follows him about, hinders him in his work, making all seem drudgery, and lurks nearby in his pastime although it may be forgotten for a short while. And as evening approaches, this feeling of confinement becomes worse and worse until it is well nigh unbearable, and darkness 'settles down over a restless and disconcerted person who feels that the day has gone for naught. But bow different the clay which dawns brightly upon a fresh, green world. The student arises early, wakened by the gay ••hatter of birds, and the bright sunbeams which stream in through his window. He springs up with energy and feels the-oright red blood coursing through his veins and filling his whole being with the joy of life He faces the day with eagerness, and the spirit of achievement is strong within him. Chapel appears .ess odious, and he looks forward to recitatior«^kl^teas^£?«'**^^ | GETTYSBURG COLLEGE | i Gettysburg, Pa, - LIBRARY - 14 THE MERCDET. Such a clay fills the whole place with gayety and college seems u veritable paradise in which youth and energy abound. The pastimes are now out in the open where no walks confine, and where fresh breezes bring health and vitality to all. The tennis courts -are filled with white-garbed figures, while from Nixon irield resounds the crack of the bat as it sends the leather sphere out to some expectant hand. The brawny arms of clean-limbed f.thletes of the more classic sort,can be seen flashing in the sun-light as they circle the track with strong strides. Others indulge their freedom by strolling out over the battle-field, some in quest of botany specimens, some in the interests of geology, and many simply for the invigoration afforded by the pure air and sunshine. When darkness falls, the students are still loath to confine themselves within four walls, and so they stroll along the streets of the historical college town, and perchance when the moon .•ioods the campus with soft light, they gather on the steps of '•Old Dorm" and sing, or enjoy the peace of evening in medita-tive silence, thus ending n day filled with many joys and rich in life for all. j* SHOULD THE SCHOOL TERM IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS BE REDUCED TO EIGHT MONTHS? L. VAN DOREN,. '09. 8HE question of reducing the school, term in the public-schools from nine to eight months has been uppermost among the questions that have been troubling the minds of the men who have to attend to the welfare of our schools. The school term should not be reduced to eight months, be-cause the general age of the pupil in the public schools is under twelve years, and they are at the very age when they are learn-ing the rudiments of the different branches and getting the foun-dation upon which to build their lives; also they are at that age when they most easily forget what they are being taught, for THE MEKCURY. 15 their past experiences are few and they are continually passing through new experiences, which tend to drive out the training they are receiving from day to day in the school room. There-fore, to reduce the school term to eight months would be giving ;Jiese forces one extra month in which to work, and it would take twice that time to replace what would be lost, so instead of gain-ing a month it would be losing three. Also when the child is out of school he is free from the disci-pline which there exists. Some may say, he is under the home-rule. That is very true but the home-rule is in very few cases as strict as the discipline of the school room, and it can not be as stringent, for every one knows that in the school room the child ■s continually under the eye of his teacher, whereas at home, if he were there, for nine times out of ten after school hours he is roaming around with his comrades and is under no discipline at all—his parents have their domestic duties to attend to and are unable to keep a close watch upon him. So to give the child one month more of freedom from school-room discipline would not be to his advantage, but rather it would be detrimental to his childhood training. It is undoubtedly true that the children become very tired of being shut up in the school room during the spring and long to be free to roam wherever they may choose, and this very long- 'ng suggests a reason for not reducing the school term to eight months. The fact that a large number of the children loiter around after school hours with their companions is no reason for not reducing the school term, but the fact that they do not loiter inerely with their child companions but instead, around the street corners and other places is an argument against it. Here they come in contact with all kinds of people and see what those, some years older than they, are doing, such as smoking and chew-ing, and hear obscene language which is extremely disadvanta-geous to the training of the moral elements in the child. When the child sees or hears these things what does he do? Does he run away? No, he docs the exact opposite; he remains longer than he would otherwise have done, he is not satisfied with what hehasscenor heard but he wishes to see and hear more, and it docs not stop with the mere seeing and hearing; the child wishes to be like those who do these things, and thinks he is elevated to a 1G THE MERCURY. Uglier plane if he takes a smoke or uses curse words. He is sadly mistaken, for instead of being elevated, he is being de-graded. Therefore if the school term were reduced to eight months, he would be given one month more in which to mingle with this element, which works against his moral character. Thus there are three reasons, and very essential reasons too. why the school term in the public schools should not be reduced to eight months. In the first place the child would be deprived of a month's training in the fundamentals when it is the most opportune time; secondly, he would be free from the school-room discipline an extra month, and lastly, he would be given one more month in which to associate with that class of persons who stand on the street corners and in other public places. SIMILARITY OF PURSUITS THE BASIS OF FELLOWSHIP. G. L. KIEFFER, '09. XDIVIDUALS in this world are all prone to seek com-panions. The kind of companions sought varies in proportion to the degree of development of the indi-vidual. These individuals that mutually agree to en-joy each other's fellowship must certainly have as their posses-sion some common ground, where all differences disappear. This r-ommon ground quite frequently proves to be a similarity of pur-suit. In harmony with this fact is the old saying: "Birds of a feather flock together." Who has not seen, or read about, the old country store gathering. Here the farmer is wont to meet his neighbor for an evening's fellowship, mutually desired and en-joyed. This fact of similarity of pursuits being the basis of fellow-ship is not alone true of the laboring class. It is also true of the cultured class. The coffee house in the days of Ben Johnson was the fellowship club of the literary lights of that age. Here they met and enjoyed each other's wit and humor as well as shared each other's troubles. THE MERCURY. 17 The fact that similarity of pursuits is the basis of fellowship is ; hewn in the manner in which those who are following the same line of work are banded together. We, to-day, have the great labor unions' as an outgrowth of this among the laboring class. In higher walks of life are found this association and that asso-ciation. Banded together for each other's protection and develop-ment, these unions and associations are quite a factor, working for the betterment of humanity's condition of life. The strong characters thus intimately associated with the weak possess a great opportunity for living a life according to their Master's com-mands. Granted these associations carry with them evils, never-theless the benefits outweigh them. Therefore, in time past as well as at the present time, indi- \iduals who have had the common ground of similarity of pur-suits have banded themselves together in order that they might enjoy each other's fellowship. In all walks of life this has been true. It is likewise true that the benefits to the individuals of these bonds of fellowship can hardly be estimated. THE INEXORABLE IN THE WORLD. HESSE, '09. JWENTY and one half centuries ago, there lived, in beau-tiful Greece, a childlike and simple hearted people, but endowed with intellects that shone as the stars in their own wonderful heavens. Of experimental science they had none, but their intuition and reason led them to experience the loftiest thought and the profoundest emotions that fill the imman breast. They attained the heights of intellect we must strive in vain •■ompletely to comprehend, and they laid the foundation for modern culture in its length and breadth. They reveled in meta-physical speculations, they looked through the stars and through the multitudinous phenomena of earth, and saw within the com-plexity of all a oneness which they called the universe. Nor is there a theory of modern science or philosophy which in its 18 THE MERCURY. broad outlines they had not conceived. In the sixtli century before Christ there was taught the doctrine of creation by evolu-tion, the nebular hypothesis, the indestructibility of matter and the conservation of energy, the sphericity of the earth, the fact of sex in plants, as well as in animals, and their theory of music has never been changed. They recognized order, plan, and design in this cosmos of theirs, and so affirmed mind as its author. As those old Greeks had grasped the fundamental conceptions which are necessary to understand natural law in the material universe, so, too, by a native insight they grasped the ethical principles of the world. They felt themselves to be free-willed personalities, but they saw with crystaline vision that man, in order to find safety and perfect freedom, must have a will sub-servient to the laws set in order by the Divine Creative Mind, and that a will out of harmony with these laws incurs peril, tem-poral and external. During those early days the laws in physics, optics, chemistry. ,«md biology were unknown, and will was recognized as the only force capable of initiating motion. Accordingly, those old 'Greeks created, by their vivid imagination, gods invested with power to rule over certain definite spheres of human activity. Nevertheless, they were conscious that back of even Father Zeus liimself, there was a mysterious, an inexorable something, to which, with their most vivid imagination, they could not assign a personal existence in the home of the gods on high Olympus. The Greek philosopher was struck with awe, as he contemplated this mystery underlying his fanciful explanation of the move-ments in nature. He realized the presence of a force which lie oould not attribute to the capricious gods. He felt the cold hand of stern necessity, of unbending compulsion, that inexorable Power, which is no respector of persons, and to which all crea-tion is obedient, the great cause of the perpetuity of the world. He saw it manifested in (lie composition of the elements and represented graphically by the starry heavens. To him it was Ihe soul of all natural phenomena and the absolute authority over the hearts of men. The Greeks, in their thought were striving to represent this inexorable Power, and to that end, created a word. They spoke of it as avayKrj and to it they resigned self. Sopocles, in THE MERCURY. 19 that magnificent tragedy, "Oedippus Bex," says, "Not even the gods fight against amy/c^. And Aeschylus, in the Promotheus Bound, tell how, in the beginning, poor pitiable mortals were crashed through their ignorance of natural laws and forces, hav-ing no power of development, and that at length rejected and given over to destruction by the Olymphic Zeus. He tells how, in their blindness to the means of development which avayK^ afforded, they suffered untold pain and woe. They failed to re-alize that existence is a struggle in which the victory is not to tiie strong but to those whose souls are atune with the eternal plan of progress. Mortals seemingly were helpless, but upon re-ceiving fire, "the teacher of every useful art," there was opened to them illimitable resources. Science was born, and by learning. dowly and painfully, the workings of the universe, man was raised to a higher plane of living. Centuries have rolled by, and man himself has become a god. AVe have advanced until we are conscious that all natural forces invite us to rise higher in material development by cdping with opposition. The idea of limitation and the laws of nature that stand seemingly in opposition to our physical, mental, and moral development may be considered as the dark avay/o? of the ancient Greeks, and yet in reality it is merely the necessary op-position by which action is made possible. There could be no flight of birds, if it were not for the change-less law of gravitation and the defiance of ethereal space. Our fouls could not soar to higher worlds, and, in our intellectual and • loral struggles we should fail, but for the very defiance we meet. 't is the order of things yet to some, it is so dark and fearful. But why should it be? It is but rational to accept the limita-tions which He who made the world has set as the boundaries of-human activity. Endowed with an immortal soul and placed in, a vast theatre of struggle, a man so often surrenders to the evils, that he meets. His confidence in the All Wise fails, he rebells,. and succumbs to fate. The purpose of the Infinite remains obscure, but the wisdom of' ihe plan which he has adopted is being revealed and its justice, •indicated, as age after age pushes back the horizon of knowl-edge. We are now standing in the morning twilight of a new era of thought, and, as we read the message of the past, we see 20 'J'KE MERCURY. the problems which perplexed the ancient mind, in a measure ceing solved. As solution follows solution, there opens to our view mysteries of wider scope. Human interests are essentially the same, but humanity drinks from a larger cup of bliss than ever before. As dark shadows disappear and the boundaries of Ignorance recede, we enlarge our horizon. The periphery of the universe expands, and in realms growing still more vast avoy/07 the inexorable, appears, as a legion of mysterious forces and influences, drawing out and showing human aspira-tions in an intricacy of thought and action. No longer do we. as did the children of Mars, march to certain death upon the field of battle and call it fate. But, while understanding so much of the mystery of existence from the starry heavens to the microscopic world, while recognizing the reign of law as inexora-ble, we know comparatively nothing of the problems that re-main. There are principles we can not fathom for they grow darker as we seek their significance. These are appalling fea-tures that bind and hold the race in their iron grasp. Society hems us in on every side. There are boundaries im-movable. The individual, born to act within his sphere, the physical, mental, and spiritual limitations of which there is ab-solutely no hope of crossing, is as really hound by the hand of fate, as was Promotheus of old. We are doomed to play our role in the drama of life within a certain narrow sphere. The law of heredity and our personal contact with the outer world bind and keep us closer than would the eye of a jealous Grecian deity. We are under the law, and violation of natural laws brings about unnatural conditions. Perpetration of deeds, unnatu-ral, breeds in humanity tendencies to repeat crime even to the fifth generation. This, indeed, is determinism. It is the avayKrj of the nncient Greeks. They whom such fate overtakes are of mortal ones most to be pitied. The old Grecian idea of avay/oj comprehends all such, yet the principle is that of eternal justice which is enthroned high above the limitations of man's understanding. Stern necessity, the inexorable bond which obtains in this uni-verse of law and order must be considered as the hand board di-recting man. It points out a perilous way, but it will lead, Rventually, to more perfect human relations. ITIJS MERCURY. The harmonious stream of existence follows inexorable law. .All is harmony, yet unintelligible to the passing multitudes, who-through selfishness and by acts of rebellious will toll a sad knelL and depart forever. But, the imperishable stream flows on. He who would be wise embarks and.acts according to the light he has. Outside of the light, or in realms unexplored, there is abso-hitely no mercy for him who seeks to break the limitations set by law. The ancient Greeks with their partial insight bowed in sub-mission before the inexorable; not only they, but their Olympian gods as well. Dim and hazy, felt rather than seen, and having no habitation as did Zeus, this illimitable power never became anthropomorphic. It was never a Father into whose face they amid look- and say, "Thy will be done." Rather they surren-dered to an unknown, impersonal necessity whose decree was in-evitable We recognize the same power manifesting itself in the physical world, and we call it natural law; and in the world of humanity, we call it, in the fine phrase of Matthew Arnold, "The power in history, not ourselves, which makes for righteous-ness." FEUDS IN OUR RURAL COMMUNITIES, bo|raa^!'*' [ GEfTYSBURG tc__ Gettysburg, Pa. LIBRARY - - 26 THE MERCURY. and the principal works dealing with the Confessions of the Church. In practical theology we have the complete works of Luther, devotional books, sermons and treatises, some in pamph-let form, others in the original manuscript. Some of the authors represented in Systematic Theology are, Dorner, Martensen, Miiller, Beck, Sprecher, Schleiermacher and JSTitzsch. Commentaries are by Meyer, Keil, Bretheau, Hengs-tenberg, Tholuck and others. Philosophy is also extensively represented both in histories and complete works on the subject. It contains the works of nearly all the great German philosophers, such as Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Shopenhauer, Lotze, V. Harman, Wundt, and others. Besides these comprehensive works thre are many German and Englisl treatises and dissertations on philosophical subjects. Another and doubtless the most exhaustive department is So-ciology. In this department the productions of Dr. Stucken-berg form an important and valuable feature. Along with his works are found all the most noted German contributions to the science as well as many other historical and systematic pro-ductions of authors of different nationalities. Some of the au- Ihors represented are Marx, Lange, Wagner, Schaffle and Blunt-schli. Among the many works on History are found the following: Macauley's, "History of England," Humes', "History of Eng-land," Tierre's, "History of the Consulate and Empire of Na-poleon," Gibbons' Complete AYorks, Fronde's, "History of Eng-land." Also a large number of works dealing especially with Church History, such as. Millman's, "Latin Christianity," His-tories of Protestant Theology and works dealing with the Ameri-can Church. Some of the authors represented are jNTeandet'. Jleppe, Bohringer, Schaff and Planck. Tn the collection of biographies are those of all the great re-ligious, intellectual and political leaders, such as St. Augustine, Melanchthon, Schleiermacher, Martensen, Henhofer, Humbold, Tholuck,Webster, Beecher, Burke, Scott, Garrison, Garrick, Mar-tineau and others. The encyclopaedias and dictionaries form an important fea-ture of the library, especially along the lines of Theology and Sociology. Although some of these works are not the latest and THE MERCURY. 27 most up-to-date editions, the majority of them are still recog-nized as authority in their particular departments. Such is Herzog's "Theologische Beal-Encyklopadie." Besides this partially classified material there is of course a large amount of miscellaneous material, such as works and trea-tise on Natural History and Geography. There is also some fic-tion and high class English and German literature. The works of Goethe, Schiller, Lessing, Heine, Jean Paul Bitter, Shakes-peare, Milton and others are found complete. AT SUNSET. BY ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON. How pure, how spare the hues that lie O'er these wide plains, from sky to sky! . As tho some brush, of airy skill, Had washed, had tinted, field and hill. Soon falls the change; the daylight dies; The dusk o'erbrims her boundaries; The sun flares westward, fiercely rolled 'Mid purple islets ridged with gold. Air me, ah me! alike they fade— Brief space of sun, swift lapse of shade; The wistful eye, that saw and loved, The heart so strangely, sweetly moved. Yet, tho the creeping dusk enfold My faint-hued hopes, my dreams of gold, At last, her patient journey trod. This trembling soul shall leap to God. —Prom the Daily Mail (London). I H E ERCURV Entered al the Posloffice at Gettysburg as second-class Matter. VOL. XVI GETTYSBURG, PA., OCTOBER, 1908 No. 5 Editor in-Chief P. F. BLOOMHARDT, '09 Exchange Editor H. REY WOLF, '09 Business Manager CHARLES L. KOPP, '09 Ass't Bus. Managers G. C. KNIPPLE, '10 PAULS. AIILLER, '10 Assistant Editor CHARLES F. V. HESSE, '09 Associate Editors SAMUEL FAUSOLD, '10 EDWARD N. FRYE, '10 Advisory Board PROF. C. F. SANDERS, A. M. PROF. P. M. BIKLE, PH.D. PROF. C. J. GRIMM, PH. D. Published each month, from October to June inclusive, by the joint literary societies of Pennsylvania (Gettysburg) College. Subscription price, one dollar a year in advance ; single copies 15 cents. Notice to discontinue sending THE MERCURY to any address must be accompanied by all arrearages. Students, Professors and Alumni are cordially invited to contri-bute. All subscriptions and business matter should be addressed to the Business Manager. Articles for publication should be addressed to the Editor. Address THE MERCURY, GETTYSBURG, PA. EDITORIALS. The words of welcome to the new students, as published in the Gettysburgian pleased us very much. We are pleased even more on account of the enthusiasm, which, if possible, is greater than that manifested during previous years. It is the spirit of "Greater Gettysburg" entering into every phase of college life. The vari-ous activities of our college have been well presented to the new men, and they, in turn, have re- THE MERCURY. 29 spondecl with that well known heartiness requisite to the well-being of a new man. A Gettysburg man will be impelled to branch, out, taking in all possible advantages, or elese he will be (ompelled to plod his more narrow path with ever increasing difficulty. This is as it should be. It is not merely a rule gov-erning college activities, but is a universal law. It seems, in-deed, needless to devote further discussion to this topic. We would rather compliment the new men as being able to see readily what we mean to suggest. We would therefore say to all new men, faithful class work joined with good faith, as shown by the way you take up the subsidary features of college life, will lead to the summum bonum. Literary attainment is the most valuable asset in a liberal education. By its means we learn of a man's physical, mental, and heart-life all at once. Each professor under whom you have literary work will take special interest in you, especially when you aim to produce something worthy of recognition in the MERCURY. And besides, all the professors and students will ; rd your trivial imperfections with increased charity, when you show by your effort that you mean to succeed. Let each man busy himself, not alone to gain these advantages, but let him go in for all there is in the performance of duty, and other things will come to him in due time. Join one of the literary societies and aim to have your work there be of a high stand-ard. The MERCURY is watching for the best from the best men. Number yourself with the best. If you are willing to do these Things, Gettysburg has great pleasures in store for you. Year after year, the importance of joining a literary society and of taking an active interest in such work has been much, dis-cussed. But in recent years this importance has not been real-ized as it should be. It is merely talked about. It has not been so very long ago that literary work occupied a high place in the sphere of college activities whilst our successes in athletics were not so marked. Of late, however, we are inclined to believe chat the reverse of this has been true. We would in no wise discourage the great interest in athletics which has meant so much to Gettysburg's teams, but we would also claim for liter- .30 THE MF.BCURY. ary work the proper attention and interest due to its real im-portance in college life. Few men who go through college are ignorant of this importance for it is a real necessity in the mak- :rjg of a cultured man, but the attention of most men is so en-grossed in other ways that the society work is neglected to their own disadvantage as well as to the injury of the respective so-cieties. In our opinion, everyone who enters college should strive to become as well-rounded a man as possible,—by this we mean that he should take advantage of as many varied lines of work as he can; for instance,—he is as much at fault who be-comes a grind in his regular work required by the faculty as the man whose attention is entirely held by other things to the detri-ment of his class standing. He whose interest is limited to ath-letics alone will fail of becoming a broadly cultured man just as easily as the literary "shark" who has no time for athletics. So. for this reason, we would urge every new man, not to fail to join one or the other of our literary societies, and, once having joined, not to let his interest wane. The result of his labors will surely be evident before his graduation. BOOR REVIEVS. \BE Social Secretary, David Graham Philips, Philo 11, 5. Among the many books of present day American life written by this author, this volume is the most captivating. We hear much of the struggles of the newly-rich to enter the social circles at Washington and the con-trast of the social life of America's capital with the customs of foreign courts. "The Social Secretary" presents such pictures of present-day Washington society life that all the best Ameri-can traits are revealed and compared favorably with the polished :nanners of foreigners. The book is written very attractively in the form of a diary. It is not a very large book nor is it dif-ficult reading. What would otherwise be but a dull description is enlivened by several real love incidents which are superin-tended by a natural, sensible American mother of the right sort. ■I'l-TB afERCURY. 31 It also shows to what extent the affairs of the nation are affected by the influence of the social circles at the capital. The Bar Sinister, Richard Harding Davis, Philo 11, 7. This bhort story of dog life is one that will appeal to all lovers of ani-mals. It belongs to that class of recent fiction in which dumb brutes are given the position usually accorded to the hero or heroine. In this book, a bull terrier named "Kid" is given the place of honor. It is a delightful story of how "Kid's" noble blood showed up in spite of the disadvantages which were met until at last he carries off all the prizes in the kennels. The: little book is written in a peculiarly tough dialect which suits I lie nature of the dog very well and shows a noble heart within the dumb breast. The tale is made more attractive by the fact (as stated by the author) that',it is founded on truth. There is a real original dog as well as the other character in the story. It makes pleasant reading for a half hour's recreation. The House of Fulfillment, by George Martin Madden, Philo 11, 7, is a book of much interest to the reader, who loves char-acter sketches. In it the two extremes of human nature are set forth, the romantic and the stern, the light and free-going nature of the Southerner, and cold rigid Presbyterian of the North. Alexina Blair, the product of these two extremes, is of special interest. She is to be admired for the stand which she takes in relation to her uncle, Austen Blair, and her care for her weak charactered mother. There is a thread of love story running "hrough the latter part. The reader will find the book very agreeable and will be very much inspired by the spirit displayed in some of the characters. The Blaclc Bag, by Louis Joseph Vance, Philo 11, S. This novel gives an account of some very exciting adventures of a voung man in London. Philip Kirkwood, while pursuing his studies in painting, receives the news that he is made penniless by the San Francisco disaster. Hence he prepares to return to-the United States and help his partner. Almost at the moment of his departure, his services are solicited by a man of doubtful appearance, to take charge of his daughter, a young lady of about eighteen. Upon doing this, he misses his steamer and has some very thrilling experiences. The author thoroughly under- 32 THE MERCURY. ttands the different phases of life in London and depicts his fharacters well. The reader's interest is aroused at once and never lags. He follows every detail, reading every part with the closest attention, even though it is drawn out in many places to the point of attenuation. This fact shows the author's skill as a writer Another fascinating point in the novel is, that one is in doubt as to how he feels toward the young man; sometimes he is ready to condemn, and again to admire him. The book is full of action from beginning to end and can be read with rapidity. The Orphan, by Clarence E. Mulford. Philo 11, 8. Clarence E. Mulford does not give his readers a story of "domestic inter-est" notwithstanding its title, The- Orphan. On the contrary the orphan of the story is a cowboy and something of a "bad man.'" The scenes are laid in the arid Southwest. Above all things this is a story of dramatic and exciting incidents. In the beginning the or-phan has become an outlaw. Under unexpected circumstances, the Sheriff and he come face to face. In the sequel the man of lavr learns that the orphan, whom he has been pursuing relentlessly. is probably not so black as he is painted. Further dramatic de-velopments ensue on the introduction of the Sheriff's sister. The orphan rescues her from Apaches. But why go on? Mr. Mul-ford has written an exceptionally good story of action, repro-ducing the atmosphere of the alkali country, ami portraying the characters with sufficient clearness and care to make them stand out. The Orphan is to be read for the thrills and excitement, of which there is an abundance. Need it be said that the Sheriff's sister pays back her debt to the orphan by converting him from the evil courses of his life ? Mr. Mulford has written a worthy successor to "Bar-20," and this is the same kind of a breezy, outdoor, vivid stoiy of incident and action. PATRONIZE OUR ADVERTISERS. THE BEST PEN F03 GUIEGE ME There's no pen that gives such all-round satisfaction as Conklin's Self-Filling Fountain Pen. It's the best pen for College Men. When an ordinary fountain pen runs dry in the middle of a word, it means you've got to stop right there, hunt up a rubber squirt gun, fill your pen to overflowing, clean both pen and dropper, wash your hands, and then endeavor as best you can to collect your lost CrescentJI train of thought It's different with CONKLIN'S JSSh FOUNTAIN PEN "THE PEN WITH THE CRESCENT-FILLER" To fill, just dip it in any ink, press the Crescent-Filler, and the Conklin is filled and ready to write instantly. 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Issue 69.1 of the Review for Religious, 2010. ; The ApostolicI Visitation Adapting the Ignatia~i Exercises From Ygung and Old " Prac~tic'al Wisdom QUARTERLY 69.1 2010 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 V! 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 reviewrfr@gmail.com ¯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 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. ©2010 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. Editor Associate Editor Scripture Scope Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Ehgene Hensell OSB Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Judy Sharp Paul Coutinho SJ Martin Erspamer OSB Margaret Guider OSF Kathleen Hughes RSCJ Louis and Angela Menard Bishop Terry Steib SVD QUARTERLY 69.1 2010 contents prisms 4 Prisms 6 16 the apostolic visitation The Apostolic Visitation of Institutes of Women Religious: A Visitator's Perspective M. Clare Millea ASCJ explains the purpose and process of the apostolic visitation of the U.S. institutes of women religious and its intended impetus to apostolic witness and vitality. The Apostolic Visitation: An Invitation to Intercultural Dialogue Kathleen Hughes RSCJidescribes the intercultural dialogue that provides the best framework for the apostolic visitation of United States women religious, a useful habit of heart, and some possible hope-filled outcomes. 31 47 adapting the ignatian exercises Discovering What Ignatius Does Not Say J. Thomas Hamel SJ examines the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius to point out the subtle but consistent ways in which retreatants become authors of the Exercises, putting their own experience into words. Revisiting St. Ignatius's Kingdom Meditation Louis M. Savary expands the reading of St. Ignatius's Call of the King meditation through the incorporation of ideas from the Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Review for Religious 63 71 from young and old ~1 Gleanings from My First Ten Years Ann Marie Paul SCC celebrates her profession of perpetual vows after living religious life for ten years by sharing eight pieces of wisdom she has learned. Monasteries of Meteora Mary Frances Coady gives her visual and spiritual impressions of ancient traditions kept by Eastern Christian monastics on a rocky peninsula of Greece. 77 practical wisdom ~ Kindness, the Everyday Virtue " James H. Kroeger MM delves into kindness's depth of meaning and inexhaustible potential for increasing goodness anywhere. 90 Ten Ideas on Priesthood George Olivera OFMCap offers ways to consider our Christian priesthood that may be helpful to priests and for those who pray for them and who enjoy their ministry. 97 102 departments ~ Scripture Scope: Praying the Psalms as Songs of Praise Book Reviews 69.1 2010 prisms T Apostolic Visitation of Women Religious in the United States has elic-ited a lot of speculation about its purpose and intended outcome and roused various emotional responses from religious and laity alike. Some speculation allows for an honest effort on the part of the Vatican offices to eval-uate the Vatican II-inspired renewal efforts of U.S. women religious, their discerned change in choices of ministry or ways of ministering, and the reality of their meager vocation recruit-ment. Most people, even among the critics, acknowledge that U.S. women religious took seriously the renewal call issued by Vatican II and responded more wholeheartedly than the men religious and the rest of the U.S. church. Realizing that certain ministries no longer required the massive effort of sheer numbers, women religious followed the church's lead and their own original charisms by seeking to serve those marginalized in our current society makeup--the poor, the handicapped, women in dire straits--and by advocating for justice in many spheres. While many more needy people were being served, women religious often lost the visibility that accompanied their corpo-rate mission in schools and hospitals. Among a Review for Religious number of factors in American family life and culture, vocational recruitment suffered from the positive secu-lar possibilities of the feminist equality movement and from the continued limits imposed on women's roles and leadership in the church. There is no doubt that the U.S. church is as strong as it is because of the work and witness of women religious through the 19th and 20th centuries. Many are the veri-fied accounts of bishops and local pastors using and mis-using the work of religious women in their own chosen endeavors. The generous sacrifices of women religious in the U.S. church are documented and unforgettable. What now needs to be honored in the current, often still hidden and unacknowledged, ministry of women religious is their being the church's arms reaching out to a world-in-need. The witness of their apostolic lives cannot now be measured by institutions, corporate devotional emphases, or monastic garb. Apostolic reli-gious life cannot be well evaluated by monastic criteria, which seemingly inspire the current study. The theology of religious life has never adequately explained the breadth of religious-life development because it has retained monasticism as its norm. Church leadership has consistently found apostolic religious life to be second-class and deficient as measured against the monastic ideal. Perhaps the Vatican s~dy will be the occasion for a breakthrough in the understanding and acceptance of the breadth of apostolic religious life in the church of the 21st century. U.S. women religious will have offered the worldwide church a most precious gift of wisdom and insight into the true living of the Spirit-given charism of active religious life. David L. Fleming SJ 69.1 2010 the . a, postol c Visitation M. CLARE MILLEA The Apostolic Visitation of Institutes of Women Religious: A Visitator's Perspective How many times in our lives, while living through a particularly challenging situation, we reflect on earlier situations in which we felt stretched beyond our own limited resources and abilities. Unable to do anything but rely upon God in surrender and trust, we later realize that not only did the Lord sustain us beyond our imagining, but those very expe-riences taught us the relational and practical skills we would need in far more challenging circumstances to come. I have reflected often during the past year about how many of my personal experiences have shaped and honed the gifts I hope to bring to the Apostolic Visitation of Institutes of Women Religious in the United States. M. Clare Millea ASCJ is the superior general of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Her U.S. address is Mt. Sacred Heart; 295 Benham Street; Hamden, Connecticut 06514. Review for Religious During my early years in religious life, I learned to see beyond external limitations--such as those of the mentally challenged children and adults I lived with and served--and was able to truly respect and cherish, as they do, the inner beauty of each unique person. Much later, as the newly elected superior general of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and before beginning dialogue or canonical visitation with each of my more than 1200 sisters, I made a whirlwind tour of the communities in the fourteen nations in which my sisters are missioned. I was welcomed into every faith community by lively music, colorful dance, lovely handmade gifts, and much jovial hugging. At one point, exhausted by travel, extreme changes of climate and cul-ture, and the strain of communicating in various lan-guages, I tearfully confided to a priest my difficulty in responding with enthusiasm to these endless outpour-ings of love. Father gently explained to me that his peo-ple needed to use exuberant gestures to express their joy and gratitude for visible signs of God's presence so that they would not succumb to the weight of their daily struggles for survival. That simple explanation was a truly graced moment for me, a key to entering into the world of those faith-filled people and many others whom I would later come to know. Moments such as these throughout my many years of congregational service have intensified in me the desire to synchronize the beating of my .heart with the heart of the other person, to understand, accept, and lovingly embrace her in her uniqueness. International living and travel have strengthened in me the liberating conviction that "my way" is not the only valid way or necessarily the best way to be or to do. While I still struggle at times to succinctly articulate my congregation's unique 69.1 2010 Millea ¯ Tbe Apostolic Visitation of Institutes of Women Religious charism of witnessing that God loves each person with the human and divine love of Jesus, I am continually awed to sense the charism coursing through the veins of every Apostle of the Heart of Jesus throughout the world. I feel constantly renewed and challenged by my sisters to authentic religious living while at the same time I try to discover with them how we can grow in personal holiness, effective gospel witness, and fruitful ministry in communion with the church. My recent appointment as apostolic visitator to the institutes of women religious in the United States, the first instance of a woman religious being delegated with apostolic authority to carry out such a service to the church, seems ovei'whelming at times. While my affir-mative response to this mandate from the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (CICLSAL) requires considerable per-sonal sacrifice, I have embraced it as a joyful expression of that unconditional assent to the divine will that I freely offered to God, to the church, and to my supe-riors on the day of my religious profession. Personally and through the religious who assist me in carrying it out, I sincerely endeavor to encounter with holy respect the members of each of the religious institutes involved in the apostolic visitation. The Church's Pastoral Concern for Religious Life In the apostolic exhortation Vita consecrata, Pope John Paul II clearly affirmed that consecrated life, with its variety of charisms and institutions, is a treasure which has its origin in the example and teachings of Jesus Christ. It is a gift of God the Father to the church through the Holy Spirit, a precious and necessary gift for the present and future of the People of God, and an Review for Religious intimate part of the church's life, holiness, and mission.1 Women and men freely choose to live in institutes which are canonically erected by the competent authority of the church. Through the profession of ~ ,~ vows or other sacred bonds, according to the institute's proper law, they profess the evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty, and obedience and, through the charity ~ to which the coun-sels lead, are joined in a special way to ~ the church.2 On her - ~ part, the church has the duty of clarifying the identity, the vocation, and the particular mission of religious institutes and promoting their ecclesial communion? The apostolic visitation of institutes of women religious in the United States was promulgated with the express approval of Pope Benedict XVI.4 In a recent address to the members of the council for rela-tions between CICLSAL and the men's and women's International Unions of Superiors General, the Holy Father noted that religious communities are not exempt from the increasing difficulty encountered in proclaim-ing and witnessing to the gospel in our modern global-ized society. While acknowledging the difficult crisis that has affected many congregations by reason of the aging of members, a more or less pronounced decrease in the number of vocations, and a certain "spiritual and charismatic weariness," he indicated that the Holy Spirit The Church has the duty of clari~ing the identity, the vocation, and the particular mission of religious institutes an~d promoting their e~clesial communioh. 69.1 2010 Millea ¯ The Apostolic Visitation of Institutes of Women Religious continues to inspire a new commitment to fidelity in long-established institutes and in new forms of religious consecration as well. He pointed out that authentic actualization of the founders' charism has resulted in a promising new ascetic, apostolic, and missionary impe-tus for many congregations.5 The current apostolic visitation can rightfully be seen as a pastoral desire of the Apostolic See to journey with religious congregations as they respond to Pope Benedict's renewed invitation to "start afresh from Christ.''6 In open and honest dialogue with the univer-sal church, the visitation is a means for congregations to evaluate their present reality with courage and truth, to rediscover their founding charism, and to live it in a more authentic manner appropriate for the present time. In particular, it offer~ major superiors and their sisters a privileged opportunity to present to the Apostolic See their congregation's unique charismatic identity, as well as their communal and ministerial expression of religious life. It likewise affords the Apostolic See a way to listen to the joys, accomplishments, hopes, and concerns of the sisters and, together with the religious themselves, to seek strategies for enhancing the vitality of the individual institutes. In order to attain beneficial results, the dialogue with the Apostolic See must begin with an honest self-evaluation of the congregation's lived fidelity to its internal norms and to universal church law. The grace of the apostolic visitation can only occur in a climate of prayer, docility, open dialogue, and collaboration, with a sincere desire on the members' part to examine the congregation's strengths and weaknesses and to effect changes which would enhance the expression of its charism and ecclesial identity. Review for Religious Phases of the Apostolic Visitation The apostolic visitation is being carried out in four phases. In Phase 1, which lasted from April through July 2009, more than 75 percent of the superiors general whose institutes are included in the visitation responded to the invitation of Cardinal Franc Rodd, prefect of CICLSAL, to enter into personal dialogue with the visitator. Attentive and respectful listening to the hopes and dreams of those wonderful congregational leaders deepened my esteem for the women religious who courageously and faith-fully witness to their foundresses' and founders' spiritual patrimony and spend themselves in generous service to the church. The major superiors' love for and pride in their sisters were clearly evident as they shared their collective stoW and vision. These interviews and letters helped me formulate more precisely the objectives and procedures of the visitation. In July 2009 the Instrumenturn laboris7 or working document for the apostolic visitation was released, out-lining its nature, purpose, and procedures. Major supe-riors were encouraged to use the reflection questions contained in the working document to engage their sisters in a. process of self-evaluation regarding their congregation's unique identity, their present experience of community life, their mission and ministry, and their hopes and concerns for the future. During Phase 2 of the apostolic visitation, major superiors were asked to complete a questionnaire regard-ing fundamental aspects of their congregation's identity, present lifestyle, and future projections. The questions were similar in content to those already suggested for community reflection in the Instrumenturn laboris and were based on the model of religious life proposed in post-Vatican Council II documents on religious life8 69.1 2010 Millea ¯ The Apostolic Visitation of Institutes of Women Religious and the Code of Canon Law. The questionnaire was composed of three sections. Part A requested statistical data about the congregation itself, the demographics of its members, living arrangements, care for elderly and infirm members, and ministerial presence. Its results have been collected by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), which will prepare an aggregate report of the findings for all reporting institutes, respect-ing the ahonymity of the individual congregations. The questions in Part B of the questionnaire offered the major superiors the opportunity to share with the Apostolic See the unique reality of their congrega-tion, They were designed to permit the major superi-ors to express each congregation's unique way of living the evangelical counsels, in accord with their founding charism and their own fundamental documents, approved by the church. The questions also sought basic informa-tion regarding governance, vocation promotion and for-marion policies, the spiritual and common life, mission and ministry, and financial administration. In addition, major superiors were invited to offer further explanations or comments to express their reality more completely. In Part C of the questionnaire, major superiors were asked to submit basic and supplementary congregational documents, such as constitutions, ancillary norms, for-marion plans, and chapter decisions. A complete copy of the questionnaire is available on the Apostolic Visitation website.9 The canonical model of religious life which under-lies the questions does not fully correspond to the lived reality of certain institutes. The questionnaire extended an invitation to those communities which appear to be evolving into a new form of consecrated life to describe their emerging expression of vowed living.1° Honest and Review for Religious respectful conversation between the institute and the Apostolic See could predictably lead to greater clarity of purpose and identity. During Phase 2 the apostolic visitator also extended an invitation to bishops and individual members of reli-gious communi-ties to share their observations. Input from any persons whose lives have been affected by women religious is also welcomed. All such contributions are assured confi-dentiality. A core team of religious who are aiding the visitator is currently evaluating the data received in preparation for the subsequent phases of the apostolic visitation. The third phase will begin in the spring of 2010 with on-site visits to a representative sample of institutes con-ducted by teams of religious visitors who will act indi-vidually and collectively in the name of the Apostolic See. The visitors were chosen from among the many fine religious nominated by superiors general and others and represent a variety of congregations and areas of exper-tise. Before conducting the on-site visits, all potential visitors will have participated in an orientation workshop during which they will pronounce the public profession of faith and the oath of fidelity to the Apostolic See that are made by those assuming offices to be exercised in the church's name2~ This profession carries with it a special grace which will strengthen the visitors in their delicate i~c: ,Adore~,team of religious who are ~aiding the visitator is currently ,,evaluating the data received in ~:preparation for the subsequent phases of the apostolic visitation. 69.1 2010 Millea ¯ The Apostolic Visitation of Institutes of Women Religious task. It will assist them to faithfully carry out their role in communion with the sound teachings and practice of the Catholic Church and not according to their own private judgment or subjective ideology.'2 The on-site visitors will engage in dialogue primarily with the members of leadership teams and a representa-tive group of the sisters, eliciting their vision of the joys, challenges, and obstacles the religious face in seeking to live authentically their charismatic identity. The details of the on-site visit will be arranged with the congrega-tions to be visited in such a way as to afford the visitors a broad and objective picture of the life and mission of the congregation and its impact on the local church. The visitation team will formulate a report for the apostolic visitator in which they will seek to articulate the accom-plishments, the key strengths, and the challenges of the institute as revealed in their dialogue and will include any recommendations which they consider appropriate. In Phase 4 of the visitation, drawing from the data gathered in the previous phases, the apostolic visitator will prepare for CICLSAL a summary report of each of the participating congregations, whether or not they will have received an on-site visit. Each of the congrega-tions will receive feedback for the purpose of promoting their charismatic identity and apostolic vitality in ongo-ing dialogue with the local and universal church. There is much good news to tell about the history and present reality of religious life in the United States. There are also great challenges to be faced so that reli-gious may continue to offer selfless service to the church and to the people who long for our unique witness to Christ through our lives, works, and words. May the fervent prayer of the church sustain women religious on the path of ongoing conversion and renewal that they Review for Religious may be a more vibrant presence and effective instrument of evangelization into the future. As did Pope John Paul in the conclusion to VTta consecrata, we entrust all reli-gious to the Virgin of the Visitation, that the church may always be gifted with generous women who, as lov-ing consecrated persons, will continue to bring Jesus to the poor, the hungry, those without hope, the little ones, and all who seek Jesus with a sincere heart.13 Notes ~ See John Paul II, Vita consecrata, §§1 & 3. 2 See Code of Canon Law, c. 573, §2. 3 See Vita consecrata, §4. 4 Decree, Prot. N. 16905/2008, at . 5 Benedict XVI, Address to Members of the Council for Relations between the CICLSAL and the USG and IUSG, 2/18/2008, at . 6 Ibid. See also CICLSAL, instruction Starting Afresh front Christ (2002). 7 To obtain a complete text of the Instrumentum laboris, see . 8 See especially John Paul II, Vita consecrata (1996); CICLSAL, Starting Afresh from Christ (2002); CICLSAL, The Service of Authority and Obedience (2008). 9 See and . ~0 See Questionnaire, Part B, Section 1, E: "Is your institute mov-ing toward a new form of religious life? If so, how is this new form specifically related to the church's and your institute's understanding of religious life?" ~' See ; Origins 28 (1998): 163-164. 12 See Lumen gentium, §25. ~3 See I/ita consecrata, §I 12. 69.1 2010 KATHLEEN HUGHES The Apostolic Visitation: An Invitation to Intercultural Dialogue EOtxrar owrodmineanry r etliimgieosu.s in the United States, these are In February 2009 Cardinal Franc Rod~, prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (CICLSAL), stunned American women religious by announcing "an Apostolic Visitation of the Generalates, Provincialates, and Centers of Initial Formation of the Principal Religious Institutes of Women in the United States of America." The pur-pose of the visitation is, according to Cardinal Rod4, "to look into the quality of the life of apostolic congre-gations of women religious in the United States.''1 Kathleen Hughes, a Religious of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, former professor of Word and Worship at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and former provincial of her order's United States prov-ince, is currently a mission consultant in the Network of Sacred Heart Schools. Her address is 541 S. Mason Road; St. Louis, Missouri 63141. . Review for Religious Scarcely had this news been absorbed when a second announcement compounded the surprise and confusion of United States women religious. In March 2009 the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) was informed by letter that Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, had initiated a doctrinal investigation of LCWR's activities and initiatives, particularly citing the tenor and content of various addresses given at the LCWR annual assemblies in recent years. While the visitation of women religious and the investigation of LCWR are distinct, their simultaneity was not lost on many observers, and it has been reported that Cardinal Levada's decision to investigate LCWR was made while in communication with Cardinal Rod~. These two initiatives stirred up questions, a variety of feelings, and--given that those principally affected did not participate in the planning of these investigations--a broad range of speculation about motivations and pos-sible (or probable) outcomes. This article will focus on only one of these initiatives, the Apostolic Visitation. The first section will consider the process of the visitation and the storm that arose as knowledge of it spread across the country. The second section will offer a perspective with which to understand and prepare for the visitati6n, namely, as an invitation to intercultural dialogue. The third section will suggest a habit of heart which may prove useful for visitors and visited alike. The concluding section will propose some potentially beneficial outcomes of the visitation. The Visitation and Initial Responses to It On the face of it, the visitation is a fairly straight-forward two-year process. Cardinal Rodd appointed 69.1 2010 Hughes ¯ Tbe Aposto.lic Visitation The visitation "is intended to comprehensively assess and encourage the growth of Catholic institutes of women religious in the United States who engage in apostolic works." Sister M. Clare Millea, superior general of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to oversee the visitation. Sister Clare announced three phases for the visitation. The first phase, completed in July 2009, offered major superiors of orders of women religious in the United States the opportunity to meet with Sister Clare in per-son or by phone or letter to express their hopes, ioys, concerns, and other observations about their orders; approximately fifty-two percent of them did so.2 The second phase was a question-naire, completed in November 2009. This questionnaire solicited a wide range of empirical data from every apos-tolic order of women in the United States, and asked for whatever observations and aspirations they wanted to express. Compliance with this second phase varied widely across the country. Because of concern expressed by many major superiors, the request for personnel and financial information was dropped from this phase.The third phase of the visitation, on-site visits of "a rep-resentative sample of religious institutes,''3 will begin in the spring of 2010. For this phase Sister Clare will be joined by other religious, women and some men, who will form teams of visitors. After on-site visits are complete, Sister Clare will send Cardinal Rod4 a confi-dential report summarizing all the information gleaned Review for Religious from the visitation's three phases. In addition, individual confidential reports of all congregations will be pre-pared for the cardinal. The reports of those congrega-tions receiving on-site visits will be more extensive. The visitation's website (www.apostolicvisitaton. org) offers both the reason for the visitation and its objective. The visitation "is intended to comprehen-sively assess and encourage the growth of Catholic institutes of women religious in the United States who engage in apostolic works." Why a visit? Because "reli-gious life has passed through challenging times. The Congregation for Consecrated Life is aware that many new congregations have emerged in the United States while many others have decreased in membership or have an increased median age. Apostolic works have also changed significantly because of societal changes. These and other areas need to be better understood and assessed in order to safeguard and promote consecrated life in the United States.''4 It sounds so benign. Why the furor from so many quarters? The anguish of many people, religious women and a throng of their supporters and friends as well, springs from the very nature of an apostolic visitation, some-thing generally intended for the correction of abuses. The lack of participation of major superiors in the visit's design, the secrecy about those chiefly responsible for it, and wonderment about its conclusions--all of this causes concern. What abuse exactly is this visitation meant to correct? Most women religious believe they have been living faithfully that form of religious life which emerged from their obedience to the church's mandate for renewal at Vatican Council II, and which is distilled in the congregations' constitutions--rules 69.1 2010 Hughes ¯ Tbe Apostolic Visitation of life previously approved by CICLSAL, the very con-gregation now mandating the visitation. Furthermore, congregations have built into their governance certain internal structures (general chapters, for example, or the periodic visits of those in leadership) for the protection of their spiritual heritage, for evaluation of their fidel-ity to their constitutions, and for assessment of people's needs in the light of the gospel so as to establish min-isterial priorities. Women religious in the United States have also embraced a pattern of discernment and decision-making which welcomes the participation of every member. For many religious congregations, transparency and collegi-ality have become a way of life. Why, then, a visitation initiated without the collaboration of those being vis-ited, lacking collegiality, shrouded in secrecy? The apos-tolic visitation of women religious and the concurrent investigation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious make many feel beleaguered, others fearful, others suspicious or angry. There are other voices being heard, of course. Some think it is high time someone examined what is hap-pening among women religious--whether the vows are being lived, whether prayer is still the core of religious life, whether women religious should be working out-side institutional church structures, and whether women religious should be advocating for those on the margins or promoting issues of justice within and beyond the church. Still others believe that the visitation provides an opportunity for women religious to go more deeply into issues of substance. The forty questions posed by the visitation's Instrumentum laboris, that is, its working paper, touch on everything from charism, vows, lead- Reviem for Religious ership, formation, spiritual life, and community living to mission, ministry, and financial administration,s For many women religious today, conversations on these topics happen less frequently than they would wish because of the multiple demands placed on their time and energy. There is always the danger that values taken for granted or left unarticulated become inoperative. Conversations on the essential elements of religious life may help participants discern anew where the Spirit is leading. These conflicting voices and divergent responses mirror the church at large not only in response to the visitation but on __ myriad issues large and small. Clearly, we need to find a way to talk together, to speak with integ-rity and honesty about matters of substance with those who may not share our worldview. Above . all, we need to find a way to reframe the conversation which this visitation invites us to have among ourselves and with our visitors. Even though the visitation is limited to the United States, and visiting teams will be formed from members of U.S. orders, the visitation is sure to find a range of "cultures" among us because of differing generations, theologies, spiritualities, forma-tion experiences, educational opportunities, and so on. The growing discipline of intercultural dialogue may We :need to find a way to talk together, to speak with integrity and honesty about matters of substance with those Who may not share our worldview. 21 69.1 2010 Hughes ¯ Tbe Apostolic Visitation provide the best framework and some guidance for our exchange. Intercultural Dialogue: A Definition and Some Guidelines Choose any Internet search engine and you will find thousands of entries on intercultural dialogue, offering various definitions of it and rules for engaging in it. The following definition is representative: Intercultural dialogue is an open and respectful exchange of views between individuals and groups belonging to different cultures that leads to a deeper understanding of the other's global perception. In this definition, "open and respectful" means "based on the equal value of the partners"; "exchange of views" stands for every type of interaction that reveals cul-tural characteristics; "groups" stands for every type of collective that can act through its representatives (family, community, associations, peoples); "culture" includes everything relating to ways of life, customs, beliefs, and other things that have passed on to us for generations, as well as the various forms of artistic creation; "world perception" stands for values and ways of thinking.6 Intercultural dialogue invites all interested parties to an open and respectful exchange with a view to deeper mutual understandings. Intercultural dialogue promotes esteem for diversity and insists that "different" does not mean "deficient." It fosters mutuality in the face of unequal power relations and forges partnerships in a common cause. And surely the most profound outcome looked for is the transformation of all who take part-- interior conversions that make room for changed forms, images, and behaviors and the freedom to see new pos-sibilities and to make choices that promote growth. Revie~v for Religious Among some simple rules for intercultural exchange, the most important is that of active listening, listening to one another with respect and openness, indeed with reverence. Each religious community being visited has a unique history shaped by the founder and her or his culture and circumstances. Each order has a unique charism and spirit, a set of traditions, beliefs, customs, even a particular "vernacular language" shaped over the years from the teachings and writings of members who have gone before, prophets and mystics among them, who have had a formative influence on the institute. Each order has a rule of life which is precious to the members, having been carefully composed and then gradually finding its way into their hearts. There may be a common set of questions in the Instrumentum laboris and a range of issues to be explored during on-site visits, but the answers will be as varied as the wonderful variety of religious communities which for almost two millennia have grown up in response to the Spirit's prompfings regarding particular needs of the day and the place. There are no "right" answers, but there will be many ways that sisters will express their following of Christ within a particular rule of life. The visitors, too, will have specific and precious religious heritages that shape their understanding and expecta-tions of religious life. Active listening--listening that is open to the hearts of others in the dialogue~is required of visitors and the visited alike. A second rule for the dialogue is to speak from one's own experience, not in the language of "they" or even "we," but "I." I believe, I think, I choose, I struggle with, I have come to appreciate, even I don't know or I am not sure. The living of religious life is an imprecise science, dependent as it is in the last analysis on each 69.1 2010 Hughes * The Apostolic Visitation 24 one's intimate and unique relationship with God. We grow into our understanding of prayer, the vows, com-munal life and mission during the course of years of choices made before God, in the power of the Spirit, and in communion with one another. Each member's experience and expression of religious life has been shaped by so many different influences, chief among them prayer, community life, ministerial experiences, and wise guides along the way. Rarely, if ever, can we read one another's mind or heart. Best, then, to speak only our own truth. A third rule for the dialogue is not to fear differ-ences but to welcome a respectful challenge, a thought-ful follow-up question. Particular external choices of lifestyle--for example, regarding housing options or ministerial options or the use of money--are less impor-tant than the reasons such choices have been made, the communal discernments which prompted this or that decision. In some instances clearly life-altering decisions have been made by local communities or whole con-gregations after long and serious prayer and reflection. These choices do not admit of true or false, yes or no, but require a reflective exchange whose eventual reward will be deeper insight. A fourth rule of intercultural dialogue is to come to common agreement about the scope of the conversa-tion. Both the Instrumentum laboris and the question-naire of phase two of the visitation present a wide range of topics for personal reflection. Not all of these topics, however, were appropriate for comment in the ques-tionnaire of phase two, especially if major superiors were in possession of information gleaned in personal manifestations of conscience, nor should some topics be included in the on-site dialogues of phase three. Review for Religious There are canonical norms which govern the extent of the dialogue. Subjects such as the frequency of one's sacramental participation are more appropriate to the internal forum and, in any case, are beyond the scope of the visitation. Furthermore, any questions with poten-tially incriminating consequences may also be politely deflected. Participants in an intercultural dialogue must know and accept the boundaries of the conversation; in an apostolic visitation, the boundaries are demarcated in canon law.7 Finally, intercultural dialogue is best and most fruitfully employed when all the participants have had an opportunity to shape the dialogue and accept the rules which bind the par-ticipants. In the case of the apostolic visi-tation, certain rules have been imposed from the outset which are troubling to some of those expected to partici-pate. Especially neu-ralgic among women religious who are used to openness ¯ Participants in an intercultural dialogue must know and accept the .boundaries of the conversation; ~in .an apostolic visitation, ithe boundaries are ~,~demarcated in canon law. and transparency is the secrecy surrounding the visita-tion's motivation and its final reports. Some opportunity for participants to negotiate the rules of the visitationt[ would be a good-faith gesture to women religious who ~ welcome courageous, gende, and respectful dialogue as partners with a church they love. 69.1 2010 Hughes * Tbe Apostolic Visitation A Useful Habit of Heart The habit of heart I want to recommend in prepara-tion for the visitation comes from my own experience of an earlier visitation. More than twenty years ago, I was part of the first apostolic visitation of seminar-ies and houses of formation in the United States. In 1981 the Holy See appointed Bishop John A. Marshall of Burlington, Vermont, to serve as apostolic visitator for this process, which took nearly seven years from announcement to formal conclusion. At the time of the visit, I was a member of the faculty of the Catholic Theological Union (CTU) in Chicago, teaching in the department of Word and Worship. Bishop Marshall himself led the party of visitors to CTU, and I was invited by the administration to meet with him. My visit with Bishop Marshall was not a happy expe-rience for me, perhaps because intercultural dialogue had not yet been discovered. Upon my being asked "What are you doing here?" my half hour was spent, about equally, in parrying questions about the alleged behavior of oth-ers on the faculty and staff and in defending my inter-pretation of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal and other liturgical norms. Too quickly our conversation ended, and I realized almost at once that I had not had a chance to communicate my appreciation of CTU, its extraordinary faculty and student body, and its commit-ment to educating faithful ministers for the post-Vatican II world church. Furthermore I had been given no oppor-tunity to speak of my own contribution to the mission of CTU. I asked for and was granted a second visit. Why put myself through that experience twice? The words of 1 Peter 3:15 express it best. "Always be pre-pared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gen- Review for Religious tleness and reverence." I wanted to give an account of my hope, based on a faculty where intellectual rigor and faith, were wed, on a student body of women and men from all over the world preparing to commit themselves to a life of service of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and on the local church in Chicago, where the leadership of Cardinal Joseph Bernardin gave extraordinary witness to the very qualities of holiness and gospel service we were trying to nurture in ourselves and instill in our students. For many women religious, hope is what has kept us faithful to this privileged journey in the midst of the numerous challenges of these last several decades. Changing demographics, underfunded ministries, elder care decision-making, conversations towards merger, cus-toms no longer viable, and ministerial needs forever out-stripping our human and material resources--all of these realities have tested congregations and their leaders. At the same time, that basic love and longing for God which brought us to the threshold of religious life still drives us, together, to seek and find God in contemplative prayer, in a life of common purpose, in zeal which keeps even the oldest among us focused on mission. Hope is the glue in religious life today. That hope must be the undercurrent of every exchange during on-site visits. If our visitors discover little else, they should leave with the conviction that hope is why we came to religious life and why we stay and why we get out of bed each morning and why, despite all the challenges and limitations we experience, we try every day to be God's heart on earth. "Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence." How wise of 69.1 2010 Hughes ¯ The Apostolic V'~itation the author of First Peter to link hope to gentleness and reverence, two other habits of heart which we do well to foster. If we do so, the intercultural dialogues in our future will accomplish in all of us, visitors and visited, great transformations of head and heart and mission. Hopeful Expectation What might be expected at the conclusion of this apostolic visitation? Approximately three hundred forty communities of apostolic women religious will have con-tributed to a composite picture of religious life in the United States. Sister M. Clare Millea has the unenviable task of summarizing all the information and impressions gleaned from her visits with major superiors, from the empirical data tabulated from many questionnaires, and from the reports of numerous on-site visits to moth-erhouses and houses of formation. This composite report together with individual reports of the religious orders will be presented to Cardinal Franc Rod~ and the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. It is to be hoped that major superiors and their councils will have had an opportu-nity to see these reports, to correct factual errors, and to participate inthe assembling of recommendations before their formal presentation to Cardinal Rode. Then what? Here are some possible hope-filled outcomes, first on the institutional level. The Instrumentum laboris poses some thoughtful questions about institutional sponsor-ship, care of the elderly, ongoing formation resources, and so on. In the course of the visitation, it is possible that some "best practices" might emerge--the kind of information that the Leadership Conference of Women Religious has worked to surface and circulate among its Review for Religious members for many years. While respecting the auton-omy of each institute, congregations with similar proj-ects or needs might be invited to consult with other congregations that have addressed similar issues with success. Another institutional prospect might be that those communities no longer viable because of a lack of either personnel or financing might be given the sup-port they need to make decisions for their future. On the personal level, the visitation could have a profound outcome. The Instrumenturn laboris for this visitation has a long series of thoughtful questions for personal study and prayer. These questions touch on the essence of religious life with two serious omissions: contemplation and other forms of solitary prayer are not mentioned, nor is there any reference to the quality and tone of community life, only to religious exercises performed in common. Apart from those lacunae, the document together with its numerous citations of other documents from the Apostolic See is, on balance, a rich resource for reflection and prayer and for conversa-tions within and across communities and congregations. Whether a congregation receives an on-site visit or not, this process has the potential for renewal among us. It also has the possibility of instilling in us a deeper real-ization of our place in the church and a deeper appre-ciation of our work as collaborators with our ordained and professed brothers in the public life of the church. And is it foolish to hope for one last outcome? Is it possible that this Apostolic Visitation might conclude with a resounding "thank you" to nearly sixty thou-sand women who have lived religious life as faithfully as nature and grace could achieve, making God's love known through their ministries and by their very lives? For this, let us pray to the Lord. 29 69.1 2010 Hughes ¯ Tbe Apostolic Visitation Notes ~ Letter of Cardinal Franc Rod~ to the Superiors General of Congregations of Women Religious in the United States, 2 February 2009. 2 Of approximately 340 eligible communities, 177 responded through visits or letters to Phase One. See the Apostolic Visitation web-site "Update on the Progress of Phase 3 See Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, Instrumentum Laboris for Apostolic Visitation of the General Houses, Provincial Houses, and Centers of Initial Formation of the Principal Religious Institutes of Women in the United States of America. Protocol No. 16805/2008. 4 The Apostolic Visitation website, Frequently Asked Questions. s A copy of the Instrumentum laboris is available on the Apostolic Visitation website. 6 European Roma Information Office, White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue. 7 See the Resource Center for Religious Institutes, The Apostolic Visitation of Women Religious in the United States: A Canonical Reflection. 9 March 2009. Review for Religious j. THOMAS HAMEL Discovering What St. Ignatius Does Not Say Having accompanied a number of people on retreat for quite a few years--the ordained, the married and single, religious of various congre-gations-- I continue to delight in seeing that people unacquainted with Ignatius's little book actually mirror it in their own retreat experi-ence. Along with those who are quite famil-iar with Ignatius's words ("Divine Majesty," "God our Lord," "Creator and Lord," "Two Standards," and so forth), they have a retreat experience that is personal, profound, and Ignatian. In this way the Spiritual Exercises show themselves to be primarily oral. The "annotations" that introduce them appear to be the result of conversations throughout the four Weeks of retreat. What happens to the retreatants is usually the very thing Ignatius j. Thomas Hamel SJ last wrote for us in 2008, in our 67.2 issue. His address remains College of the Holy Cross; 1 College Street; Worcester, Massachusetts 01610. adapting the ignati.an exercises 69.1 2010 Hamel ¯ Discovering What Ignatius Does Not Say How Jesus Christ is present in creation is how he: is present in the Eucharist. hoped would happen. Retreatants become authors of the Exercises, putting their own experience into words. Enlightened by graces asked for and received, and lis-tened to by their director, they gradually own the experi-ence they has been graced with. "For it is not so much knowledge that fills and satisfies the soul, but rather the intimate feeling and relishing of things.''1 Being led to search out and find in ourselves the desires and ways of God is the touchstone of the Exercises. Ignatius's sober language actually encour-ages us to go beyond his words, and yet at times his notes and suggestions seem like an overload. He takes note of our waking up and going to sleep. He comments on the way we take meals. He pays attention to the warmth of the sun in winter and the effect of closing the shut-ters of our room. His interest in physical posture seems as modern as yoga lessons, not to mention his sensitive and insightful responses to inner changes and emo-tions, high and low and in between. In the end, how-ever, Ignatius does not tell us what to do. He will not interfere with God's coming and communicating (§ 15). Like John the Baptist at Jesus' baptism, Ignatius simply disappears so that retreatants may (like Jesus) hear the Father's voice and feel the Holy Spirit descending like a dove (Mk 1:10-11). A striking instance of Ignatius disappearing in the Exercises is the Principle and Foundation: "The human person is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Review for Religiotls Lord and by so doing to save his or her soul . One must use created things insofar as they help towards one's end, and free oneself from them insofar as they are obstacles to one's end. To do this we need to make ourselves indifferent to all created things" (§23). A subtle glory radiates from the name "God our Lord." It refers to the Trinity, and we know from Ignatius's "autobiography" or Reminiscences~ what great devotion he felt when praying to the Blessed Trinity, often,.with prayers and sobs (Rent §28). If this happened when he saw three keys on a keyboard, what might he have experienced before the triad of praise, reverence, and service of God? What Ignatius does not say here is revealed in the poetry of a mystical experience at Manresa. There is only one way he looks upon the gift of creation: "Once the way in which God had created the world was repre-sented in his understanding, with great spiritual joy: it seemed to him he was seeing a white thing, from which some rays were coming out, and that God was making light out of it" (Rent §29). He also saw "with his interior eyes some things like white rays which were coming from above as the body of the Lord was being raised at Mass" (Rent §29). How Jesus Christ is present in creation is how he is present in the Eucharist. The One who alone can praise, rever-ence, and serve the eternal Father is Creator and Lord (§5). Annotation 5 was traditionally given along with the Principle and Foundation at the beginning of the retreat, and so the glory of Jesus, Creator and Lord, pervades the Principle and Foundation. How appropri-ate that Ignatius would tap our generosity and openness at the beginning of retreat by having us offer our desires and liberty to our Creator and Lord! 69.1 2010 Hamel ¯ Discovering What Ignatius Does Not Say When Ignatius first arrived at the Benedictine Abbey of Montserrat, he made a general confession that lasted three days. Just how long was his list of sins? If one thing stands out in the First Week, it is the repeated reference to many sins: "How many times I deserved to be damned forever on account of my many sins" (§48). "Numberless other people have gone to hell for fewer sins than I have committed" (§52). "I look at myself. the source of many sins and evils" (§58). Rather than making a theological statement about sin, Ignatius seems to be pointing to his own spiritual journey, without actually saying so. So aware of the mal-ice of sin, he cannot but put into stark language the hor-ror of even one grave sin against one's Creator and Lord. M1 the while, Ignatius never loses sight of God's power, justice, wisdom, and goodness (§59). Suddenly we have a picture of Ignatius hugging himself in sheer wonder and joy before the whole range of created beings. Who are we, prayed over by angels and saints? Who are we, kept alive by earth and sky, stars and sun and moon and " the animal kingdom? (§60). What to do but talk to our Creator and Lord about mercy, and thank God for giv-ing us life to this very moment. When Ignatius left Montserrat after making a gen-eral confession, little did he realize that his own First Week was just beginning. Manresa was not in his plans, but it surely was in God's. There in Manresa the chiv-alrous ex-knight had to be knocked down by scruples. Slowly and painfully he had to learn he was no lon-ger in charge of anything, not even his own sinfulness. Instead of feeling duty-bound to keep on confessing his sins, he had to leave them to God. We can only wonder how many times Ignatius felt that the Lord "willed that he wake up as if from sleep," ever so slowly learning Review for Religious "the difference in kind of spirits through the lessons God had given him," so that at last "he decided, with great clarity, not to confess anything from the past any more. Thus from that day onward he remained free of those scruples, holding it for certain that our Lord in his mercy had willed to liberate him" (Rein §25). "As if from sleep" aptly describes Ignatius recu-perating from the wounds of Pamplona in his home at Loyola. He was given over to daydreaming. Tales of chivalry would foster his fantasies, but the only books available to him were Ludolph the Carthusian's Life of Christ and Jacobus de Voragine's account of lives of the saints. For the first time, in the Flos Sanctorum (or Golden Legend), Ignatius read about the knights of God who did great deeds in the service of the eter-nal Prince, Christ Jesus. Ignatius, it seems, woke up to hear the call of the eternal Lord and King of all people everywhere. Seeing "with the eyes of the imagination the synagogues, towns, and villages where Christ our Lord went preaching" (§91) leads us to see our world here and now immediately present to the risen Lord Jesus calling each of us in particular. The geography of the Kingdom goes from the Holy Land to the world at large and ends up "before your infinite Goodness, and before your glorious Mother and all the saintly men and women of the court of heaven" (§98). The grace not to be deaf to his call is an enormous grace. Summoned to know, love, and follow Jesus of Nazareth means a life-time journey that includes being with Jesus suffering and dying, rising and ascending. The desire to distinguish oneself in loyal dedica-tion is itself a grace. But where does such a desire come from? Before the Kingdom meditation, the last use of the phrase "infinite Goodness" was in the context of sin: the 69.1 2010 Hamel ¯ Discovering What Ignatius Does Not Say Ignatius does not e~cpect that this offering of oneself will happen right away. horror of sinning "against the infinite Goodness" (§52). Here we find "before your infinite Goodness." The Lord's favor and help are clearly at work in the prayer of oblation (§98). Surely Ignatius himself is among those who desire to distinguish themselves, though he does not say this. David Fleming captures the energy and emotion of the prayer: "Those who are of great heart and are on fire with zeal to follow Jesus" (~97).3 Of course, Ignatius does not expect that this offer-ing of oneself will happen right away, or even in the same words. What is of great moment is the coming together of desire, feel-ing, and imagination, radiating in some myste-rious way the glory of the risen Jesus. Imagine the change of feeling from having sinned against infi-nite Goodness to having a ~ heart on fire with zealous . desires and seeing in faith the Mother of Jesus in glory along with all the saints waiting to hear what I want to say. Among the saints that Ignatius read about at Loyola was St. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch. The account of his life opens: "The name Ignatius comes from the Latin ignem patiens, which means being on fire with love of God.''4 For Ignatius of Loyola ignem patiens describes the Second, Third, and Fourth Weeks of the Exercises. In contemplating the mysteries of Jesus' life, I am reminded of the Song of Songs: "How right it is to love you" (Sg 1:4). Such assurance is the fruit of inte-rior knowing nourished and fed by desire, feeling, and imagination. In the Second Week the fifth of each day's Review for Religious prayer periods highlights the imagination. In the prayer of the senses, we are to imagine what the three Divine Persons are saying, what our Lady is saying to her new-born at his birth (§123). In this way we are further drawn into their pres-ences, where we may pause to imagine what we could say to the Holy Trinity, or to the Mother of Jesus, or to the Newborn. During the retreat we speak from different positions, whether as friend, servant, or sin-ner (§54), not to mention as child, as beloved, and so forth. In our prayer of the senses and in the colloquies we make, an oral history is taking shape. The same is true of repetitions. In contrast to all that Ignatius says about preparation for prayer, along with detailed aids to prayer, he has very little to say about the repetitions. He clearly expects, however, that something will happen. These are his words: After the preparatory prayer and two preambles, repeat the First and Second Exercises, noting and dwelling upon the points where I have felt greater consolation or desolation or greater spiritual relish. (§62) After the preparatory prayer and the three pre-ambles, the repetitions of Exercises 1 and 2 will be made, attention always being given to any more important places where one has experienced new insight, consolation, or desolation. (§ 118) Two repetitions will be made on the First and Second Contemplations at the times of Mass and Vespers. (§204) Listening to the "sounds" of movements is at the heart of repetition. The peace and quiet that flow from a sense of being so loved by God is like hearing water falling upon a sponge; agitation, disturbance, any resistance to God is like hearing water fall upon a stone (§335). In the meditation on the Two Standards, Ignatius has 69.1 2010 Hamel * Discovering What Ignatius Does Not Say a great deal to say and little is left to the imagination. Lucifer is described as "sitting on a throne of fire and smoke in Babylon, while in a great plain of the region of Jerusalem stands Christ our Lord, his appearance comely and gracious" (§§138, 140, 144), who "selects apostles, disciples, etc. and sends them out over the world spreading his sacred doctrine" (§145). Christ our Lord, leader of all good, draws us to spiritual poverty and to the surprising joy of being chosen to imitate his humility and so to come to know the true life. In the first contemplation of the Second Week, a battle was already alluded to with people living in great blindness, wounding, killing, and going to hell, etc. (§106). The enemy of human nature is clearly at work sending demons to every region of the world to get peo-ple to crave riches and honors, thereby ending up with swollen pride. In contrast are the goodness of spiritual and actual poverty and the consolation of being allowed to share in the insults and rejection that Christ suffered. Could it be that here is the seed of the Suscipe prayer? When growing up in Nazareth, did Jesus himself begin to pray the Suscipe and Ignatius heard it? May we imag-ine the Suscipe becoming the song of the beloved dis-ciples when they are fishing on the Sea of Galilee, or all the more when they are sent out to preach? (§281.3). They were to travel without gold or silver, and Ignatius adds the abbreviation "etc." (Versio Prima text). It is noteworthy that "etc." occurs over forty times in the Exercises, chiefly in the Vulgate text, and thirteen times in the Reminiscences. The et cetera's in the Exercises may be nothing more than space savers. They might, however, also be an invitation to complete a thought, a sentence, or a scriptural quotation. In the opening days of the Second Week, the autograph text mentions "etc." Review for Religious twice, while in the Vulgate text it occurs fourteen times. "The Blessed Virgin burst with joy in this canticle: 'My soul magnifies the Lord, etc.'" (§263). It would seem that we are being invited to complete her canticle. At the birth of Jesus "all of a sudden a multitude of the celestial militia joined the angel, praising God and saying: 'Glory to God in the highest, etc.'" (§264). The words "and on earth peace among those whom he favors" are left to us to sing, all the while imagining ourselves as poor servants waiting on Mary and Joseph. Another unnamed angel comes to the shepherds nearby: "I announce to you a great joy, etc. Today a Savior is born for you, etc. After their visit they returned, 'giv-ing glory and praise to God, etc.'" (§265). Later, in the temple, Simeon took the child in his arms, blessed God, and said, "Now, Lord, let your servant go, etc." (§268). As we complete his Nunc Dimittis, are we holding the Child? Later still, after the unexpected night journey, etc., into Egypt, the Holy Family is back in Nazareth, where the Child grows in wisdom, age, and grace etc. (§271). These texts, replete with et cetera's, nourish our desires, feelings, and imagination in reflecting upon the mysteries of Jesus' early life. During all those years at Nazareth, I wonder if Jesus ever climbed Mount Tabor, which is fairly close by. There came a day on that mountain when Jesus was transfigured in the presence of his three dearest dis-ciples, Peter, James, and John. Upon hearing a resound-ing voice from heaven announcing "This is my beloved Son, etc., listen to him," they were frightened and fell to the ground, but Jesus came and touched them. He said, "Get up and be not afraid, etc." (§284). Why would the beloved disciples fear the Father's voice of intimacy? How many books have been written about the fear of 69.1 2010 Hamel ¯ Discovering What Ignatius Does Not Say Is it by mere chance that comes immediately after "be not afraid"? Ignatius leaVes that to us. God? Is it by mere chance that "etc." comes immedi-ately after "be not afraid"? Ignatius leaves that to us. In the Third Week, Ignatius focuses more on Christ our Lord's interior sufferings than on his external suf-ferings. In this way he simply allows the Gospel nar-ratives to speak for themselves as we strive to remain at Jesus' side every step of the way, imagining what he might be saying to his Father. On the first day of the Third Week, Ignatius wants us to nttice whether the road from Bethany to Jerusalem is "broad or narrow, level, etc.," and similarly to notice the place of the sup-per (§192). On the morning of the same first day, Ignatius again considers the road from the place of the supper, Mount Zion, to the valley of Josaphat, "and also the garden, whether - - -- wide, whether long, whether of one form or another" (§202). "With the eyes of the imagination" he sees the road from Nazareth to Bethlehem, its length, whether flat or through valleys or over hills; and also the place of the grotto of the nativ-ity, how big or small, how high, and what is in it (~112). Roads, of course, lead to a place, like the grotto or the garden or the upper room. One would expect, then, another consideration regarding the length and breadth of the Via Dolorosa, but that is left to our imagination. We are even encouraged to imagine ourselves seeing Jesus eating with his disciples (while we eat, §214), and this is the event that opens the Third Week. Jesus says, Review for Religious "Take and eat, etc." (~289). His supreme sign of love in the Eucharist creates the church community. "Take and eat" will be heard until the end of time. Nothing is spared in asking for the grace proper to the Passion. From grief, brokenness, and tears to this interior suffering, how he suffers for my sins, etc. (§197). This particular "etc." lifts us into Jesus' heart, where we are reminded that his "labors, weariness, and grief began at the moment of his birth" (§206, re Addition 6, §78). Once the Lord is put in bonds, his name is only Jesus, as in his early life. From then on, Jesus is silent until he speaks from the cross. Through all his silences we may imagine what he was saying to his Father and in turn what we want to say to his Mother, to him, and to the Father in the triple colloquies. From house to house Jesus is led back and forth. It seems worthy of note that the Third Week does not end at the tomb of our Lord's burial but at the house where our Lady went. The seventh day of the Third Week is spent with our Lady in her loneliness and grief, and, on the other hand, on recalling the bitter loneliness of the dis-ciples (§208, 7th day). There is no scriptural reference to our Lady's loneliness and grief, and when the risen Christ appears to his Mother there is no mention of the doors of her house being closed. Oral tradition, not Scripture, supports the Lord's appearance to her. She is the perfect instance of our Creator and Lord communicating himself to a faithful soul, "inflaming her in his love" (§ 15, reading abrasdndola for abrazdndola). Curiously enough, for those who may doubt, Ignatius quotes a line of Scripture: "Are you also without understanding?" (Mt 15:16). After we have spent a whole day with our Lady in her loneliness, what can compare with experiencing her exultation upon meeting her Son risen from the 69.1 2010 Hamel * Discovering What Ignatius Does Not Say tomb? His appearing to her is the first of many appear-ances. Ignatius seems to delight in recounting every single appearance of the risen Christ, just as he seems to relish seeing us present to our Lady's great gladness and rejoicing over our Lord's glory and joy (§221). Her house is transformed, her oratory is the new sanctuary of an infant church, of which she is the sign. The Holy Spirit is newly present in these Fourth Week mysteries. The disciples are given the Holy Spirit. Jesus has said to them: "Receive the Holy Spirit; whose sins you will remit, they are remitted, etc." (§304.3, Vulgate text). The infant church itself is in need of reconciliation in the person of the apostle Thomas. It happens on the eighth day of the resurrection. Cyril of Alexandria writes: "With good reason we are accustomed to having sacred meetings in churches on the eighth day" (Commentary on the Gospel of John). The church proclaims, "When we eat this bread and drink this cup we proclaim your death, Lord Jesus, until you come in glory." The apostle Thomas, who all too keenly experienced the death of his Master, has to wait until he comes in the glory of his wounds. So Jesus says to him, "Put your .finger here and see etc., and be not unbelieving but believing" (§305.2, Versio Prima text). Christ the Lord .is living within his new church when he appears to Thomas and to ourselves in our unbelief before the mystery of the resurrection. Christ lives on in his church, appearing again to Thomas and six other disciples on the shore of Lake Tiberius. He is Lord of the sea as well as Lord of the Sabbath when he brings about a huge catch of fish. Who counted all 153 of them? Of the fish they had just caught, Jesus "gave them some bread and fish, etc. (§306.3, Vulgate text). Did Jesus first bless the bread, Review for Religious then break it? And were there leftovers? After the hot breakfast, there is one more catch: three times Jesus asks Peter "Do you love me?" and each time tells him to feed his sheep. Jesus commissions his new church to feed his flock, chiefly with the Eucharist. To hear Thomas's confession "My Lord and my God," to hear Peter's confession "Lord, you know all things, you know that I love you," to hear the Lord of Mount Tabor say "Go and teach all peoples" (§307): this is already to hear the Suscipe being sung. Do we hear Mary, Mother of the risen Lord, Mary Magdalene, the other Marys, the couple on their way to Emmaus, the fishermen of Tiberius, other disciples behind closed doors, the five hundred brethren together, St. James, Joseph of Arimathea, and St. Paul all singing the Suscipe? Is that not one of the ways friends experience consolation, including Jesus himself, who is the glory and generosity of the Father? With what affection and with what great love may we hear him say: "All that I have and possess you gave it all to me; to you, Father, I give it all back" (§234). The great joys of gratitude are all found in the Suscipe. With what great desires would God our Lord, the angels, and the saints want to hear us repeat the Suscipe? Participating in this prayer may fittingly be one of the "holy effects of the most holy resurrection" (§223). The Suscipe may not even be the last word. Ignatius leaves it to our creativity to consider some other way of thanksgiving that we feel to be better (§235). And what we may feel to be a better gift can only be due to God at work giving being, conserving life, granting growth and feeling, etc. (§236). "For it is not much knowledge but the inner feeling and relish of things that fills and satisfies the soul" (§2). Ignatius 69.1 2010 Hamel ¯ Discovering Wbat Ignatius Does Not Say was fond of concluding his letters by saying: "May His perfect grace be granted to all of us always to feel and fully accomplish His most holy will.''5 Although love is shown more in deeds than in words, Ignatius for his part is more wordy than usual in the Contemplation to Arrive at Love (§230). His words seem to carry the weight of deeds. This is evident in the first point of the Contemplatio where Ignatius refers to "particular gifts" (§234). Naturally these particular gifts are individual and personal; and yet, without say-ing so, it appears likely that Ignatius had in mind "the true bride of Christ our Lord, our holy mother, the hierarchical church" (§353), which--like our Lady as the new temple of the Lord's dwelling--humbly gives thanks to the Divine Majesty (§108). A vision of church rather than of the individual arises in the fourth point of the Contemplatio. The church's power, her goodness, her sense of justice, piety, mercy, etc. reflect the supreme and infinite power, goodness, justice, loving kindness, and mercy of her Lord and eternal King (§237). I am reminded that, when Ignatius traveled to the Holy Land, he did not have time to see Nazareth, watch sun-beams sparkle across the Sea of Galilee, or climb Mount Tabor. But he did see these holy places in his imagination, where his desires and dreams appeared. Later in Rome, seeing Christ "like a sun" as he had in Manresa (Rein §99), he saw the pilgrim church of the disciples go forth and teach all people, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (§307). Likewise it is the story of Jesus that invites, challenges, and informs our ser-vice in the world. It is not by accident that the majority of Ignatius's et cetera's follow upon a biblical text. Just as the Scriptures never come to an end, there is no last medita-tion or contemplation in the Spiritual Exercises. Review for Religious Ignatius says goodbye to retreatants (as directors do), but seeking and finding seem to become a never ending duet. There is no final step, nor does the music have any final note. Providence goes on giving birth to God's deeper presence within us and even to our pres-ence to ourselves. As Karl Rahner wrote, "God speaks us to ourselves.''6 In some analogous fashion, is this not what Ignatius also does? As we make the Exercises, per-haps Ignatius is speaking each of us as their author. Notes ~ Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Personal Writings: Reminiscences, Spiritual Diary, Select Letters, including the text of The Spiritual Exercises, ed. and trans. Joseph Munitiz and Philip Endean (London: Penguin Books, 1996), §2. Hereafter I will refer to the Exercises by giving the paragraph number in parentheses. ~ Reminiscences, §28. Hereafter I will refer to this text with Rein and the paragraph number in parentheses. 3 David L. Fleming SJ, Draw Me into Your Friendship: A Literal Translation and a Contemporary Reading of the Spiritual Exercises (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1996), p. 87, §97. 4 Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints, 2 vols., trans. William Granger Ryan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), I:140. 5 Personal Writings, Select Letters #38, p. 275. 6 Harvey Egan SJ, Karl Rabner: Mystic of Everyday Life (New York: Crossroad Publishing Co., 1998), p. 84. Questions for Personal and Group Reflection Hamel points out that the Ignatian Exercises in their language structure call for the retreatant's involve-ment. As you have experience retreats, have you felt the freedom to follow the promptings of God's grace? 4Y 69.1 2010 Hamel * Discovering Wlzat Ignatius Does Not Say 2. Can you give some examples of certain scripture passages that continue to open up new meanings .and insights for you? Transformation Behold the glory of a rose. All it has to do is be. From tightly closed bud to emerging blossom to exquisite flower - it happens so slowly that very few notice. The gentle rain, the warming sun, the nurturing soil - all contribute to the life within. Holy Spirit, the power of your love is my source of transformation. All I have to do is be in You. Mary Frances Herkender SND 46 Review for Religious LOUIS M. SAVARY Revisiting St. Ignatius's Kingdom Meditation at Ignatius is primarily trying to do in the ¯ ¯ Kingdom meditation, and many miss the point, is to create a major shift in the retreatant's mind. The shift is necessary in order to have a proper mindset for the Second Week of the Exercises. It is a mindset quite different from that of the First Week. Theologically, it is a shift in how one sees one's purpose in life. The shift goes from simply seeking one's own salva-tion, which is probably the purpose of most believers, to committing oneself to a divine project on Earth. Ignatius has Christ refer to the divine project as "the work" (SpEx §96). In committing to this work, one's attention and energy shift from personal salvation to involvement in the divine project. For the retreatant, this shift is from avoiding sin and getting to heaven to a new goal: accepting responsibility for helping change the human face of the earth.1 Louis M. Savary has given many lectures, workshops, and classes on the spirituality of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. His address is 3404 Ellenwood Lane; Tampa, Florida 33618. 69.1 2010 Savary ¯ Revisiting St. Ignatius's Kingdom Meditation After the retreatants' First Week preoccupation with Christ's forgiving their sins and enabling their salvation, the Kingdom meditation may come as a surprise--when its meaning dawns on them. It presents retreatants with a new and grand "horizon," as the Jesuit philosopher Bernard Lonergan might describe it. Their attention expands from a narrow spotlight on their personal life to a horizon as big as the world. In this meditation Ignatius wants retreatants to begin thinking globally, looking toward "a much larger horizon than they had been living within" during the First Week.2 The Divine Project Christ's project, as we read in Ignatius's Kingdom text, involves nothing less than transforming the "whole world." It will certainly call for hard work ("share the labor with me"), and will require great generosity of ser-vice ("make offerings of greater worth and moment").3 Ignatius wants retreatants to recognize that in this medi-tation Jesus is inviting them to join him in a special proj-ect, initiated by God, which is so important that it needed God's own Son to reveal it clearly and accurately.4 Many ordinary Christians, those who try merely to save their own souls, fail to hear this call. Ignatius hopes to find "worthy knights" who hear Jesus' call to establish the reign of God on earth and who want to work with others to make it happen. He recommends that the one giving the Exercises be sure that the retreatant is ready to hear this call and has the generosity to respond to it.5 Jesus, in the Ignatian text, is clearly.proposing and working toward a historical result. His project has to do with what we humans, with his help, are meant to accomplish here and now for a better planetary future. It has to do with changing history and how people live Review for Religious and interact on earth. The project is far bigger than simply baptizing as many people as possible. As the hymn to the Holy Spirit puts it, humanity's true pur-pose with the Spirit's help is to "renew the face of the earth." It is a project that goes far beyond keeping the commandments and avoiding sin. In this meditation we enter into Jesus' vision and dream for humanity. Joseph Tetlow says Ignatius wants you to "feel the excitement of a call to transcend everyday concerns.''6 A New Purpose in Life Most people live their entire lives concerned about food, shelter, and clothing. They may think about the future, but mostly about everyday concerns. Their life purpose is to take care of daily wants and needs--food, grooming, safety, security, accep-tance, approval, belong-ing, esteem, and personal development. They see no '4' larger horizon than that. Speaking of everyday concerns, Jesus said, "All these things the pagans seek." He adds, "Your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides" (Mt 6:32-33). Jesus calls his hearers to a new life purpose: finding out what the worldwide kingdom project wants from you ("seek first the kingdom of God"), carrying it out, and letting God take care of the rest. This worldwide transformation, the divine project, begins in individuals with a special kind of repentance, Repentance in this context " much closer to a change :" lifepurpose, 69.1 2010 Savary ¯ Revisiting St. Ignatius's Kingdom Meditation a change of heart, which is quite different from sorrow for sin. Repentance in this context is much closer to a change in life purpose. "Repent for the reign of God is among you.''7 Most Christians do not really spend much time meditating on this simple, foundational statement. When understood, it calls for a new way of looking at ourselves, the human family, and all of creation; it means establishing the reign of God. Individually, the "work" calls for a change in mind-set because it requires people to begin thinking about transforming all of humanity and the planet rather than simply saving their own soul. It also calls for a conver-sion of heart because Jesus asks us to love all people and to accept responsibility for everyone, rather than limiting our responsibility to our own life and immediate family. Instead of merely waiting for the gift of salvation from God on high, Ignatius hears in the call of Christ an invita-tion to shoulder the creative responsibility of "living for others."8 Instead of the abstract virtues or commandments required for salvation, Jesus emphasizes the practical contributions each person's talents and abilities can bring to this divine project on earth. Once we under-stand Christ's divine project, says Tetlow, "each of us, with God, must create our own response.''9 Jesus in his teachings and miracles is announcing what Juan Luis Segundo calls a "project-Christology" that is "centered around the reign of God on earth.''I° In the light of this project, we each have a destiny, a part, that we alone can fulfill. Love Is Central in God's Plan Jesus reveals that God is unconditional love and that this love is active and plan-centered. In other words, Revie~v for Religious God's love is not just responsive to individual and col-lective human needs as they happen to occur; it is also forward looking, proactive, and evolutionary. God has had a loving plan for his creation since the beginning. It was enunciated by Christ. It is spelled out in Jesus' teachings, and it is all about love. Psychologically, we know that love blossoms and matures where the lovers have a shared project and a shared dedication to it. We are invited--no, com-manded- by Jesus to love one another. We may be invited to join the ranks of the "knights" who follow Jesus, but once we join we are commanded to love one another. Nothing less than unconditional love for all humans and all of creation will suffice. The love Jesus (and Ignatius) is talking about is no infatuation or emo-tional attachment. It is a mature love that thrives on sharing the responsibility for a project--"that they may be one as you, Father, and I are one" (Jn 17:20-23).13 Each individual is called to become God's coworker (synergos in Greek; see 1 Co 3:8-9, 21-23) in establish-ing God's reign on earth. Kingdom as Reign Many scripture scholars emphasize this Christological project by suggesting that Jesus' use of the word "king-dom" is less about physical boundaries and more about God's reigning. To reign is to do something. When you talk about a king "reigning," you are referring to his plans for the future of his people and the ways he wants his wishes to be carried out. Such reigning includes the effective fulfillment of the king's will in the structures of society under his charge. It means carrying out the king's program or "standard.''~ As the divine "stan-dards" (such as the beatitudes) become more and more 69.1 2010 Savary ¯ Revisiting St. Ignatius'~ Kingdom Meditation established on earth, there will be ever-increasing love. From this will follow conditions of freedom, justice, equality, peace, and so forth for all human beings and respect for all creation. So, in this meditation, when people think the call of the temporal king (to conquer infidel lands) applies directly to the call of the divine King, they need to note that Ignatius's words refer to a conquest, not by the sword, but by covering the planet with people full of unconditional love. It is only love that will conquer all. It is probably appropriate to say that the Kingdom med-itation is really a parable about the power and attraction of real love on the human heart, more than about kings and knights.12 An Evolutionary Viewpoint of the Kingdom Pierre Teilhard de Chardin reminds us that the divine project did not begin with Jesus' public ministry two thousand years ago. It started about fourteen bil-lion years ago at the Big Bang. Creation itself has been a book of divine revelation that we are just beginning to learn to read with the help of science. According to Teilhard, God implanted his love in every particle that burst forth at the first moment of creation. Everything that exists lives in what Teilhard calls a Divine Milieu of love, and this Divine Milieu is the Universal Body of Christ On 1:3). As St. Paul says, "In him we live and move and have our being" (Ac 17:28). In studying the evolution of the universe, Teilhard dis-covered a law that has been operative since the Big Bang. He called it the Law of Complexity-Consciousness.13 Expressed more completely, it is the Law of Attraction- Connection-Complexity-Consciousness.14 It asserts that the universe is not static or cyclical, but has always been Review for Reli~ous on the move. Furthermore, its evolutionary movement has a direction. From the beginning, it has been mov-ing toward higher levels of complexity and conscious-ness-- or to higher levels of interiority, if you wish. ~s In simple language, the law of attraction is at work everywhere. All units, from atomic particles up to human beings, are attracted to other units to form con-nections. In first-year chemistry class, you learned about the Table of Chemical Elements. These connections of subatomic particles that evolved over time are listed on the Table from the simplest to the most complex. Connections are, by definition, more complex than the elements that make them up. Vvnnen evolution is looked at over eons, it is clear that this law of attraction-connection-complexity has been at work, especially on our planet, in generating forms of life. After about a billion years of trying, Earth finally evolved single-celled creatures. And over another billion years the continually evolving Earth gave birth to life forms with increasing complexity--insects, plants, trees, flowers, fish, reptiles, birds, mammals. Consciousness and awareness appeared and increased. Starting about a hundred thousand years ago, the Law of Attraction-Connection-Complexity-Consciousness generated not only human beings on Earth, but also societies, cultures, arts, and sciences. For Teilhard, this Law is universal. It applies not only to biology, but to all levels of existence. Over many millennia, psychologi-cal, social, and cultural evolution has been happening and keeps happening, following that same divine law. As Henry Kenney puts it, for Teilhard "there is only one cosmically integrated evolution. Physical and social evolution are an essential part of this one evolution.''~6 Can this understanding of evolution help us to 69.1 2010 Savary ¯ Revisiting St. Ignatius's Kingdom Meditation understand the divine project? If that general law of divine love that Teilhard discovered studying the book of creation is accurate, then it is clear how we can foster the divine project. We simply follow the universal evo-lutionary law. We do it, first, by making ourselves attrac-tive for more connections and relationships. Second, we welcome connections and the complexity they bring to our lives. Third, the struggle to live lovingly in that complexity will bring us, fourth, to greater consciousness of who we are, who we are meant to become, and how we can respond to the call of Christ. Teilhard's law does not contradict any of the laws Christ gave; it merely applies them more broadly in our scientific world. For example, it allows people to see in their professions and careers how their work contributes to the divine project and promotes the reign of God. Kingdom and Cosmos God's divine Word has been breathing into the universe the divine creative Spirit for almost fourteen billion years. During all these eons, God's wisdom has been watching creation grow and evolve in complexity and consciousness. This ever-expanding cosmos, which God loved so much that he sent his only Son to become one with it and to show us that love, must be a special part of the Kingdom of God. This evolving cosmos is the original and continual blessing God has been giv-ing to us since the Big Bang. God has been waiting for us to emerge from within it and become conscious of its almost infinite temporal stretch of divine revelation and blessing--and become conscious of the divine law of love that Teilhard identified. God not only has immersed us and all of creation in this Divine Milieu, but also has written upon our hearts Review for Religious the desire to know, love, and care for the cosmos (and everything in it)--as God knows, loves, and cares for it. To do this with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength is to love as God loves. To learn to love God passion-ately, we must learn to love the cosmos passionately.~7 With the incarnation, God has doubly sanctified this cosmos. Not only is the cosmos one single immense entity beloved of God and living in the Divine Milieu; it is also, in Christian lan-guage, living within God's own Son, as part of his Body, the Total Christ. All of creation lives and moves and has its being in this Universal Christ. With these ideas Teilhard introduces us to an evolutionary way of under-standing the Kingdom meditation. ' :With the incarnation, Godhas doubly sanctified 'i this cosmos. A Prelude to the Kingdom Meditation A quotation from the jacket of a recent book may best provide an Ignatian "history" prelude a for new century's Kingdom meditation: The dawn of the twenty-first century has witnessed two remarkable developments in our history: the appearance of systemic problems that are genu-inely global in scope, and the growth of a worldwide movement that is determined to heal the wounds of the earth with the force of passion, dedication, and collective intelligence and wisdom. Across the planet groups ranging from ad-hoc neighborhood associa-tions to well-funded international organizations are confronting issues like the destruction of the envi-ronment, the abuses of free-market fundamentalism, social justice, and the loss of indigenous cultures. They share no orthodoxy or unifying ideology; they 69.1 2010 Savary ¯ Revisiting St. Ignatius's Kingdom Meditation follow no single charismatic leader; they remain sup-ple enough to coalesce easily into larger networks to achieve their goals. While they are mosdy unrecog-nized by politicians and the media, they are bringing about what may one day be judged the single most profound transformation of human society.18 According to the author of that book, Paul Hawken, there are at least two million organizations worldwide working toward ecological sustainability and social jus-tice. This vast collection of committed individuals does not constitute a traditional "movement," nor does it have one charismatic person inspiring or directing it. It is a global, leaderless conglomerate that reaches every corner of the world. Hawken says it is "dispersed, incho-ate, and fiercely independent. It has no shared manifesto or common doctrine, no overriding authority to check with.''~9 It is taking shape, however, in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, companies, deserts, fisheries, slums, and hotel rooms. From an evolutionary perspective, the movement is the most complex collection of human beings ever assem-bled. Most people know only the organization or two they chose to link with, but the movement's overall global database is mammoth. This collection of organizations is tackling issue~ that governments are failing to face: energy, jobs, conservation, poverty, and global warming. Its function as a coherent system is mysterious. Compelling, coherent, innovative, organic, self-organized congregations involving tens of millions of people are dedicated to change. "What I see," says Hawken, "are ordinary and some not-so-ordinary indi-viduals willing to confront despair, power, and incalcu-lable odds in an attempt to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world.''z° According Review for Religious to Hawken, while in the past most people filed griev-ances only with respect to themselves, this new move-ment involves millions of people working altruistically on behalf of strangers. Individually and together they think and speak for the planet. For them, healing the wounds of the earth in this way is a sacred act. This unnamed movement is a healing life force striv-ing for social justice and planetary welfare under and through and around national boundaries. All these small and large groups are intertwining, creating worldwide a web of relationships that are increasingly conducive to life. Perhaps this perspective can serve the Kingdom meditation. An Evolutionary Kingdom Meditation Part One: Ten Thousand Earthly Leaders First Point. Perhaps, instead of an earthly king, Teilhard might ask us to imagine ten thousand leaders spread all over the cities and villages of the earth, people of all races and classes, of all religions and no religion, young and old, rich and poor, in storefronts and board-rooms, in homes and churches, in classrooms and picket lines, in jungles and around campfires, in laboratories and offices. These leaders represent ten thousand dif-ferent groups, all rising above their daily difficulties, finding ten thousand different ways to improve the earth and the beings on it. These "activist" groups are committed to bringing human rights to all. They con-front local injustice or seek multinational solutions to world hunger and poverty. Scientists seek new drugs to alleviate suffering. Authors and journalists suggest solu-tions to local and world problems. Educators concern themselves with literacy and other areas of knowledge. Some people try to solve employment problems. Some 69.1 2010 Savary * Revisiting St. Ignatius's Kingdom Meditation address ecological concerns. Some are philosophers and theologians, some are concerned parents. Some people have dedicated their lives to meditation and to prayer for world peace, for an end to war and terrorism. Every field or life path you can imagine is represented by these ten thousand leaders. Second Point. Imagine yourself standing in this crowd, not knowing where to turn or whom to speak with, and one or two of these leaders approach you. You discover they are persons just like you working in the same area of interest. They describe their work and their aim to improve the lives of others in their circle of influence. You feel their excitement and enthusiasm. It is contagious. They may even suggest ways that you could uniquely help them pursue their purpose. Other leaders are approaching other persons like you who have found their way here. In stages-of-consciousness language, these leaders would be encouraging people to grow beyond their egocentric and ethnocentric stages of development and commit themselves to anthropocentric and geocentric mindsets.21 Anyone failing to support and find a way to actively participate in one or more of these programs might be considered an unworthy or unconscious citi-zen of the earth. Part Two: The Universal Christ While you imagine yourself still standing amid these ten thousand leaders, you can imagine Christ speaking to you as a voice heard in your heart: You see all these people representing thousands of small-to-large organizations worldwide, each doing its own small part to transform the world. They and all their groups live and move and have their being in me. They were meant to come into being and work Review for Religious in peaceful and loving concern for the betterment of all. Each small and large group has been part of the Creator's plan and vision from the beginning of time. That vision is to bring all creation together in one supreme loving union. These people love Earth and all of creation. I invite you to find the individuals and groups that you are most attracted to and most qualified to help, and commit yourself to supporting them. For we all have a long evolutionary way to go to fulfill the Creator's plan. When you hear these leaders speaking to you, realize that it is I speaking to you. When you work with them, realize that it is I working with you, alongside you. Those who want to be more devoted and signalize themselves in service of the Body of Christ will not only offer their persons to the labor required for the Creator's project, but will also make offerings of greater value 'and greater importance, saying:22 Eternal Creator of all things, I make my oblation with your favor and help, in the presence of your divine Son and in the presence of our compassionate Mother and all the saints of heaven: I want and desire, and it is nay deliberate choice and determination, with all my heart and mind and soul and strength, to be an instrument of your love and healing in the world. I beg for energy and clarity,23 so that I will contribute in all the ways I can, whatever the cost, to building up the Universal Body of your divine Son on earth as long as I live. Summing Up and Going Forward The job of achieving world peace and justice in today's world is too big for any one person or orga-nization. It is the work of thousands of organizations and individuals worldwide, rich and poor, cooperating in achieving a world at peace and an environment, a milieu, where life can be safe.24 69,1 2010 Savary ¯ Revisiting St. Ignatius's Kingdom Meditation Teilhard offers us a fuller picture of the "work" of God's reign. It integrates fourteen billion years of divine revelation that science is teaching us how to read. In the Law of Attraction-Connection-Complexity- Consciousness, he offers people in every walk of life specific ways of cooperating in the evolving divine plan. He shows how the global humanitarian movements coming up everywhere are organically inspired by the Divine Milieu. They represent an instinctive collective response of the human spirit, inspired by God, to many different needs and challenges around the planet. What these people and groups are in effect telling us, perhaps still unconscious of what they are saying, is that the Body of Christ is alive and well in our day.25 Notes t George Aschenbrenner SJ points out that Ignatius uses words like "all" and "whole" to emphasize that this meditation takes retreatants beyond their individual selves. It is a call to universal salvation. See his Stretched for the Greater Glory (Chicago: Loyola Press, 2004), pp. 68 and 98. 2 Joseph A. Tetlow SJ, Ignatius Loyola: Spiritual Exercises (New York: Crossroad, 1992), p. 90. 3 See Tetlow, Ignatius, pp. 95, 97. 4 See John 3:16-21. Jesus' project--actually it is the Father's project--encompasses the cosmos, the universe. It includes "living the truth" about creation--what it is and where it is going. s Tetlow, Ignatius, p. 90. "Ignatius would not continue an exerci-tant into the next three Weeks unless the exercitant had a great desire to go into them. That desire--to continue in the Spiritual Exercises a search for something more--itself comes as a gift from the Spirit of God." Aschenbrenner, Stretched, p. 66, makes the same point. 6 Tetlow, Ignatius, p. 91. Aschenbrenner, Stretched, pp. 66-68, sug-gests three prerequisites for truly grasping the call of the Kingdom. The first two are "a desire to know Jesus in your unique vocation" and "a capacity for intimacy." The third is "some personal lived expe-rience of the need for salvation and liberation in the social dimension of our world." Review for Religious 7 The theme of John the Baptist's preaching was "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand"; Jesus does not modify that message at all (Mr 3:2 & 4:17). John and Jesus are talking about the same divine project. Jesus merely enlarges upon it in his other sermons. s See Rm 14:7, 20-23; Mt 25:34-40. 9 Tetlow, Ignatius, p. 92. ,0 Juan Luis Segundo SJ, The Christ of the Ignatian Exercises (Maryknolh Orbis Books, 1987), p. 96. ~ This seems to be Ignatius's intent in using the word "standard" in the Two Standards. His king's "standard" stands for his plan and its fulfillment. ,2 See Aschenbrenner, Stretched, pp. 66-67, 72-73. ,3 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ, The Phenomenon of Man, 2nd ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), p. 300. ,4 See Louis M. Savary, The Divine Milieu Explained (New York: Paulist Press, 2007), pp. 29-30. '~ See W. Henry Kenney SJ, A Path through Teilhard's Phenomenon (Dayton: Pflaum Press, 1970), pp. 60-64. 16 Kenney, Path, p. 70. ,7 While Aschenbrenner, Stretched, says the grace for this medita-tion is to "fall in love with Jesus" (p. 66), Teilhard would have you also ask for the grace to fall in love and become "intimate" with the cosmos. While Ignatius focuses on Christ of the Gospels, Teilhard focuses on the Cosmic Christ. ,8 Paul Hawken, Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming (New York: Viking, 2007). You may enjoy a short video: http://www.blessedun rest.com/video.html ,9 Hawken, Blessed, p. 3. 20 Hawken, Blessed, p. 4. 2, Here egocentric would imply caring only about my own salva-tion. An ethnocentric stage would imply putting a high value on pro-tecting and caring for my family, my tribe, my country, my race, my gender, my religion. The anthropocentric stage would mean desiring to protect and care for all human beings, seeing them as my brothers and sisters under God our Father. A fourth stage, geocentric, is emerg-ing around the planet; it means extending my care and concern to all living things. We all share one planet. 22 SpEx §98, adapted. Ignatius sometimes suggests specific col-loquies, but a colloquy must always come from each one's heart. 69.1 2010 Savary ¯ Revisiting St. Ignatius's Kingdom Meditation Aschenbrenner, Stretched, p. 74, says, "You must make the offering that is in your heart." He notes, though, that a major function of this colloquy is to lead the retreatant into the exercises of the Second Week. 23 VChile Ignatius suggests that the retreatant ask for "injury, affronts, and poverty," Teilhard feels that there will be plenty of unwanted "diminishments" to endure if one commits oneself with energy and clarity to the divine project of building the Body of Christ on Earth. See Teilhard's Divine Milieu (New York: Harper & Row, 1962, 1968), Section Two, "The Divinization of Our Passivities." 24 Ignatius does not identify the Kingdom with the Roman Catholic Church, but sees Christ's reign as including all people and all the world. Teilhard might say that Christ inspires everyone with the desire to promote the loving unity of all beings, but that many of us are not yet conscious of that desire, and that many of those who are conscious of it have not yet followed that desire. Evoking that commitment is the purpose of Ignatius's Kingdom meditation. 25 Hawken, Blessed, pp. 4-5, says: "We must also remember that humans are frail and imperfect. People are not always literate or educated. Most families in the world are impoverished and may suffer from chronic illnesses. The poor cannot always get the right foods for proper nutrition, and must struggle to feed and educate their young. If citizens with such burdens can rise above their quotidian difficulties and act with the clear intent to confront exploitation and bring about restoration, then something powerful is afoot. And it is not just the poor, but people of all races and classes everywhere in the world." Review for Religious ANN MARIE PAUL Gleanings from My First Ten Years It is still difficult for me to believe that the time passed so quickly. July 2009 marked ten years since I entered the Sisters of Christian Charity, and August 2009 saw the profession of my perpetual vows. Shortly before that, I was asked what advice I would give to those just starting out. Although fully cognizant that I s611 have much to learn, I came up with pieces of advice that were too numerous to count. After omitting many important items (includ-ing emptying trash cans and filling the car's gas tank), I have committed myself to the fol-lowing tidbits. Be grateful, no matter what. A few years ago I lived in a convent with a sister who was commemorating the 60th anniversary of her entrance into the community. I asked her, Ann Marie Paul SCC wrote as a novice an article we pub-lished in 2001. Her address is Divine Providence Hospital Convent; 1100 Grampian Boulevard; Williamsport, Pennsylvania 17701. from young and old 69.1 2010 Paul ¯ Gleanings from My First Ten Years "What do you have to say on this auspicious occasion?" Without skipping a beat, she answered, "Three words: Thank you, Jesus!" What a lesson for me and for all younger religious-- Be grateful, no matter what! Living community life calls for gratitude in abundance. The five convents where I lived during these ten years have provided numerous reasons for expressing gratitude. I am grateful for the welcome I received from the sisters and the guidance they gave me--everything from where to find extra toilet paper to how to persevere in living my vows. I am grate-ful for the extra effort these women expended not only in making me feel at home but also in making me who I am today. I am grateful for the way they live and love in community and the example they have been for me. But that is the easy part of thankfulness--being grateful to those who have loved you. The "no mat-ter what" enters in when we are grateful to those who have found it hard to love us or those we have found it hard to love. Remember that not everyone will find it easy to love you and you will not always find it easy to love everyone else. These are the people who will teach you the most about loving as Jesus loves. Be grateful to them, although it might take time and distance for this gratitude to manifest itself. Forgive early and often. Forgiveness, it has been said, is the scent that the rose leaves on the foot that crushes it. The scent we leave when we are "crushed" by or when we "crush" someone else is most important. No matter how Christlike you strive to be, you are human, and so are the people with whom you live. Your com-munity will never be perfect, and neither will you. You will make mistakes (~ometimes big mistakes), and so will they. Sometimes your mistakes will hurt people deeply. Re~iew for Religious Learn early to forgive yourself and others, and to ask for forgiveness frequendy and quickly, so that everyone comes up smelling like roses! It is not a mathematical coincidence that, when asked about how often we should forgive, Jesus says, "Not seven times, but seventy-seven times" (Mr 18:22), or "seven times in one day" (Lk 17:4). The number seven is symbolic of perfection or totality. So, when Jesus uses the number seven (or seventy-seven, for real emphasis), he is saying that our forgiveness should be limidess. That is a tall order, but one that is absolutely essential to living community life. Be the community you want to see. Mahatma Gandhi is widely quoted as having said, "Be the change you want to see." These words apply to many situations in diverse regions of the world, but they can apply just as easily to your situa-tion in your local com-munity. To be sure, at some point you will rea'ch the conclusion that your community does not live up to your not meet your needs, !:: f! st.a k yourself if you have :g!ven enough, of yourself yoUr:Community. expectations. Do not let your disillusionment get the best of you. If your community does not meet your needs, first ask yourself if you have given enough of yourself to your community. That is, have you been the community you wish to see? When I hear younger sisters complain about what their community does not do often enough (or does too often), I usually ask, "What have you attempted to initi- 69.1 2010 Paul ¯ Gleanings from My First Ten Years ate in your community recendy?" (In the interest of full disclosure, I have been asked that very question a few times, too.) If the answer revolves around waiting for an elusive "someone else" to initiate an elusive "something else," warning flags should go up. Such a complaint is rarely about "them"; it is usually about "me." Own these complaints and use them as springboards to action. Be as foolish as God. Whenever you make deci-sions, always choose the most loving thing. On the surface, this looks blatantly obvious for someone in religious life. However, if you had been responsible for making practical, efficient decisions before entering your community, you will have to reprogram yourself toward making loving decisions. This is not to say that religious life lacks practicality and efficiency; it simply means that what is practical is not always what is loving. Many times the loving choice will go against your culturally pro-grammed response toward practicality and efficiency. If you have trouble figuring out what the loving thing is, turn more deeply toward the Gospels. There we find a God who is foolish in the eyes of the world-- encouraging the payment of a full day's wages both to those who worked a full day and to those who worked only one hour; leaving ninety-nine sheep in the des-ert to search for one lost sheep; and welcoming back a repentant child who had left saying "I wish you were dead" with "Let's throw a party!" So, when you are given a choice, be as foolish as God. Try not to miss too many community meals. As you struggle to find and honor your own rhythm in religious life, be aware of the rhythm of.your commu-nity, especially as it pertains to meals. Because of various schedules and commitments, the community meal (and the accompanying preparation and cleanup) may be the Review for Religious only meaningful contact we have with each other as a community on some days. That is where the debrief-ing of the day occurs, where the stories are told, and where bonds of community are formed. When you miss too many community meals, you run the risk of losing touch with the rhythm of the community. So, if you have ministry commitments that prevent you from shar-ing the community meal on Monday and Wednesday, it is probably not a good idea to accept an invitation to dinner from a friend on Tuesday or Thursday of that same week. That would make it quite difficult for you to regain your place in the rhythm of the community. Be a servant. You entered religious life to serve, but you probably lacked an understanding of the precise types of service that would be required of you. Perhaps you had an idea of service as going out to the poor and doing wonderful things for God. While that is an admi-rable goal and one that you still hope to accomplish, the actual service we are asked to do rarely matches the enchanting stuff of our imaginations. John 13 tells us that, after Jesus has washed his dis-ciples' feet, he says "As I have done for you, you should also do." Note that Jesus does not say that his disciples should follow his example only when it is convenient or when they are not tired. He does not tell the disciples to think about it; he simply says "Do it." The example of Jesus' service should be foremost in our minds as we listen to a sister tell about her day when we would rather watch the evening news; car pool when we would rather drive alone; and' go to a community meeting when we would rather have a relaxing weekend. These are the times when our service, although less glamorous than we originally envisioned, answers the call that Jesus issued to his disciples shordy before he died. 69.1 2010 Paul * Gleanings from My First Ten Years If we do not take the time ~o let God in through attentive praye, r, we may block God from~ .~ ~ working through us, ~ 681 Pray, pray, pray. This is another piece of advice that seems fairly obvious for someone in religious life. However, as we leave the novitiate, we run the risk of our prayer life taking a back seat to all the other good things that we can choose to do. As we become busier with many things, we sometimes try to convince our-selves, "My work is my prayer." While our work--that is, what we do-- ~, certainly is prayer, prayer is also who we are. If we do not take the 6me to let God in through attentive prayer, we may block God from work-ing through us. We cannot give what we do not possess. My awkward translation of the advice of St. Francis de Sales on prayer goes something like this: "You should pray thirty minutes each day, except when you are very busy. Then you should pray for an hour." In our initial formation, we spend time praying, reading about prayer, and being taught many things about prayer. We have heard what some saints have said about prayer, and most likely we have studied what our founders said about it. In 1851 the founder of my com-munity, Pauline yon Mallinckrodt, said, "What water is to the fish, prayer is to the religious." On the surface, this is a nice saying about prayer. But looking more deeply gives us a much truer picture. Try to remember the last time you saw a live fish out of water. Maybe it was a goldfish as you cleaned the bowl or a larger fish you caught in a lake on vacation. Review for Religious Do you remember the desperate flailing and gasping of that fish? Now try to think of yourself without prayer as that fish. When you flail and gasp while living your religious life without prayer, it will become apparent to those around you and will quickly become an obstacle to living a meaningful life in community. Do whatever it takes to dive back into the "water" of prayer. Talk to your spiritual director, your soul friend, or any of the various support people available to you. But do not stay out of the water for so long that you cannot be revived. Remember that we are all in this together. Religious life is a wondrous journey filled with joy and sorrow, surprises and banality, times of deep joy and times of darkness. As in other walks of life and voca-tions, people will "wow" you and disappoint you; you will have times of complete connectedness and utter loneliness. Through it all, remember that you are part of a community of people called by God to follow Christ more closely in this particular way of life. Every mem-ber- from the one who most annoys you to the one you most admire--was called to your community by God at a particular time for a particular mission. Avoid wasting time questioning how God could have ever intended this seemingly motley group to do anything together, let alone live in community and witness to God's love. Instead, praise and thank God for the wondrous diver-sity in which you are privileged to participate, and think of all of these persons as doing their best. When you think you have had enough and cannot go on, remember what "the call" was like for you. Think about what it was like to say "Yes," no matter how long ago it was, and begin again to follow Jesus more closely. Ask others, if you are comfortable doing so, to share 69.1 2010 Paul ¯ Gleanings from My First Ten Years their stories with you. Shared vocation stories not only create unity, but they also give us the possibility of hav-ing something to whisper in each other's ears when our memories fade. What--and how often--we whisper is a testimony to our commitment to God and to each other. We are all in this together, and our communi-ties' futures depend on how well we witness this to each other and to those who seek to join us. Ten years have passed. That is a minuscule amount of time, given the years of service of most of the mem-bers of our communities. Every year of service, how-ever, consists of distinctive days, hours, and minutes in which we strive to live in grace-filled fidelity to our vows and trusting commitment to our religious community. Whether we have done this for one, ten, fifty, or eighty years, each day we have the responsibility of living in ways that bring ourselves, our community, all those we meet, and the entire church closer to God. Keeping the present moment--the dailyness--at the forefront of our prayer and consciousness aids us in doing God's will in our lives. The ideas I have shared above are, I think, some of the many things that, gathered together, can help us be who God calls us to be. Review for Religious MARY FRANCES COADY Monasteries of Meteora a n the chapel of St. Stephen's Monastery, set high mong the giant outcroppings of rock that stand before the Pindos Mountains in central Greece, the nuns' chanting of Vespers goes on and on as evening turns into night. Their voices, singing in a minor key of mournful solemnity, become a drone, the unfamiliar sounds an incantation. The nuns themselves, draped in black cloaks, their faces flamed with severe black bands, sit motionless or move about freely from one icon to another--strange, fearsome paintings of,Christ, Mary, and various saints--across the top of the chapel. Lighted candles hang from brass chains. There is no other light--only shadow, and black figures moving, and incense hanging sweet and thick in the air, and a heavy feeling of enclosure. Sleep begins to overtake me, despite the discomfort of the hard benches we are sitting on. To shake myself awake, I shift my body and cross my legs. Immediately a nun glides over Mary Frances Coady writes from 35 Cowan Avenue; Toronto, Ontario; M6K 2N1 Canada. 69.1 2010 Coady * Monasteries of Meteora to me, gives a light tap on my knee, motions with her hand, and looks at me with deep blue eyes. Her face is a mixture of kindness and unquestioned authority. Like a child caught in mid-mischief, I uncross my legs. And the chanting goes on and on . Later, in the nearby town of Kalambaka, we sit in the taverna drinking wine. Red and white checkered cloths cover the tables, and pictures of blonde American movie stars line the walls. In the darkness outside loom enormous rocks, called Meteora, a name derived from a word meaning high in the air. Bare and gray and phal-lic- shaped, they stand like a monstrous fortress. Hidden among them, as if suspended between earth and heaven, is a series of medieval Greek Orthodox monasteries. A handful of these, including the one where we have just attended Vespers, are still inhabited. This is desert land, the abode of ascetics. I wonder aloud why these monasteries were built in the first place and why anyone these days would want to return to such a medieval way of life. "You've got it wrong if you're thinking medieval," says my compan-ion, taking a sip of wine. "You've got to think Eastern." Eastern: the fierce mysticism, that is, of Byzantine Christianity. In the 1 lth century, hermits first came to Meteora seeking refuge from "the world." Here the caves and clefts of the forbidding rocks seemed the perfect home for those who sought to retreat from society and who strove to punish their bodies with rigorous practices so that they might purify their souls. The landscape was an exact mirror of their desire to disregard the things of earth and attend to heavenly matters. Once they had found their way up the rock face and had established their niche, the hermits remained Review for Religio~s undisturbed and free to pursue God in the silence of their own hearts. They fasted for days and even weeks on end, depending on the kindness of local peasants for their meager sustenance. They went years without washing, for this was one of the signs of a holy man (and indeed these early hermits seemed to be only men): one who disdained his body so much that even as his clothes rotted on top of him he remained lost in the contempla-tion of the eternal, oblivious to his own stench. In succeeding centuries, wars forced the hermits to group together for protection. In the 14th century the monk Athanasius arrived from Mount Athos, the group of monasteries that stretch over a fifty-kilome-ter peninsula jutting into the Aegean Sea southeast of Thessaloniki. With nine other monks he established the first Meteora monastery. As at Mount Athos, women were strictly forbidden to visit the monasteries, and the monks were instructed not to give food to a woman even if she were dying of hunger. (At Mount Athos, not even female animals were allowed. Athanasius himself, his early biographer tells us, never allowed the word "woman" to sully his lips.) At the height of the Middle Ages, the monasteries grew in number to twenty-four. Only three are now still inhabited: Transfiguration (Great Meteoron), All Saints (Varlaam), and St. Stephen's. It is not known exactly how the ascetics reached their lonely habitations, or how they got the materials hoisted up to build the monasteries. The likelihood is that they hired local hunters and goatherds who were intimately familiar with the passes and crags in the rock. The biographer of Athanasius says only: "And taking a certain climber, he put him on a stone, and building a hut he remained there a long time." Up until the early 69.1 2010 Coady * Monasteries of Meteora In 1961 the oldest monastery became a monastery for women. decades of this century, men who visited the monaster-ies either climbed by rope ladders, which were often frayed and barely secured, or were pulled up in net bas-kets, swinging precariously over the abyss. Visitors were instructed to avoid dizziness by closing their eyes as the creaking pulley lifted them up, and to chant a hymn in order to keep calm through the ordeal. In 1920 the monks began cutting steps into the rock leading up to the buildings, and in 1948 a paved road was completed, making the still-inhabited monaster-ies accessible by car. In the same year, permission was granted for women to visit the monaster-ies. (In these matters Meteora has sur-passed Mount Athos in modernization. At the entrance to the Holy Mountain, as Mount Athos is called, a sign still stands forbidding women to enter. Up until the late 1950s, wheeled vehicles were also forbidden, the only access to the Mount Athos monasteries being by foot or mule. The decision to build roadways still remains a controversy among some of the monks. Apparently no such controversy has yet arisen regarding the ban against women visitors.) In 1961 St. Stephen's, the oldest monastery and the only one visible from the road below, became a "nun-nery," or monastery for women. It is the most accessible of the monasteries; an eight-meter footbridge over the chasm brings the visitor face to face with the monas-tery's imposing iron door, which opens onto a sunny courtyard, the stark austerity softened by the presence of azalea and bougainvillea bushes and flowering plants Review for Religious in earthenware pots. This is the peaceful setting where the spiritual quest takes place in the stillness and soli-tude of the heart. Here nuns of all ages--a surprising number of them young, with smooth complexions and sparkling eyes--labor with rolled-up sleeves and easy smiles. A nearby plaque, however, refers to "the church of Christ" as the "new ark" that is saving the world from the "cataclysm of sin." The pleasant courtyard and happy faces can be deceptive: there is nothing sunny about the work that is carried out here. That work, here on a spot suspended between earth and sky, is nothing less than a lifetime spent in con-templation of the eternal--or, in other words, an inner search for what is essential and lasting. To carry out this quest, one leaves one's place of comfort and moves to a barren land where outward distractions have been left behind and the interior struggle begins. Anyone who has been on such a desert quest will tell you that the experience demands a healthy respect, and it is not to be undertaken lightly. In the ~adition of Byzantine Christianity, the search is carried out within the con-text of liturgical prayer, where one prays with the whole body, chanting, bowing, signing oneself with the cross, gathering in spirit the whole of humanity. We leave Meteora on a Sunday morning, driving past a church where men in well-pressed suits con-gregate outside, smoking cigarettes. No women are in sight; they are perhaps already inside, lighting tapers and placing them in a vat of sand at the back of the church. They too will pray with their bodies, moving about the church, bowing in front of icons, lighting more candles, moving their lips in prayer as bearded clerics in gold brocade vestments chant the prayers of the sacred liturgy. 69.1 2010 Coady ¯ Monasteries of Meteora Their sisters on top of the monastic rocks continue their lives of unceasing prayer. For them, Sunday is a solemn feast, and this means that there is more than the usual amount of liturgical prayer. There will be more chanting, more bowing, more lighting of candles. All that can be said, perhaps, of this stark way of life is that here there is a spiritual continuity, a sense of ageless prayer, a de

Issue 65.3 of the Review for Religious, 2006. ; Bei~ Religiofis ~QUARTERLY 65~3 2006 Review for Religious fosters dialogue with Godi .dialogue with ourselves, and dialog4~e with one another about the holiness we tryto live according to gts~ari~s o.f Catholic religious life. As Pope Paul VI said, our way Of being dsurcb is today tlse~, 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 Lindel] Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 Telephone: 314-633-4610 ¯ Fax: 314-633-4611 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 ¯ Pontifical College Josephinmn 7625 North High Street ° Columbus, Ohio 43235 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Rdigious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, NIN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©2006 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library, clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. ~gournalof Catholic ~piri~uality view for religious Editor Associate Editor Canonical Counsel Scripture Scope Editorial Staff Webmaster Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Eugene Hensell OSB Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Judy Sharp Clare Boehmer ASC Stephen Erspamer OSB "Kathleen Hughes R$CJ Louis ~nd Angela Menard Bishop Terry Steib SVD Miriam D. Ukeritis CSJ QUARTERLY 65.3 2006 contents prisms 228 Prisms 230 coming together The 2004 Consecrated-Life Congress: A Restrospective Karen M. Kennelly CSJ summarizes the thinking and the participants' interaction at the 2004 Consecrated-Life Congress held in Rome and proposes that some themes should impact local chapters and congregational meetings. ¯ Reflection and Discussion Questions 244 A New Way of Meeting . Rachael M. Harrington SNDdeN describes one carefully planned attempt to capture new life and meaning that might be incorporated into the usual chapter or congregational meeting. 226 255 meeting God Aspiratory Prayer, a Welcome Addition to Contemplative Prayer Ernest E. Larkin OCarm describes the prayer of aspiration, reviews its hisory in spirituality, identifies a few of its main proponents, and suggests ways that we might make it part of our lives. Reflection Questions Review for Religious 272 "Repose Days" during the Ignatian Exercises Philip Shano SJ reflects upon the purpose and use of repose days within the Ignatian thirty-day retreat and raises questions for retreat directors. 283 Gerard Manley Hopkins's "Lantern out of Doors": A Contemplative Response to Loss Charles P. Farrar praises the spiritual theology of Hopkins's sonnet which describes the experience of personal loss with the metaphor of a lantern passing in the night. What first seems subjective and formulaic proves to be psychologically and theologically insightful. 293 3O4 being religious Today's Candidates: Who Are They, What Do They Expect? Raymond R. Ryan OSA allows younger members within the religious congregation to present a snapshot picture of their hopes and desires for community life and mission. These Strawberries Are Divine! Sisters and a Spirituality of Living on Earth Colleen Carpenter Cullinan provides a glimpse of the contributions of Catholic religious congregations of women in founding farms and Earth centers as places to raise organic food and educate people about the deep human connection to God's creation. Prayer / Reflection and Discussion Questions departments 319 Scripture Scope: Reading the Gospel of John 323 Canonical Counsel: Archives of Religious Communities 328 Book Reviews 65.3 2006 prisms Tintroduce the Gospel story of the Annunciation, St. Ignatius Loyola would have us picture the three divine Persons of the Trinity in dialogue about how better to accom-plish the salvation of humankind. We might describe it as the first communal discernment. The meetings that people hold when things are to be decided--meetings sometimes so contentious that they seem "eternally" long--can be seen as human strivings to imitate the wise personal planning of the Blessed Trinity. As our journal's mission statement declares, Pope Paul VI identified dialogue as a way of being church, especially in our time. Our world, with its instant communication by radio, television, Internet, and cell phone, has often taken away from us our black-and-white, simplistic judgments about who is the enemy, about who is being saved, about what other religions believe, about under-standing sexual orientations and various complex life issues, and about the cultural values of a world society. In the Old Testament's Book of Genesis, Cain's question, "Am I my brother's keeper?" has been answered definitively by our Christian faith. Jesus in giving us his one commandment allows for no wiggle room: we are to love God with all our mind, soul, and strength and our neighbor as our-selves. And loving, as all marriages and deep friendships know, takes a lot of dialoguing. We all are aware that our love of God devel-ops through a dialogue called prayer. Mthough there are many books describing some classic Re~iew for Religious forms of praying, usually drawn from the practice and example of the holy men and women preceding us, we still must make our conversation with God our own. We are not on stage, reciting lines written by some playwright. God and we share from our hearts. That is why prayer, even in its quiet moments, is always a dialogue. As in every deep human relationship, the dialogue of sharing never has an end. In fact, this signifies the promise of eternal life with God. For many of us today, meetings seem a way of life. We see it in world diplomacy, we know it in business, we par-ticipate in it in our parishes, in our religious communities, and in our neighborhood associations. Most of us desire fewer meetings, more efficiently run meetings, meetings with clearer outcomes, and meetings which bring about something better for everyone involved. For we are aware of many frustrations in communal dialogue. We have exam-ples on the international scale, on the church level, and in religious-life interworkings where dialogue breaks down or perhaps is never entered into. Just as personal dialogue with God (prayer) portends our relational life with God forever, so group dialogue in meetings, conferences, and religious chapters needs to be valued as our way of enter-ing more closely into the dialogical life of God. "Dialogue is our way of being church." We are the church. Our identity is not just in our prayer; it is lived out in the necessary human interactions of today's com-plex world. In our meetings, conferences, and religious chapters, let us work to discover how God is entering us more deeply into God's own life--a life of shared dialogue. If the incarnation is the result of our trinitarian God's meet-ing, in what ways are God and divine grace present to the world in our human meetings? David L. Fleming SJ 65.3 2006 KAREN M. KENNELLY The 2004 Consecrated-Life Congress: A Retrospective coming together 230] A myriad of thoughts and images come to mind as I look back at the Congress on Consecrated Life held in Rome in November 2004: hundreds of faces, a babble of languages, colorful multinational garb, and icons of the Woman at the Well and the Good Samaritan focusing us on the congress theme, "Passion for Christ, Passion for Humanity." The mixed composition of the congress made it unique. For the first time, leadership from both women's and men's congregations met in an international con-vocation to address a common agenda. Repre-sentatives of the national and international conferences of religious, groups of young religious and theologians, and editors of religious journals joined religious superiors as full participants. Karen M. Kennelly CSJ, a member of her congregation's leadership team, may be addressed at Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet; 2311 S. Lindbergh Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63131. Review for Religious A further note of uniqueness lay in the process used to prepare for, carry out, and follow up on the meeting. Preparation spanned a four-year period involving "envisioning" and "theological summary" groups. The first group sought to achieve consensus on the actual reality of religious life today by eliciting facts and testimonials from around the world. The second analyzed the collected information from a theological perspective and summarized it in a working paper sent in advance to all congress participants. We all had an opportunity to express our preferences for small-group discussions on topics drawn from the working paper. Theologians responsible for composing the paper came from Norway, Spain, France, Italy, the United States, the Philippines, and Burkina Faso. Others, from Mexico, Germany, and Peru, collaborated via the Internet. During the congress a third or "Listeners" group gathered impressions and ideas as they were expressed in papers presented by the major speakers, in written reports from groups, and in comments from the floor. This group's work culminated in a synthesis presented to the congress on the last day. My experience as a member of the Listeners group made me aware of the congress planners' painstaking efforts to be as pluralistic and inclusive as possible, achieving active participation by those present to the extent that numbers, languages, and ~ime permitted. As with the other groups, our membership comprised about equal numbers of women and men, drawn from every continent. From day to day our dialogue grew in intensity as we listened, exchanged impressions and observations, and began identifying common threads among the multiplicity of ideas brought to the floor. The principal speakers brought unique perspectives to the assessment of contemporary religious life, beginning 6~.3 2006 Kennelly ¯ The 2004 Consecrated-Life Congress 232 ] with a joint paper by two Italians, Bruno Secondin and Diana Papa, a Carmelite and a Poor Clare. They invited the 847 participants, gathered at some ninety round tables and aided by simultaneous translations into six languages, to begin the adventure of immersing themselves in the themes articulated in the working paper. Dolores Aleixandre, of Spain, a Religious of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and a theologian, brought scriptural exegesis to the congress's theme, religious life as passion for Christ and for humanity. She saw in the icons of the Samaritan Woman and the Good Samaritan "a call to center ourselves on the essential, to a different way of relating to each other, of supporting each other intercongregationally, of making room for the laity" (cited from her paper as published in Passion for Christ, Passion for Humanity, Pauline Books and Media, 2005, pp. 91-125)--insights that were to be echoed frequently by congress participants in the days to come The Brazilian Jesuit Jo~o Batista Lib~nio brought a sociological and liberation-theology perspective to religious life at the beginning of the third millennium. He spoke of the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience as having significance today only in relation to three elements: an experience of God, community life, and mission. He challenged us to rethink consecrated life from the bottom up in the light of contemporary reality with all its "ambiguity, perplexity, and paradox" (PCPH, pp. 127-171). The British Dominican Timothy Radcliffe asked "what signs religious life offers" in the wake of the World Trade Towers' destruction on 11 September 2001, an event he views as symbolic of the world in which religious life exists today, paradoxically bound ever more tightly together by instant communication and ever more deeply divided by violence (PCPH, pp. 173-189). How, he asked, Review for Religious can religious be a "sign of humanity's common home in God" in a world suffering a crisis of homelessness? What future awaits religious life in a world seemingly offering only a future of violence? What has religious life to offer as the culture of control and the struggle for hegemony intensify? A North American voice was heard in the person of an Immaculate Heart of Mary sister, Sandra M. Schneiders. She picked up on a topic Radcliffe had noted as fundamental but had not explored, namely, the culture of consumerism and our -:~ witness to poverty. Her reflections involved a discussion of how religious incarnate renunciation of the "world" and go about creating "the alternate world generated by the profession of the vows" (PCPH, pp. ' i '~ " ~ ' ' 191-218). Characterizing the . ~ . "' -' ~ . . religious lifestyle as one rooted in the "public, lifelong commitment of the members, as individuals and as communities, to a characteristic approach to material goods, power, and sexuality," she caught the assembly's imagination early in her talk with her arresting statement that she would discuss, not "the future Of religious life," but rather "religious life of the future." Schneiders's imaginative and theologically profound exploration of evangelical poverty as the "economy of the reign of God," and of prophetic obedience as the "politics of the reign of God," gave us much to think about as Vincentian Franc Rod6, prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (CICLSAL), brought the series of formal presentations to a close with a recapitulation of major .¢":t~lig!oU~ life,'in a world ~seemingly offering only ~a~tu~e ff v~ole~ce? 65.3 2006 Kennelly ¯ The 2004 Consecrated-Life Congress 234 themes in recent papal documents such as Hta consecrata and Novo millennio ineunte (PCPH, pp. 219-2 3 6). Participants next divided into continental groups to look at sociological factors touching upon consecrated life in their own continents, noting both positive and negative effects these factors were thought to have on the capacity of religious to be passionate for Christ and for humanity. Some of the most acute observations expressed in the congress--whether from the floor during open-microphone time or in the hastily written reports-- flowed from these gatherings. As Listeners striving to perceive the essence of group contributions, we constandy had to make allowances for the great diversity within the somewhat artificial continental categories. The Europeans prefaced their report by describing it as a "communion of intentions" and "truly an exercise in European communion," given the different languages and situations in which Europe finds itself. Asians noted the vastness of their continent and its diversity of languages, cultures, religions, and political and economic systems before commenting on their many shared concerns. The Africans' preface included this in bold type: "Note: in Africa it is not possible to generalize. There is great diversity in the situations." Those from Oceania, the smallest segment of the congress, nevertheless noted the extremes they represented: countries with predominantly Western European lifestyles and countries where the lifestyles are indigenous to Melanesia and the Pacific. Only the North American and Latin American groups dispensed with such cautions and addressed directly their shared task of identifying the impact of sociological factors on religious life as they experienced it. Themes from the continental groups that seem worthy of special attention, whether for their singularity Review for Religious or their commonality, include gender issues; war, violence, and disease; globalization; aging, institution-alization, and rigid structures; and clear signs of new life among religious. Religious from every continent saw gender issues as adversely affecting contemporary religious life. Europeans referred to "the open question of gender" and felt that, "because of the sexual abuse and the impact on the mass media, consecrated life is reduced in energy and its ability to witness: a sense of desolation pervades and passion is suppressed." Asians underscored "male North Americans were succinct in ~their assertion that "the ~ ~,!sociology' within the church is-an obstacle to the passion for Christ and for humanity." domination in society and church" and "machismo and male domination" as sociological factors adversely affecting them. The African report alluded to the problem in rather oblique fashion by noting that "the idea of relations between men and women continues to be very much determined by the culture." North Americans were succinct in their assertion that "the sociology within the church is an obstacle to the passion for Christ and for humanity. The lack of inclusivity . . . results in feelings of displacement in the church, a sense of being marginalized by many, particularly in women's communities." Those from the Latin American (and Caribbean) continental group cited as important values "awareness of the processes of exclusion and the greater involvement of women." They felt they were being called to "generate a feminine 65.3 2006 Kennelly ¯ The 2004 Consecrated-Life Congress religious life with more involvement and responsibility for the building of a new history and a feminine consciousness-raising that challenges the machismo in society and in the church." The Oceania report minced no words in seeing as a problem the "public face of the church: powerful, antiwomen, and hypocritical." It came as no surprise that Europeans were the most forceful in pointing out the "aging of the population, the generation gap in religious life," and "rigidity in structures, even of consecrated life" as sociological factors with negative effects on religious life. In other words, they asserted that the passion of religious for humanity is blocked by the "way in which our structures are closed and in which we are closed towards the world of the laity." Less predictable was the echoing of this view by other groups. The Asians, for example, felt that institutionalization in their region had created a gap between them and the people, "especially the poor, who identify us with the rich," and that "religious structures have stifled the spirit and dynamism of religious life. The young feel restricted and their freedom hindered by structures the old always lean on." A similar concern shows up in the African report; it lists as negative aspects "the weight of tradition" and "a way of seeing authority at the level of leaders, a traditional conception which still dominates both society and religious life." This report speaks urgently of a need for reflection on consecrated life that is distinctly African, a need to find an African way of following Christ. Such thoughts question the worth of structures inherited from a colonial past. These concerns surfaced also in the Asian group, which considered it deplorable that "Asian religious have been uprooted from their rich culture." The report from Oceania, too, alluded to rigid structures when it asserted that "restorationism" in the church, Review for Religious while attracting people looking for security, has caused consecrated life to lose credibility as a radical commit-ment to justice. The Latin Americans saw sociological factors to be causes or occasions of religious being "tamed by the institution [of religious life], tired, with little hope, disenchanted, adapting, living in indifference, [possessing] little consciousness of [consecrated life's] own identity, of its own ability to search, [experiencing] great difficulty in having deep interpersonal relationships with others and with God." They offered the intriguing possibility of countering this loss of the prophetic and mystic elements of religious life by working with the "small utopias which act in favor of humanity and in collaboration with other ecclesial, intercongregational, and extraecclesial groups that search for the same reality/values/things." The impact had on contemporary religious life by war, other forms of violence, and disease was noted by every group but particularly by the Africans, who noted the prevalence of AIDS, malaria, and other diseases and the instability resulting from wars and ethnic and religious conflicts in that continent. "Violence is growing: it questions us," said the Europeans. Asians expressed serious concern over effects of war and violence, especially in the Middle East, and over the "rise of religious fundamentalism, resulting in communal violence." North Americans deplored the "normalization of violence" and what they perceived as its causes. All groups saw globalization as exerting a great influence on society and on consecrated life today. The Africans saw it--along with urbanization, unem-ployment, and migration--as contributing to poverty at various levels. They blamed it for "hindering a deep form 237 ,i 65.3 2006 Kennelly ¯ The 2004 Consecrated-Life Congress 238 of communication" and for contributing to a lack of reflection specifically on African consecrated life. Asians saw "elitist globalization" as having destructive effects on the poor and marginalized, on families, and especially on youth. Latin Americans described "neoliberal globalization" as destroying "what is particular to/in our countries," as especially damaging to young people, and as a spur to migration, with its multiple social dislocations. Oceania observed globalization as affecting the entire region-- countries indigenous in character and countries predominantly Western European--by widening the gap between rich and poor and "elevating greed to the status of a virtue." This summary of.the continental group reports, brief though it is, suggests a major accomplishment and a major flaw of the congress. Those present heard the voices of religious from every corner of the world with a wonderful immediacy and force. On the other hand, we simply did not have time for much dialogue of a more personal kind. Each of the continental reports, however, concluded with a very provocative section on signs of hope and of new life. Groups cited a growing sense of communion among congregations and between laypersons and religious, of the importance of personal relationships, of commitment, of community and of belonging, of greater interiority along with a lessened grip of institutionalism. Europeans made the arresting statement that secularization, despite its negative consequences, is also "causing us to love the world as it is with hope." Asians remarked that our times are ripe with opportunity: "As Asians in Asia, we have our own experience of God. By this, perhaps, we can contribute to the vitality, of religious life. It is time for rebirthing our institutes with our Asian Revie~ for Religious identity." Africans saw themselves as bringing to religious life the gifts of a deep sense of God and of the family which leads to sharing and attentiveness to one another. One young African, during the all-too-brief open microphone time in a plenary session, good-naturedly scolded his European elders for perceiving death for religious life in the future, whereas their "children" from other parts of the world, hoisted on the shoulders of their European parents, can see farther ahead to future life! North Americans ventured the opinion that aging could be looked upon as "saging," an opportunity to draw new life from the wisdom of the elderly. Diminishment, they thought, provides "a freedom to reshape religious life." Participants barely had the continental group reports in hand before moving on to topical discussions in groups ranging in size from six to over a hundred, depending on people's interests: ¯ Justice, peace, and the suffering of humanity. ¯ Inculturation--the embodiment of consecrated life in a culturally pluralistic world. ¯ Interreligious dialogue. ¯ The arts: imaging and expressing a new song. ¯ Mass media and the communication of values. ¯ Liberating the prophetic: solidarity in a world of exclusion. ¯ Liberating the prophetic: celibacy and life-giving relationships. ¯ Tilling the soil of Sacred Scripture. ¯ Thirst for God and the search for meaning. ¯ Ongoing formation for personal conversion and corporate transformation. ¯ Congregational culture. ¯ Community as mission. ¯ Partnership with the laity. ¯ Leadership and authority. ¯ The ecclesial dimensions of consecrated life. Although the time allocated for these discussions was brief, each topic was based on material in the working paper 65.3 2006 Kennelly ¯ The 2004 Consecrated-Life Congress 24:0 distributed well in advance of the meeting. Participants came prepared and were assigned their first choice among the three topics in which they had indicated interest before coming. As a result, they shared many thoughtful insights with one another; a summary appears in Passion for Christ, Passion for Humanity (pp. 237-241). Those of us present for the congress received the somewhat longer reports composed by group reporters on site. Some Conclusions For me, the challenge posed by the congress was at the time and remains today one of assimilation and communication. The rich papers presented by speakers, along with participants' voices as reflected in reports by the continental and topical groups, left our table of Listeners with the nearly impossible task of assimilating content and shaping it into a synthesis at the final session. Our summary, "What the Spirit Says Today to Consecrated Life," compressed into an hour's oral delivery the reflection and discernment that had absorbed us during the entire congress. Rather than repeat that synthesis (see PCPH, pp. 243- 255), I want to share what stand out for me a year later as the two most significant messages conveyed by this unique gathering. The first is that the Spirit is at work among us today, regardless of how old or young we are as religious, no matter how old or young our congregations, and no matter whether we come from north, south, east, or west. The second is that a contemplative approach is required of the members of our congregations if we are to discern what the Spirit is saying to us at this critical moment of our history, some forty years since Vatican Council II invited religious to renew their lives in the light of the gospel, their foundational charisms, and the signs of the times. Review for Religious The Spirit calls us to revive the enchantment, the passion, we had when we first responded, as congregations and as individuals, to Jesus' call to love God and our neighbor with all our heart. The Spirit calls us to personal and institutional renewal, to inculturation and to interreligious dialogue. The Spirit calls us to an inclusive attitude toward the laity, .and this, in turn, calls for new structures and a new language expressive of the inner reality Of our consecrated life. The Spirit calls us to esteem personal relations over structure, and to develop ourselves as religious capable of loving human relationships. We are called by Jesus to be passionate and to exercise ",~ and alfenation,of any kind. compassion toward others, particularly toward all who suffer the indignities of poverty, discrimination, and alienation of any kind. The congress experience brought home to me anew that we are living through, a period of vast and deep change in consecrated life--a sort of gestation period heavy with the promise of new birth. The seeds have been planted in good ground and are being warmed and watered by the life-bearing winds of the Spirit. We have only to tend the garden and pay attention with a discerning eye to the sprouts of new life lest we uproot them as noxious weeds.before they have a chance to flower and bear fruit. 6Y.3 2006 Kennelly ¯ The 2004 Consecrated-Life Congress Our congregations are being called to collaborate with the Spirit in bringing to birth the consecrated life of the future. It was apparent at the congress---its participants a cross section of more than six hundred congregations of women and men from all over the world--that the vision, the hopes, and the sense of urgency are widely shared. The modes of discernment and dialogue will necessarily differ from country to country, depending on culture and opportunity, but the desire for intra- and inter-congregational reflection and collaboration is present among religious in every continent. As a practical matter, I would urge congregations to take advantage of their forthcoming chapters to follow up on major themes explored at the congress. Chapters are periodically convened by every congregation; agendas and processes can readily be shaped to facilitate the kind of individual and corporate reflection we need and desire. Although successful use of this option is not without difficulties, it would seem to offer .the best chance for congregations to address the congress message in a timely way, and to seek the implications of that message for themselves. Clearly there are a few obstacles to surmount if we are to facilitate contemplative chapters that make good use of the theological and sociological perspectives offered at the congress. International congregations, whose members often constitute a microcosm of the multicultural 2004 gathering in Rome, in many cases still experience subtle Western attitudes that prevent the kind of dialogue modeled by the congress. Smaller local congregations may need to push beyond parochial concerns to help members achieve a broader vision and seek greater goals. But all must beware of a tendency toward activism, the preoccupation with doing rather than being that marks our contemporary world. Review for Religious Whether we come from large or small congregations, from apostolic, monastic, or contemplative "families" of religious; whether we can trace our history back for centuries or only a few years; and whether we are Americans, Europeans, Asians, Africans, or Oceanians, we are all called by the Spirit to use the congress and our own experience as a springboard to dive into the deep pool of Holy Mystery in which we religious live and move and have our being. It is for us at this crucial point in our history to delve deeper, to listen, to reflect, to dialogue, and to discern the spiritual realities of the life and mission we share as religious, to ask ourselves how we need to be if we are to do the works of persons passionate for Christ and passionate for humanity. Suggested Reading Passion for Christ, Passion for Humanity, Pauline Books and Media, 2005. Reflection/Discussion Questions 1. As I/we read the responses from the different continental groups regarding the future of religious life, which response gave me/us new insight and which response would I/we want to discuss further? 2. How can we take advantage of the "aging" of religious life members in our country to draw upon their wisdom ("saging') for our apostolic life and direction? 3. What practical steps do I/we need to take in order to adopt a more contemplative approach to listen to and follow the movements of the Spirit within our religious life context? 6Y.3 2006 RACHEL M. HARRINGTON A New Way of Meeting 244 Dissatisfaction with the timeworn chapter for-mula for the meetings of our congregation, the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, as an international congregation of pontifical right resulted in a mandate from the 2002 chapter for us, the newly elected congre-gational leadership team, to explore new ways of assem-bling that took account of our multicultural identity. The dissatisfaction focused on the number and variety of pro-posals submitted for chapter discussion, the abundance of paper generated before, during, and after each chapter, and the dominance of the Western cultural model for meeting and discussion. Canon law offers little help. In accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, it provides for each institute the right to establish its own legislation for chapters pro-vided this falls within certain norms. Our constitutions, approved in 1989, contain several articles and directives for conducting chapters, no more restrictive, we think, Rachel M. Harrington SNDdeN is a member of the generalate lead-ership team of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. Their address is Via Raffaello Sardiello, 20; 00165 Roma, Italy. Review for Religio~s than many, and certainly tried and tested and not lightly to be discarded. One suggestion, superficially attractive, was to separate the chapter of affairs from the chapter of elections. Our general treasurer pointed out a major flaw in this proposal: chapters are expensive meetings. So we continued to talk and dream. Our directives, or rather the traditional interpretation of them, provide for a "midchapter" meeting,, an inter-national gathering at the midpoint between chapters. Beyond prescribifig that at this time the congregational leadership and the provinces evaluate their implemen-tation of the constitutions, there are no further direc-tives. So, with some trepidation, we determined on this midchapter meeting as our chance to experiment. We decided to offer two sisters from each province the opportunity to experience a different type of gathering. We hoped to stimulate creative thinking to improve the next chapter in 2008. We began in May 2003 by writing a letter to each sister in the congregation, inviting her to respond to three questions. We based the questions on one of the constitutions from the section on chas.tity: Our celibacy, deepened and enriched by God's love and that of our sisters, bears fruit in a love which reaches beyond the limits of family, tribe, or nation. It enables us to be free to go wherever we may be called in the ser-vice of God's kingdom of justice, peacei and love. We asked each sister how she felt that this constitu-tion had been realized in her life and what helps or hin-drances our community had ,given her in reaching "beyond the limits of family, tribe, or nation." We encouraged sisters to respond alone or after group dis-cussion. To avoid burdening province leadership, we sug-gested that all responses be posted uncollated to the congregational leadership in Rome. We assembled an 65.3 2006 Harrington ¯ A New Way of Meeting We wondered how many sisters would take, the troublet~, respond to our lettel~/ and we were overwhelmed by the number Who dld).~ 246 international planning group to help us review the responses. Membership of such groups is often pre-dictable, so we made a point of inviting sisters without previous experience of working on international groups, and, instead of looking for organizational skills, we looked rather for a different order of talents. To our delight, all of the sisters whom we approached accepted our invitation. In October 2004 we met in Rome: an economist teaching in a Kenyan university, a patristic theologian from a British univer-sity, a psychologist from Peru, a theolo-gian from Congo, an artist-liturgist from Britain, a photogra-pher with poetic writ-ing skills from the United States, and a musical-artist-liturgist from Zimbabwe. On our own team we had two cultural anthropologists, from the U.S.A. and Congo, a biblical theologian from the U.S.A., an educationist from the U.S.A., and a canon lawyer from Britain. We needed to give very little thought to the selection of facilitators; we knew whom we wanted. Sister Gabrielle Stuart RSM and Sister Mary Harrington SUSC had run facilitation workshops for leadership in Rome, and we had benefited from their expertise. That they were free and willing to be with us in this experiment was a huge encouragement.1 Traditionally our chapters are held in the U.S.A. or Europe and our midchapters in Africa or Latin America. In 1998 the midchapter took place in Peru, and so we Review for Religious selected Kenya for 31 July to August 2005. We invited a British sister serving there to be the on-site coordina-tor and to attend the Rome planning meeting. We wondered how many sisters would take the trou-ble to respond to our letter, and we were overwhelmed by the number who did, almost half the congregation. Considering the many who were too old or sick, this was way beyond our expectations. We spent the first day of the meeting reading these responses, with a checHist of questions: How do I feel? What do I think? What sur-prised me? What delighted me? What became clearer? What shocked me? What insights did I gain? What ques-tions remain? Reading the responses moved us all deeply. Our sis-ters had responded sincerely, from the depths of their experiences as celibate women working for the poor in a variety of situations. Most acknowledged a deepening of their understanding of the call to religious life as they took risks and endured suffering, separations, rejections, and misunderstanding. All expressed gratitude for the years spent in the congregation and for the richness of life offered by membership in an international group. We compiled our reactions and, after much discus-sion guided by the facilitators, agreed upon a goal for the midchapter meeting: to enable participants to explore, express, celebrate, and live the goodness of God in a love which reaches beyond the limits of family, tribe, or nation. Our foundress, St. Julie Billiart, bequeathed to us the charism of striving to discover and become the very goodness of God in the world, and, as we read the responses of our sisters, we realized how much this was integrated into their lives. A statement made about Julie by a contemporary cardinal in Belgium, "A spark from out the heart of Christ fell upon the heart of a woman who knew how to believe and how to love," somehow 65.3 2006 Harrington ¯ A New Way of Meeting 248!I captivated our thoughts as we read, and we decided to use "Sparks from the Heart of Christ" as the theme of the midchapter meeting. With the facilitators' help, we sorted ourselves into four groups: theologians, social scientists, the "fire department" (the liturgists), and the planners. We drew up questions which, as a result of our reading, we felt needed to be answered, and then we allocated tasks to each group. Everyone with a relevarit area of expertise agreed to present a paper in Nairobi on that topic to stimulate discussion. From April 2003 we spent some time at leadership meetings--held once a year on the Continent and twice a year in the U.S.A.--talking about our hopes for the meeting and encouraging the provincial leaders to choose as representatives one sister from each province who had no previous international experience and was willing to "go with the process." We also wanted one member of each leadership team to attend, so that any implementa-tion or follow-up would proceed smoothly. Although we never used the word '~delegate," and although we stressed repeatedly that this was not a chapter and not a deci-sion- making meeting, not everyone heard this. Shortly after our October 2004 planning meeting, the congress "Passioh for Christ, Passion for Humanity" took place in Rome within walking distance of our gen-eralate. As well as welcoming many of the participants to our home, we were able to access the papers on the Internet in four languages and encouraged our sisters to do likewise. Unfortunately, Internet access across the globe varies considerably, and so not all were able to take advantage of this resource. Attempting to compen-sate for this, we excerpted a couple of passages from the working paper and suggested that sisters meet in groups to discuss how they experienced the charism of our con- Review for Religious gregation in the light of their reflections on these pas-sages. We encouraged those chosen as representatives to bring the fruits of these discussions to the meeting in Nairobi. We hoped that this task would keep interest alive in the proposed meeting and enable the represen-tatives to feel that they were coming prepared. The planning group assembled in Nairobi with the facilitators on 30 July 2005, the day before the others were due to arrive. By this time we had added our gen-eral secretary and the director of our mission office to the group. We held the meeting in the Dimesse Sisters' Centre in Karen-Nairobi. Contrary to our hopes, we were unable to move in until after noon on the day we had hoped to begin. One of our biggest problems, shared by all interna-tional congregations, is that of language. We had arranged local translators for . French and Spanish, but Flemish, Italian, Portuguese, and Japanese are more difficult to provide for, especially as only relatively few sisters speak only these lan-guages. People skilled in simul-taneous translation are expensive, and we also need others who can provide necessary written trans-lations fairly rapidly. We are con-stantly learning in this area and are extremely grateful to those sisters who, proficient in two languages, generously help in translating. We mar-vel at the patient endurance of those who spend days on end listening through earphones. In social situations, as well as during the sessions, many struggled heroically to communicate across the language barriers using gestures and the few words they could manage. We provided play- 65.3 2006 Harrington ¯ ~l New ~Va~ of Meeting ing cards, jigsaw puzzles, and games without words to encourage this interaction. We had invited sisters from Japan, Nigeria, the U.S.A., and Congo to help with translation and secre-tarial tasks, so altogether we numbered sixty. Every day a brief account of the meeting, composed by one of these, was sent out on our congregational Intranet in English, French, and Spanish. Access to computers was limited, but whenever they could most participants sent home enthusiastic accounts of their experiences. As we began the meeting, each province brought some "report" on their reflections about our charism; several of these were poetic or beautifully presented in visual form. During our sixteen days together we had an enormous variety of experiences, most of which involved sharing our thoughts and feelings about specific ques-tions with a sister from another culture. The facilitators guided us into these moments, which were often deep and moving, with rituals involving simple gestures, gen-tle dances, and repetitive chants celebrated around ever-changing focal points in the meeting room. As the days went on, art work created in the course of the meeting was displayed on the walls of our meeting room--pic-tures, words, designs, charts--all reflecting our moods, our perceptions of our province realities, problems we faced, questions that we raised. Over the course of the two weeks, one of our cul-tural anthropologists gave us an illuminating presentation on "unpacking culture"; the other spoke of how African myths speak of God's goodness. The theologians pre-sented talks on the goodness of God from their varied perspectives, as revealed in the Bible, in African forma-tion programs, in living religious life in Congo, and as expressed in community life in the 4th-century church. The psychologist talked on "Chastity: A Love Which Review for Religious Goes beyond the Limits." All were translated later and made available to the whole congregation. Our economist assembled three university lecturers who made brief presentations on Kenya's progress (or lack of it) towards the United Nations' millennium devel-opment goals in regard to health, education, and the environment. A fourth panelist, representing an organi-zation that works with nongovernmental organizations, spoke about the frustrations he faces in his work, where the ideal partnership between aid organizations and gov-ernments falls far short of being realized. The four stayed on for the whole morning to lead group discussions and answer questions. The sisters from each province also spoke about their ministries and tried to communicate the realities of their daily lives. Most moving were the testimonies from the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo and from Zimbabwe. When we had afternoons off, those who wished were taken in small groups to visit various pro-jects in housing and employment, schools (including the famous Starehe boys' school and its newborn sister school for girls), and the homes of people from Saint Mary and Joseph's, the parish where some of our sisters live and work. Other optional outings were to a safari park or to see Karen Blixen's (Isak Dinesen's) home, famous from the film Out of Africa. Two of the most memorable excursions were for Mass. On the first Sunday we went to Saint Mary and Joseph's, where we were welcomed in truly memorable fashion by the parish priest and by the "mother of the parish," who told us we were all their daughters. The dancing was led by small girls all attired in snowy white tee shirts advertising U.S. baseball teams. The choir was amazing and untiring, and the packed church sang along and swayed and clapped throughout the three-hour cel- 6Y.3 2006 Harrington * A New Way of Meeting ebration. The ladies of the parish had prepared dinner, so we moved the benches around to form tables and sat down to a lavish feast of beef stew, rice, and beans. On the second occasion we were hostesses to those who came to celebrate with us the opening of our novi-tiate in Langata, Nairobi, our fourth in Africa, and a real benchmark in the history of the province. We sat outside under awnings during the Mass celebrated by the bishop; afterwards the house was blessed and a flame tree planted. The meal, prepared outside in huge pots over open fires, was enjoyed by all. In the last days of our meetings, we focused on ques-tions that had arisen during our sharings, and we brain-stormed about how to prepare for the next chapter. During the closing In the. last~ days,(~our'tneet.in~s;~rz-~ we focused on"questio~.~ ~ . h.'afl:~[ ["~ arisen duringour shariftgs, ' and we brainstormed about how, to prepare for the°ne~.t:chapt~e~(.i~ to women after any meeting. We reverently and ceremoniously placed these artifacts on the floor around the centerpiece a mock fire, built around a candle, with sparkles scattered about. Then we were all invited to collect a prayer card and some sparkles and to light a candle from the cen-tral flame. To do this we had to walk toward the center and then away, through the spread-out paintings, pic-tures, charts, designs, and pre.sentations~a sort of sym-bolic acceptance of all that had taken place and been ritual we thanked all planners and participants. We removed the vari-ous artifacts we had displayed on the walls, per-forming the clear-ing- up ritual that is traditionally left Review for Religious shared over the previous two weeks and a commitment to carry the experience home. At the beginning of the meeting we had been reminded that in this meeting no decisions would be taken: we were there to experience what it means to belong to an international, multicultural, multilingual congregation. Nonetheless, some few in their evalua-tions expressed wonderings about the apparent lack of an agenda. We knew this was a risk. There was general dissatisfaction with the three celebrations of Mass which we had together during the meeting days--not the Sundays. Bringing in clergy, out of touch with what we were experiencing together, was felt to be artificial and awkward. Communion services led by ourselves might have proved more meaningful. Some found the days long and tiring. Most wrote that this had been a life-changing experience, creating bonds across cultures and languages, inspiring hope, and providing memories to last a life-time. The deep exchanges about cultural differences gave all of us new perspectives. Throughout we had been dependent on our two facil-itators, whose style pleased all but three of those pre-sent. Every day began with a review of the purpose of the meeting, of our hopes and concerns, and of the val-ues and behaviors we intended to live by during the meeting. After the morning ritual, there was a report on the questions raised, the previous day. At day's end we gathered in our "home groups" (the same multicultural group for the entire meeting), shared our day's experi-ences, and arrived at issues or questions for the coordi-nating committee to resolve. This committee, five members of the original planning group, met with the facilitators each day for forty-five minutes after the evening ritual, discussed the matters arising from the home groups, and planned the next day. When we eval- 65.3 2006 Harrington ¯ A New Way of Meeting uated our work, we realized thatthere were things we could have done differently and better. We had learned from our experience and from the feedback---another purpose of the meeting realized. The big anxiety of all present was how to communi-cate the fruits of the meeting to the sisters at home. We had papers and photographs, but these were two-dimen-sional, having meaning mainly for the participants. Carrying home fragile "sparks from the heart of Christ" challenges each of us to a new way of being, of believing, and of loving so that the sparks will ignite others and kindle new flames to spread the awareness of God's good-ness in all the events and circumstances of our lives. Note ' They can be contacted at GLOIR; 27 Catherine Street; Newry, Co. Down; BT35 6JG, Northern Ireland. E-mail: gloirinstitute@btopenworld.com Glass It's as if Benedict's single ray of light is scattered across the tables like loose jewels or a broken mirror. We sweep and pick through trays of glass, sharp bits of orange and yellow with a blue that's almost black until I hold it to the light, and I am full of a temporary completeness. Even the thunder seems gentle. Alicia Kleiman OSB Review for Religious ERNEST E. LARKIN Aspiratory Prayer, a Welcome Addition to Contemplative Prayer Aspirations (aspiratory prayer) were a treasure in' European Christianity in the late Middle Ages and one of the great legacies of the Touraine Reform in 17th-century France. This reform took place in "les Grands Carmes," the popu-lar name in France for the Carmelites of the Ancient Observance (OCarm). The style of prayer that goes by the name of aspirative or aspiratory prayer, or simply aspiration, is almost unknown in contemporary spirituality. The pre-sent article is a move to fill this lacuna and to suggest how the prayer of aspirations can con-tribute to the contemplative renewal of our times. I will first give an overview of the prayer in tradition and highlight its three outstanding proponents: the 13th-century Carthusian Hugh of Balma, the Franciscan Henry Herp (+1477), and the Carmelite John of St. Samson (1571- Ernest E. Larkin OCarm last wrote in our 64.4 issue (2005). His address remains St. Agnes Catholic Church; 1954 North 24th Street; Phoenix, Arizona 85008. 65.3 2006 Larkin ¯ Aspirator)/Prayer 1636). Finally I shall make some suggestions on how to revive the practice. What Is Aspiratory Prayer? Aspiratory prayer is a warm, human approach to God that is inexorably affective. It proceeds by way of fer-vent desires of the heart. It was considered a shortcut, a direct route, to intimacy and oneness with God. Its struc-ture is simple: frequent and intense desires breathed out to God. It has only one goal, union with God, so it ceases to have a role when mystical union is achieved. Aspirations are not the same as ejaculations, though they are like each other. E aculatory prayer.describes any to this prayer? ,.:Those and all brief prayers sent like darts to heaven for help, thanksgiving, adora-tion, or any other good motive. "My Jesus, mercy" is an ejaculation. Aspira-tions are only and always passionate desires or fer-vent acts of love of God. They are expressed in words or sighs or silence. "My God, I love you" is an aspiration. To aspire means to breathe out, with the con-notation of breathing hard after something. In aspira-tory prayer one breathes out heartfelt desires for God. It is yearning for God, like gasping for God. Aspiratory prayer is simple and focused, though in the beginning it may cover a wide sweep of emotions and feelings. Practice simplifies and unifies the faculties to give them a single thrust, much as the prayer of sim-plicity consolidates the multiple affections of affective prayer into a single attitude of loving presence. Aspiratory prayer sets the heart on one goal, divine Review for Reli~io~ union, and is a positive step in that direction. Not every-body can use it. It is not for beginners, but for those who have come to know God and themselves through Bible reading, reflection, and loving conversations with God. When a person has put her house in order and has come to love God in truth, she is ready for this prayer. For those who love God, it will become as natural as breathing. Catholic teachers in the past were sticklers in assign-ing different prayer forms to different stages of growth. The prayer of beginners was discursive meditation and affective prayer, that is, first much thinking and ~hen many affections. The next stage was contemplative, and it featured forms like simply looking at the tabernacle as in the Cur6 d'Ars' "I look at him and he looks at me," or today's resting in God in centering prayer, or saying the mantra as in Christian Meditation. Today we prob-ably pay less attention to the degrees of prayer, though we still honor them. Centering prayer and Christian Meditation have democratized contemplative prayer. Certainly some knowledge and love of the Lord is pre-supposed for contemplative prayer, but a little knowl-edge and love go a long way. Those who are comfortable with centering prayer and Christian Meditation will be at home with aspirations. Who, then, are called, to this prayer? Those who are fervent and serious about their relationship with God and have a great desire for intimacy with God. They are look-ing for the "more." The classical teaching placed the prayer in the illuminative way as part of the contempla-tive life. Two categories are involved here, and both are second stages: the illuminative comes between the purga-tive and the unitive way, and the contemplative life between the active and the mystical life. The three divi-sions correspond to beginners, the proficient, and the 65.3 2006 Larkin ¯ Aspiratory Prayer perfect. Active life has to do with external behavior, con-templative with inner prayer, and the mystical life with high sanctity. The purgative way is concerned with con-version and purification, the illuminative way with enlightenment, and the unitive with union with God. The three ways and their content are criticized today for being too dependent on Neoplatonic philosophy, the system that canonized the immaterial and denigrated the bodily.' Aspirative prayer rises above this controversy and in fact is a corrective against exaggerated spiritual-ism and minimizing the physical and bodily in the spir-itual life. Aspirations welcome and embrace the emotional and the sensible; these human qualities lead to the highest realms of the spirit. They move the experi-ence of God away from the intellectual and into the realm of affection and love.2 Aspiratory prayer comes out of the same tradition as centering prayer and Christian Meditation. The latter two are contemporary constructions from that contem-plative tradition, a development that aspiratory prayer has yet to find. But all three systems appeal to the same sources, the same authors, and even the same texts for their grounding and justification.3 This fact and their constant location in the middle stage of spiritual devel-opment argue to their commonality. Centering prayer and Christian Meditation seek silent presence and quiet resting in God. At the same time they are active prayer, rightly called meditation of a nondiscursive or contemplative type. They are not clas-sical contemplation in the sense of infused prayer, but are products of human effort and ordinary grace. Aspiratory prayer is obviously active in the same sense. It uses the language of intense, passionate love and expresses the yearning of the heart and delights to rest in the Lord. Review for Religious Aspiratory prayer is more than loving conversation with God. It expresses a strong act of the will that desires to experience God. So it is more than a t&e-a-t&e, even in the loving language of affective colloquy. The differ-ence is intensity. Affective prayer engages the feelings but in a diffuse way, whereas a strong will and urgent longings for intimacy dominate aspiratory prayer. Aspirations fit nicely into the perspectives and prac-tice of "love mysticism," which is a form of relating to God in spousal love. The language of spousal love is very human, amorous, and passionate. Its biblical source is the Song of Songs or St. John's Gospel, and it is a fre-quent feature in medieval women mystics and also in writers like St. Bernard or St. John of the Cross. Janet K. Ruffing has written a guide for the spiritual direction of those called to this way. She gives many examples of its language, one of which is the following conversation in Mechthild of Magdeburg, who says to God: "God, you are my lover, / my longing, / my flowing stream, / my sun, / and I am your reflection." And God replies: "It is my nature that makes me love you often, / for I am love itself. / It is my longing that makes me love you intensely, / for I yearn to be loved from the heart. / It is my eter-nity that makes me love you long, / for I have no end.''4 Aspirative prayer is not limited to spousal love. It is at home with a nonspousal love of God, which Janet Ruffing calls simply apophatic. The mysticism of the more matter-of-fact Cloud of Unknowing features whole-hearted love, often without obvious passion. In this lat-ter case the love is sublimated into disinterested love in a style of relationship that is reserved and controlled. Mystics in this pattern will practice their own brand of aspirations. Aspiratory prayer is thus a technical term, but it is not "one size fits all." Its normal form is sensible-spiri- 6~ .3 2006 Larkin ¯ Aspiratorg/Prayer 260[ tual love. For Henry Herp only this love qualifies as aspi-ration. For him its follow-up, which is pure spiritual love, is not aspiration, but unitive love. John of St. Samson, however, treats pure spiritual love as a form of aspiration, and for him this higher aspiration leads one into the furnace of God's love in transforming union. For both authors the will is the driving force for aspira-tions and for unitive love. In sensible-spiritual love the sensibility is the carrier, but the momentum comes from the will, which makes the love truly spiritual. Do not think that the practitioner lives on a perpet-ual high. The expression Of loving desires for God con-tinues in down days and dryness as much as in times of sweetness and sensible consolation. The feeling element is still there. It must be genuine, not faked or pretended or forced. Th~r~se of Lisieux is a perfect example of the expression of passionate desires of love for God in the darkest moments of life.5 There are degrees of the practice corresponding to the person's habitual love of God and the grace of the moment. John of St. Samson sees it as leading directly into a mystical expression, in which the Holy Spirit breathes out enflamed desires for God. His conditions for practicing this prayer are demanding. Persons who take up the practice must be mortified, humble, and self-effac-ing as well as robust in health. In his view aspirations go beyond the enthusiasm of a newly baptized Pentecostal or charismatic and belong to persons advanced in the love of God and on fire for the summit. The History and Theology of Aspiratory Prayer Aspiratory prayer flourished in the late Middle Ages in northern Europe, especially the Rhineland and France, from the 13th to the 17th century. At the time of the Touraine Reform, the practice was common in popular Review for Religious religious culture. Aspirative prayer appealed to the archi-tects of Touraine because they saw the practice as dove-tailing with their view of the goal of the Carmelite order, which was to live continuously in the loving presence of God.6 Intimations of aspiratory prayer are found in the New Testament, in St. Augustine and John Cassian, who were contemporaries, in St. Benedict and Guigo II, and in other early authors. The first to give aspirative prayer a central place in the spiritual life was Hugh of Balma, whose Tbeologia Mystica exerted wide influence, partly because it was thought to be the work of St. Bonaventure. Hugh of Balina taught the way of the heart, and aspira-tory prayer was its chief expression. First one must know one's weak self and the goodness of God, since anyone filled with self is unable to yearn for God. This knowl-edge prepares one to rise up to God in "anagogic con-templation." Anagogic contemplation means moving from crea-ture to Creator, from the text of Scripture to the living God, enflamed with desire and love. Such is aspiratory prayer. The love is both natural-spiritual and purely spir-itual, and God is the direct object. The love increases with the simplification and unification of the faculties until ultimately there is mystical union with the Trinity in the high point of the soul called the apex mentis. Henry Herp and John of St. Samson will pick up on these per-spectives and expand them with the help of Jan van Ruusbroec's theology (1293-1381). Hugh had many imitators, especially among the Carthusians, who promoted and developed this teach-ing so effectively that Everard Mercurian, an early gen-eral of the Jesuits, warned the Society about "the Carthusian method of prayer" for fear that its popular-ity would marginalize Ignatian prayer in Spain.7 The 6Y.3 2006 Larkin * Aspiratory Prayer 14th-century anonymous English text The Cloud of Unknowing is likely a Carthusian document, both because it can easily be interpreted as a full exposition of aspira-tory prayer and because its anonymous author may well be .a Carthusian.8 A number of familiar quotations from the book are obviously formulas of aspiratory prayer. Henry Herp OFM (+1447) Henry Herp wrote the first synthesis of the whole spiritual journey around the topic of aspirative prayer. His map is the structure of the soul as delineated by the great Flemish mystical writer Henry Herp wrote the first synthesis'of the~ around the topici of ~aspirativ~ prayer. : ~ o o Jan van Ruusbroec. The soul is three concentric circles, each of them representing a different level of human activity. Herp offers a detailed plan for moving through the outer two levels and arriving at the inner circle of highest union with the Holy Trinity. He lays down instructions for each of the phases of the journey, but his chief contri-bution is to show how aspirative prayer moves one through the middle circle. Ruusbroec calls the three circles "spheres" or "uni-ties," whereas Herp names them mansions or dwelling places like Teresa of Avila. The first is the region of the senses, the second that of the spirit, and the third the "fond" or ground, the dwelling place of the Holy Trinity. One must traverse each level to get to the center, and the way is introversion, a concept that goes back to St. Augustine. Herp calls it "ascension." Persons "ascend," that is, they are lifted up by a sweeping action that carries them through the given circle and toward Review for Religious the center; the searcher for God leaves behind the lesser level or part of it in favor of the higher one. This process of introversion means making the powers on each level converge toward the center. The activity of each level is collapsed into the next step. In this imagery the outer circle of exterior behavior is introverted into the mid-dle circle, and in the middle the lower faculties of the irascible and concupiscible appetites, and of reason and free will, are introverted into the spiritual faculties of intellect, memory, and will. These latter will finish the task and bring the soul into mystical union in the center. The introversion or ascension starts with the outer or exterior circle, which represents the active life. The means set down by Herp for this first introversion are "truth and compassion." Truth means understanding the goodness of God and the bankruptcy of the human, and compas-sion is appreciating God's love and attractiveness. The middle level is the field for aspiratory prayer and unitive love. Aspirations address the "interior infe-rior powers," especially the concupiscible appetite, which in Herp's view has a spiritual quality about it. Unitive love is exercised by the spiritual faculties. Understanding guides the process: hence the importance of regular med-itation and of the use of prepared ejaculations that recall the supreme attraction of God and serve to inflame the soul with love. The awakened will moves the sensory faculties to yearn for God, progressively spiritualizing the person for the work of unitive love, For Herp, uni-tive love takes over the task begun in the lower interior faculties. The acts of pure, unitive love finish the task of the introversion of the spirit level and open the way to the center. In the center the love is fruitive love. The contemplative way is left behind, and the soul now lives the "super-essential life" of oneness with the Trinity, a union that is not ontological but psychological. ¯ ,263 65.3 2006 Larkin ¯ Aspiratory Prayer Herp offers some good pastoral advice. The stages are to be addressed in order and none can be skipped. Basic conversion is presupposed for undertaking aspira-tory prayer, and that means an adult knowledge of God and one's self and the acquisition of the moral virtues. Aspiratory prayer begins with rote expressions of love and fervor. According to Herp, these feelings crescendo into what he calls an explosion of love, which has its own danger of entrapping the person in the delightful, sen-sible sweetness. The love is gradually purified and becomes the unitive love that will lead the soul into the center. Unitive love too undergoes its own purifications, and the follow-up experiences may be as dark and dry as the initial entry was exalted. The challenge at this point, as at every point in the spiritual life, is marginal-izing the self, that is, letting go of everything that is not God. The holy soul practicing spiritual love will con-tinue to work at the total gift of self to God, and its tasks are listed by Herp as self-offering, searching for God's will, letting God's love destroy all defects, and being united with God. John of St. Samson (1571-1636) John of St. Samson is an immensely important figure in the Carmel of the Ancient Observance. He was a mys-tic of profound experience, and, in spite of the blindness that afflicted him from the age of three, he was well edu-cated and well read, keeping in touch with currents of spirituality in the very rich 17th century. He has been called the French John of the Cross and is highly esteemed by religious historians like Henri Bremond and Louis Cognet. John of St. Samson lived a century and a half after Herp, but Herp's work was well known to him in the numerous Latin and French translations and in the Review for Religious plethora of spiritual writings that popularized aspiratory prayer. John of St. Samson became expert in the teach-ing of this way, building on Herp but adding his own points of view. There had been a lot of writing, but lit-tle development since Herp. After a careful comparison of the two authors, Canisius Janssen concludes that John's doctrine is Herp in a new packaging. "Certain things have been left out," he writes, "others developed; in short the whole has acquired a new face.''9 John belongs to the same Dutch school of mys-ticism as Herp, both of them appropriating the worldview of Ruusbroec. We come from God as created images in the Uncreated Word, and our life goal is to return to our place in the Word in full consciousness of our unity in God. The goal is put I ," bY engaging oi r feetings t " : and iemo.tions. I as well as'our spiriL rather abstractly as "the state of consummation of the subject in the Object" in a "union without difference or distinction." Such is the transforming union, in which the soul is caught up in the fire of the divine life. The way to the goal is introversion according to the same divisions as in Henry Herp, but with the adaptations in nomenclature. John is particularly eloquent is explaining how spir-itual love guides the whole process of introversion once aspirations become the way. Spiritual love is at the heart of sensible-spiritual aspirations, and it constitutes the spiritual aspirations that lead one into the center itself. Aspirations have the genius of putting our full humanity to work by engaging our feelings and emotions as well as 6~.3 2006 Larkin ¯ Aspirator)/Prayer 266 our spirit. Sensible love is the starter, and it houses the spiritual love in sensible-spiritual aspirations. When the aspirations become "more vigorous, more on fire, and more detached from sense," they are pure spiritual love. This spiritual love, with or without a sensible compo-nent, is the engine that drives the introversion process into the furnace that is God. Aspiration thus has a mystical quality in John, as is clear from the following quotation: Aspiration is not only an affectionate colloquy. ; that is what aspiration is born of and comes forth from. Aspiration, then, is an outpouring of the whole heart and spirit on fire with love. By it the soul quickly tran-scends itself and all of creation, becoming intimately united with God in the intensity of its loving expres-sion. Expressing itself quintessentially in this way, the soul transcends all tender, sensible, cerebral, and com-prehensible love, reaching by the vehemence of God's spirit and its own effort, not just any divine union, but a sudden transformation of its spirit into God. In the abounding and ineffable sweemess of God him-self lovingly embracing one's spirit, it transcends, I say, all familiar and intelligible love. This is the essence of aspiration, in itself, in its cause, and in its effect.1° Heart (that is, the sensibility) and spirit (that is, the loving will) are the framers of aspirations, and heart even-tually recedes in favor of pure spirit. In the beginning there will be multiplicity of thought and feelings, but with growth this richness will give way to ever increas-ing simplicity and a state of pure elevation in God. Intensity is of the essence, since only strong love can break the attachments of the faculties to their natural objects. Frequency is a necessary quality, since the goal is to make aspirations like second nature, as natural as breathing. Humility too is the essential underpinning of all true love. But in all these efforts balance and moder-for Religious ation must prevent any violence or excessive force. John of St. Samson, experienced spiritual director, has good advice on how to begin and how to grow in this beauti-ful practice, and his reflections will help us put our topic in perspective. Who are candidates for this prayer? The prayer is not for everybody. It is not for intellectuals or for shal-low people who live on the surface of things and whose fire burns up quickly like straw. It is for generous souls of strong will who are concerned about their interior life. When to begin? Brother John sees aspirations as a higher form of prayer; hence he is hesitant to promote it indiscriminately. Aware of the dangers of too much emo-tionality as well as its necessary predispositions, he coun-sels against beginning the prayer prematurely. Strain and force must be resisted lest there be physical or psycho-logical harm. It is necessary to guard against a too san-guine assessment of one's love of God. The apostle Peter felt a great love for Jesus that led to presumption and his denial of Jesus in the courtyard. John's basic condition for the practice is a mortified life. He fears the unguarded attraction of the sweetness of this love. So he writes: "To begin this exercise it is absolutely necessary to die to ourselves, to humble ourselves, and to be self-effacing (mepriser)."llJohn is probably thinking of his own novices and their year of novitiate whenhe writes that candi-dates for this prayer should have spent "a good year" in discursive meditation and affective prayer before taking up aspirations. He also warns newcomers that begin-nings will be troublesome, even painful, but practice makes perfect and easy. The process of introversion follows Herp detail for detail. Like Herp, John of St. Samson is lyrical in his descriptions of the outcome of introversion, which is 65.3 2006 Larkin ¯ Aspiratory Prayer entrance into "the marvelous effects and the spiritual inebriation" of touching the fond or ground of one's being, where the Holy Trinity dwells and the essential union with God takes place. This mystical state is trans-formation in the fire that is God. Aspiratory Prayer in Contemplative Life Today It remains to suggest ways in which this body of teaching can be put into practice in today's contempla-tive setting. A first step, and one that is often presented in the literature, is to connect aspirations with the practice of the presence of God. This means to murmur aspirations frequently during the course of the day to remind one-self of the presence of God and to offer up the present task. This is one application in The Carmelite Directory of the Spiritual Life by John Breninger OCarm and in the works of his student Kilian J. Healy OCarm.~2 A second application is to introduce aspirations into one's daily meditation in whatever form that takes. This will be an affective addition in the nondiscursive medi-tation of Christian Meditation, which features the mantra "Maranatha." The mantra itself could be the vehicle expressing love and desire. Bringing aspiration into cen-tering prayer may be a bit more difficult, since this prayer eschews thinking and emoting. Aspirative prayer may be disruptive of the silence of centering prayer. Perhaps aspirations that are expressed without words and in silence can be a friendly addition and add warmth and fervor to centering prayer. A third way to practice aspirations in one's daily prayer is to structure it much like the two disciplines of contemplative prayer. Periods of aspiratory prayer could be cultivated each day, twenty minutes to a half hour in length, with the whole time given over to aspirations. Review for Religious The aspiration could be a mantra, one phrase repeated over and over again, or it could be spontaneous expres-sions of love and desire. The single mantra may be more compatible with the contemplative nature of the prayer than multiple expressions. Whatever the exact structure aspiratory prayer will take, it will usually be prefabricated and perfunctory in the beginning. But it soon becomes part of one's approach to God in mental prayer. Hopefully it will bring the rich rewards promised by the tradition. Notes ~ Philip Sheldrake, Spirituality and History (New York: Orbis Books, 1995), pp.186-189. 2 Aspiratory prayer is more at home with the language of love than with the Greek categories of contemplation. The literature of the Touraine Reform seems to prefer the evangelical language. One of my esteemed Carmelite teachers and mentors over a lifetime, whose life and studies were dominated by Touraine, frequently showed annoyance at the ambiguities of the vocabulary of contemplation. He preferred to speak of "love" and "loving" as the true measure of prayer rather than dif-ferent forms of "contemplation" or "contemplative." Instead of describ-ing Carmelite life as "contemplative," he preferred the simple word ,prayerful." I interpreted his attitude as a reflection of the viewpoint of Touraine. 3 Canisius Janssen OCarm surveys the sources of aspiratory prayer in the first of two excellent articles on the history and theology of aspira-tory prayer, "Oraison aspirative chez Herp et chez ses pr~d~cesseurs," Carmelus 3 (1956): 19-48. It lists the sources of this prayer in earlier times before its first major exponent, Henry Herp. These sources turn out to be the same texts cited in studies on the roots of centering prayer and Christian Meditation. An example of the latter is Robert W. Ginn's defense against critics, "Centering Prayer: Reviving the Ancient Christian Tradition in Modern Times," a manuscript dated 5/26/05 and circulated by Contemplative Outreach. Janssen's second article is titled "L'oraison aspirative chez Jean de Saint Samson," Carmelus 3 (1956): 185-216. I wish to express my gratitude for these two studies and my indebtedness to them in the formation of the present paper. 4 Spiritual Direction: Beyond the Beginnings (New York: Paulist, 2000), pp. 9-10. Christian mystics from Origen on applied the imagery of the Song of Songs to their relationship with God. St. Th~r~se of Lisieux 65.3 2006 Larkin ¯ Aspiratory Prayer belongs to this group, and a dominant feature of her prayer was aspira-tion. See Romero de Lima Gouvea OCarm, "Vivre d'amour: la pri~re aspirative chez Th~r~se de l'Enfant Jesus (1873-1897)," Carmelus 47 (2000): 19-40. s See Ernest E. Larkin OCarm, "The Little Way of St. Th~r~se of Lisieux," Review for Religious 59 (September-October 2000): 507-517, at 514-515. 6 The Touraine Reform is not as well known as its counterpart, the Discalced Reform begun by St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross in 16th-century Spain. Touraine began in Brittany in northwest France in the next century. Like the Discalced Reform, it was a radical return to the primitive spirit of the order. Unlike the Discalced Reform, Touraine did not become juridically separated from the old order, but remained in the trunk and spread to every province as the "strictior observantia." See Kilian J. Healy OCarm, Methods of Prayer in the Directory of the Carmelite Reform of Touraine (Rome: Institutum Carmelitanum, 1956), pp. 15-2 i. 7Janssen, Carmelus 3, p. 27. s This is the conclusion of James Walsh SJ in his introduction to the Classics of Western Spirituality edition of Tbe Cloud of Unknowing (New York: Paulist, 1981). 9 Janssen, Carmelus 3, p. 210. ~°Jean de St. Samson, L'dguillon, les flammes, les fl~cbes, et le miroir de l'amour de Dieu, in Oeuvres completes I, edition critique par Hein Blommestijn (Rome: Institutum Carmelitanum, 1992), p. 98. Aspiration donc n'est pas seulement un colloque affectueux. ; c'est d'icelui que nait et procede l'aspiration. Aspiration donc est un poussement amoureux, enflamm~ de tout le coeur et l'esprit; par lequel l'ame surpasse pronte-ment elle mesme et toute chose cre~e, s'unissant ~troitement ~ Dieu en la vivacit~ de son expression amoureuse; laquelle ainsi .Essentiellement exprim6e, surpasse tout amour sensible, raisonnable, intellectuel et con-prehensible; arrivant par l'impetuosit6 de l'esprit de Dieu et de son effort, ~ l'union de Dieu, non tellement quellement, mais par une soudaine transformation de l'esprit en Dieu. L'esprit, dis-ie, surpasse en lui m~me tout l'amour connessable et intelligible en l'abondante et ineffable suavitd de Dieu mesme, auquel il est amoureusement englouti. Voila que c'est que l'aspiration Essentielle en elle m~me, sa cause et son effet. (The passage is cited by Janssen in the article on John of St. Samson, p. 195. The translation has been made from the text in the c.ritical edition cited above.) li Janssen, Carmelus 3, p. 204. 12 The translation of the Directorium Carmelitanum was made from the Latin by Leo J. Walter OCarm (Chicago: Carmelite Press, 1951). See Review for Religious also Kilian J. Healy, Walking with God (New York: Declan X. McMullen, 1948), reprinted as Awakening Your Soul to the Presence of God (Manchester, New Hampshire: Sophia Institute Press, 1999); see also his chapter in Methods of Prayer, pp. 60-75. Reflection Questions 1. What have I learned about aspiratory prayer as I have read Larkin's article? 2. How might I begin to make aspiratory prayer a daily part of my prayer life? Growing Old The new hearing aid magnifies sounds I've not heard for years and discover I haven't missed. It is not my ears that hear the call to live the soul's desire. I can see tiny print with trifocals but not the messages in everything. I can no longer storm heaven's gates, have lost the need to do so. I am learning to wait gracefully with gratitude for them to open from inside. I am preparing to accept the invitation to eternity. "Growing old" begins with growing. Bonnie Thurston 6~.3 2006 PHILIP SHAN0 "Repose Days" during the Ignatian Exercises A few words by St. Ignatius Loyola in the Contemplation of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (§§91-98) have been .understood to refer to "repose days." 1 Ignatius says, "This exercise [the kingdom] should be gone through twice during the day, that is, in the morning on rising and an hour before dinner, or before supper" (§99).2 George E. Ganss SJ describes this day as "a transitional day of relative repose with only two peri-ods prescribed." 3 It is Ignatius's introduction to the rest of the retreat. In a note Louis Puhl SJ says Ignatius's words show that the "kingdom" day is a "day intervening between the First and Second Weeks.''4 In this study we will look at the historical roots of the contemporary notion of repose days in the hope of raising some ques-tions for spiritual directors to discuss in their planning of Twentieth Annotation (thirty-day) versions of the Spiritual Exercises. Philip Shano SJ is novice director and superior at the Jesuit Novitiate of the North American Martyrs; 1035 Summit Avenue; St. Paul, Minnesota 55105. Review for Religious An early historical reference to a repose day comes from the directory of Father Juan Alfonso de Polanco, Ignatius's secretary. Polanco's directory, completed years after Ignatius's death, is generally considered the finest of those which preceded the official Directory in 1599, pre-sumably because of his closeness to Ignatius. Polanco says of this day during the retreat: "When it is time for the exercitant to move on, he should be allowed to catch his breath by giving him the meditation on the kingdom of Christ to be made twice, once in the morning and once in the evening. On that day nothing else should be given. Then, toward evening, he should be given the exercise on the incarnation to be made the next day at daybreak.''5 Note, the retreatant "should be allowed to catch his breath." Similar words are used in later directories--"as he catches his breath for a bit.''6 An anonymous direc-tory dating from the 1580s speaks of the retreatant tak-ing "a rest from his exertions until evening.''7 The directory of Father Gil Gonzfilez Dfivila, from about 1587, says the retreatant "should rest., without being given the usual load of exercises. He may, however, occupy himself with some easy meditation suited to'this time.''8 Finally, the "Official Directory of 1599" brings together some of the earlier directories: "After their gen-eral confession and Communion, those planning to con-tinue the Exercises beyond the First Week should take at least a day's rest from the intense labor of meditation. However, in the meantime they can think over and apply to themselves the parable of the Prodigal Son or some-thing similar. Moreover, they should be given a prepa-ration for their Communion so that they will approach it with reverence, faith, and spiritual relish. They should be given some suitable meditation for this.''9 A present-day handbook for directors of the Spiritual Exercises suggests that, in order to deepen the grace of 65.3 2006 Sbano ¯ "Repose Days" during the Ignatian Exercises the First Week, it is important to have a day of easier presence to the Lord. "The desirable thing is simply to enjoy the day with the Lord, rejoicing in his love and praising him. This time precedes the meditation on the Call of the King, and it is not a break day. Some directors refer to the day that separates any two major sections of the Exercises as a ¯ - break day. Others call it a day of repose. Whatever the words used, this day provides time for transition from one empha-sis to another. It usually includes . some relaxation ~ ~- from the intensity of the retreat . Relaxing after the First Week and preparing to enter the Second Week, the retreatant con-siders the material in one prayer period before taking the break and another at its conclusion.''1° It is clear from early directories that the idea was to give the exercitant a pause and then, later that same day, to resume the usual rhythms of the retreat. Considering that Ignatius is known for attentiveness to every detail of a retreatant's life, it is my assumption that he did not see any problem with having repose days. Considering that the Exercises were generally given to individuals, it is furthermore my assumption that repose days were dis-cerned together by the director and the retreatant with a view to the retreatant's particular needs at that juncture. That is, director and reteatant were not ruled by a cal-endar date set for the convenience of someone or some Repose days becom important intensity relievers during anyone's Twentieth Annotation experie de of the Spiritual Exercises. group. Review for Religious Repose days become important intensity relievers dur-ing anyone's Twentieth Annotation experience of the Spiritual Exercises, an experience where "the exercitant withdraws from all friends and acquaintances, and from all worldly cares" (~20). These days fit into the Exercises as helpful pauses. They are not a move away from the retreat, but an approach to it from a different angle. In his look at the kingdom, William Peters sJ observes a number of stylistic differences (this "strangely structured exercise") from the other exercises. He sees "Ignatius's rather exceptional way of proceeding" here as a part of Ignatius's intention that "the retreatant is given a day of rest, of repose, a day to recuperate after the strenuous efforts of the First Week." 11 Peters's view on the place of the "rather gentle consideration" of the kingdom exercise within the entire retreat downplays the kingdom.12 He sees the "transition" day as revealing Ignatius's real pur-pose, namely, "the relationship between the unfaithful courtier and his king." 13 For Peters, the exercise is a low-key consideration, destined for a day of repose. Most directors of the Spiritual Exercises include one, two, or three repose days in the structure of the retreat. Days of repose are an integral part of the Twentieth Annotation retreat. On these days, being with the Lord interiorly and yet dealing with some ordinary aspects of life has an intensity that affects retreatants. The repose "day" is a period of the retreat (several hours ideally) when one steps back from the four or five periods of prayer that are normally recommended to retreatants. On a day of repose, individuals take a break or a "pause" from their normal retreat activity. When the retreat involves a group, the day might involve a common out-ing, a picnic or something similar. It does not mean that retreatants do not pray that day. The repose day is a break from the intense prayer of the retreat mode--noth- 65.3 2006 Sbano * "Repose Days" during the Ignatian Exercises 276 ing more. That break from intensity is important. The retreatant may not feel the need for a break, but spiritual directors can perceive from their vantage point that a break is essential for the person, especially if they have prayed with matters of great importance in their lives. In a few cases, individuals make the Spiritual Exercises on their own, meeting daily with their spiritual director. More commonly, individuals make their indi-vidual retreats in a group (at a spirituality center, as a class of Jesuit novices, and so on). Exercitants experi-ence repose days differently when they are alone or in a group. Those making their retreat on their own take a break from the usual prayer pattern, but they may or may not interact with others (such as the host commu-nity, their family, or their religious community). What is crucial is the pause from the intensity of the retreat. On the other hand, those making individual retreats within a group are ipso facto doing more than taking a pause. They are interacting with other retreatants, per-sons who are experiencing diverse spiritual movements. Whether intended or not, such repose days contribute to the good of community-building. Before the repose day, savvy directors ask retreatants not to compare retreat experiences during the repose day, but to restrict their communal conversation to "safe" topics: comical moments they had together, favorite or least favorite meals, the weather, and so forth. Inevitably, however, many make comparisons during that day. "Why is that young man so enthused and gung ho about his experi-ence? Why is that woman so serious and intense about hers? What's wrong with that man who seems so dour and sad? Why does that older man seem so self-assured and so clearly ahead of me?" Regardless of how many times the directors point out that there is no "ahead" or "behind" in the spiritual life (it operates on God's time!), Review for Religious retreatants, especially those in the midst of many interior movements, tend to quantify and measure their spiritual life. Competition in life is not always explicit; often it is beneath the surface. Hardly realizing it, retreatants may ask themselves, "Why am I so blas~ compared with that person's energy and zeal? Why am I so slow compared with that person's apparent pace? Thank God I'm not as disengaged as that person seems to be!" Competition readily occurs whether we recognize it, acknowledge it, give words to it, or not. A common date for a repose day for an entire group of retreatants results from the pace and structure of life today: the calendars of all the spirituality-center workers, all the directors, and all the retreatants and the desire to "make sure it all works out neatly." Whether the directors feel that their retreatants are ready for the repose day or not, the general pattern 6 n n[date or la repqye daY for an entire group of retre tants i r"esuits f orn pace ¯and stru tureoflife today. is to give them all a repose day together and then to work around the movements it causes or interferes with. For Ignatius, the spiritual life was marked by spiritual movements. Whether consolation or desolation or ambi-guity, there is movement. That movement requires dis-cernment. That is why he included so many rules for the discernment of spirits in his text, so many details that seem obsessive to the casual reader. Retreatants in a state of serious prayer are already shaped by movements and stirrings. On a repose day with other retreatants, they will inevitably "breathe in" other persons' movements, regard-less of their director's instructions. They have a way of being almost "allergic" to the movements of others. 65.3 2006 Stsano ¯ "Repose Days" during the I~natian Exercises 278i In twenty years of directing the Spiritual Exercises, I have rarely encountered an aware and prayerful per-son who returned from a repose day without being moved interiorly in some way. How do retreatants and their directors discern these movements? Many retreatants can acknowledge the movements and get back to the business of the retreat. Others get "hooked," whether on consolation or desolation. It may be a momentary enthusiasm or aggravation or, on the other hand, a movement that goes to the very heart of who the person is. A wise director needs to be attentive to this and find ways to deal with it head-on. One wants to ensure that the movement does not interfere with the significant movements that Ignatius is seeking in the discernment of the Second Week. Sometimes it is movement that is important to the per-son's prayer, for instance, an insight into a way of pro-ceeding in relationships. Sometimes it is an unhelpful distraction, taking the person "off course" with a con-versation about church or state politics. Many directors fail to ask enough questions about the repose day and its movements in people. They may say to themselves, "Well, both of us have had a good break and now we can move on to the Second Week," and fail to find any deeper meanings in it. Ignatius would want some probing, as he implies in the Sixth Annotation .when he urges directors to ask about the supposedly peripheral aspects of the day (§6). The day of r.epose may easily have caused the retreatant to go into a tailspin, one that could last for several days. Directors who are unsavvy may assume all kinds of reasons for the discouragement, tepidity, or lethargy. The reasons could be much closer to home. The movement could, indeed, reveal important aspects of how God is working with the person. It could also be a move-ment that distracts the person from the ways of God. Review for Religious Communal interaction is good, but, like any "good," it needs to be discerned. One can easily be deceived by its seeming goodness, but sometimes the movement on a repose day can be advantageous to a retreatant. The woman who was apathetic or tepid up till then may com-pare herself with others and realize that she has to get more serious about the spiritual life and her patterns of prayer. The man who was too intense and racing may real-ize that he needs to be more discreet, deliberate, and paced about his prayer. I refer to these movements as "the grace of the repose day." It can spur a tepid person or slow down a fast-paced person. But there can also be serious disad-vantages. What if the movement is artificial? What if the movement from the repose day interferes with movements that were already going on in a person's prayer? What, then, are some of the things that wise and cun-ning spiritual directors need to be aware of when they direct individuals of a group making a retreat, one that includes repose days that may come along at times that are inconvenient to their retreatants' natural movements? First and most essential is the need for discernment. Directors should not think that they are wasting their time, but that they are helping.the exercitant to appro-priate the repose day's meaning for their prayer. Many directors recommend, or even guide retreatants through, an examen of consciousness to discern exactly what the repose time included: life-giving or life-draining con-versations, feelings of gratitude or impatience, of hope or ennui. Quite often the fifth rule (§3 3 3) of the Rules for the Discernment of Spirits for the Second Week is men-tioned. There Ignatius has the retreatant look at the whole course of events pertaining to a spiritual move-ment-- the beginning, middle, and end. Perhaps the exercitant can be asked to read other Rules for Discernment as well. 65.3 2006 Sbano * "Repose Days" during the Ignatian Exercises A second thing regarding a scheduled day of repose for the individuals of a group is that some individuals are ready for that repose day and some are not. If all make it, comparisons will be made regardless of directors' urging not to make them. Directors should ask them-selves, "Should this particular retreatant do the repose day or not? Considering where the person is, will a repose day help or hinder the movements he or she is experiencing?" We can easily be caught by "groupthink" and assume that a ~ o. ~ :' .~.'~ person should havea ,question ~ repose day simply " ~ because the calendar lists it for the conve-nient operation of the retreat center. The truly discerning question is whether or not the individual is ready for a breather. For the per-son who takes part in the repose day (or does not), what instructions should be given? I would recommend not giving the retreatant a repose day just because everyone else is doing it. Directors should ask, "Will this retreatant benefit from the repose day?" The Spiritual Exercises are for the retreatant. Retreatants should not have to bend to accommodate themselves to the schedule of the spirituality center or the team of directors. Third is the structure and length of the repose day. The early directories do not give the impression that there Was a full day of repose. Yet the increasingly common practice is to lengthen the day and perhaps forgo the daily direction period. Teams of directors need to ask carefully what they will suggest for the day. One retreat center's Web site says that a repose day is a good day for an out-ing to a local mall. The cynical mind would see this activ- The truly disce?nihg is whether ,or not the individual is ready for.a breather. 280 Review for Religious ity as giving the retreatant suitable prayer material for the Two Standards meditation coming in just a few days, as if retreatants do not have enough data already. Another director might wonder what a trip to a mall could offer someone who is praying for poverty and the Third Degree of Humility. The length of the day also requires team dis-cussion and discernment. What is the right length--for time to breathe but not go into a tailspin. The practice of repose days is often taken for granted. Directors and teams do not ask enough questions about it. The aim of this article has been to encourage ques-tioning. Notes ~ This note on "repose days" was inspired by three Jesuit novices whose retreat I directed. By their experiences, openness, and questions, Vincent Strand nSJ, Brian Rademacher nSJ, and Christopher Krall nSJ never stopped quietly calling me to move forward in faith. I offer them these words in gratitude. 2 Spiritual Exercises, §99. Unless noted, all quotations to the Exercises are from the translation by Louis J. Puhl SJ, The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1951). 3 George E. Ganss SJ, The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius: A Translation and Commentary (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1992), p. 159. 4 Puhl, p. 177. s Number 62 in "Directory of Juan.Alfonso de Polanco," in Martin E. Palmer SJ, On Giving the Spiritual Exercises: The Early Jesuit Manuscript Directories and the Official Directory of I Y99 (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1996), p. 131. The Latin text is: "Peracta confessione generali, cum ulterius progrediendum est, ut respiret qui exercetur, meditatio de regno Christi ei proponetur, quae bis fiet, mane scilicet et vesperi; et pro illo die alia non proponantur; deinde sub vesperam Exercitium incar-nationis proponetur, postridie faciendum in aurora." 6 Number 81 in "Directory of Father Antonio Cordeses," in Palmer, p. 275. 7 Number 60 in "A Short Directory for Giving the Society's Exercises Effectively," in Palmer, p. 212. ~ Number 87 in "The Directory of Father Gil Gonz~ilez Dgvila," in Palmer, p. 250. 65.3 2OO6 Sbano * "Repose Days" during the Ignatian Exercises 9 Number 140 in "The Official Directory of 1599," in Palmer, p. 318. 10 Marian Cowan CSJ and John Carroll Futrell SJ, The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola: A Handbook for Directors (Denver, Ministry Training Services, 1981), p. 69. 11 William A.M. Peters SJ, "The Kingdom: The Text of the Exercise," Way Supplement 18 (Spring 1973): 9. ~2 Peters, pp. 16 and 11. ~3 Peters, p. 13. 282] Tinsel in August Scraps of it, in the evening grass, Left over from last Christmas's tree Dragged by its stump to its shreddedness, Casting garlands and crowns on its path, Still catch moon-sparks - like the cat With tinsel eyes, going forth into night With glitter afoot from May's prom-party Dress, and June's wedding gown, that drifted Crystal and spangles over the family pets, Over carpeting, over dancers and through cracks In the house. Overhead now, the tinsel Of summer stars slowly shreds with the sullen Advance of thunder and sheet-tinsel garlanding Horizons far to the West. Cat-tag tinseling, Lucifur comes home wet from his tryst. Nancy G. Westerfield Review for Religious CHARLES P. FARRAR Gerard Manley Hopkins's "Lantern out of Doors": A Contemplative Response to Loss Seometimes the clearest way to describe an experi-nce is metaphorically. When an experience is unique and mysterious, we link it to something more common to make it more understandable. According to its Greek roots, metaphor means "to carry across." A well-conceived metaphor carries meaning across from one plane to another, thereby elevating the reader's con-sciousness. Metaphors have always been effective in the deft hands of writers of good spiritual theology: they suggest insights about God. The English Jesuit Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) was a master of the spiritual metaphor. His poems' everyday images elevate readers' minds to fresh spiritual understandings. In the follow-ing sonnet a lantern conveys the experience of loss. Charles P. Farrar works as a hospital chaplain in Detroit. His address is 1930 Piper Drive, apt. 204; Rochester Hills, Michigan 48307. 65.3 2006 Farrar ¯ Lantern out of Doors 284, The Lantern out of Doors Sometimes a lantern moves along the night. That interests our eyes. And who goes there? I think; where from and bound, I wonder, where, With, all down darkness wide, his wading light? Men go by me whom either beauty bright In mould or mind or what not else makes rare: They rain against our much-thick and marsh air Rich beams, till death or distance buys them quite. Death or distance soon consumes them: wind V~at most I may eye after, be in at the end I cannot, and out of sight is out of mind. Christ minds: Christ's interest, what to avow or amend There, dyes them, heart wfnts, care hfunts, foot f611ows kfnd, Their rfnsom, their rescue, find first, ffst, last frMnd.1 The metaphor here, developing gradually through the two quatrains and the first tercet, is wonderfully subversive. What we think is a lyrical reflection about an ordinary event surprisingly turns out to be much more. The speaker leads us from a concrete observation (a nighttime lantern moving through the speaker's vision), to a more abstract observation about how the lives of beautiful people "go by" him until they disappear from view. What Hopkins is "carrying across" is the striking similarity between the way nighttime travelers pass by on the road and the way peo-ple come and go in our lives. But that is not all. In the last tercet he carries us to another plane of meaning, making a beautiful Christological statement: that Christ can do something which we cannot. He can keep up loving friendships with all those people whose departure from our lives had sad-dened us. This metaphor has carried us contemplatively from an everyday observation to--presto!--the healing of that sadness of ours. Review for Rdigious The first line and a half moves smoothly enough. Then we are jarred by "who goes there?" Suddenly the speaker becomes aware that the moving lantern implies a person. In lines 3 and 4 he drifts into a reverie about the whence and whither of the person "wading" like a lantern through a sea of darkness. All he knows of the person are the few moments of light present amid o.bscurity. The second stanza reflects on the beauty of certain people in the speaker's life, whether physical or internal beauty ("in mould or mind"). Such people are "bright" and "rare," like lanterns in the dark, like "rich beams" that "rain" against the "marsh air" of our mundane life. Notice how subjective this is. He is not primarily describ-ing the beauty in these people or the brightness in the lanterns. Rather he describes how these qualities affect him. (In this way Hopkins follows the tradition of Romantic poets like Wordsworth, Keats, and Rilke.) Consequently, when in line 8 these people leave the speaker's ken by "death or distance," they, for all intents and purposes, cease to exist. The word "quite" in line 8 seems to mean "completely." They disappear com-pletelyJhow tragic! The next tercet (lines 9-11) is a bit twisty to under-stand. And appropriately enough, for the action is the speaker's vain effort to keep these people in view as they go down a winding, twisting road. The Hopkins scholar Peter Milward says: "How eagerly soever he follows the winding steps of such men as they recede into the dark-ness, he cannot 'be in at the end'--that is, follow their subsequent history to its end.''2 The speaker concludes this thought with the clich6"out of sight is out of mind"--as though he is too numb emotionally to come up with a fresh phrase. We cannot help being struck by the loneliness of all this. The poem tells us nothing about these beautiful 65.3 2006 Farrar ¯ Lantern out of Doors The poem tells us nothi 2,861 lantern-like people. It does not reveal any empathy toward them; there is no relationship here. All that mat-ters is how the speaker feels: he sees them as "interesting," "beautiful," "bright," and "rare," and his seeing falls short. It seems he is psychologically trapped inside his own emotions. Notice how, for emphasis, Hopkins chimes the "I" sound three times in: "I about" thkse behut l may eye after, be in at the ¯ "~"~v~,~ia'tern*liv°'~a'i~ ~,,, end / I cannot." To find any happiness, he must be rescued from this solipsistic sighing. The rescue comes quickly in the last three lines. Simply by the sound of them, the reader senses that the speaker's mood has picked up. Thanks to Hopkins's "sprung rhythm," it all bursts to life sis-boom-bah. After lamenting that the beautiful persons disappear from his own mind, the speaker quickly adds that in Christ's mind they live on. Christ, too, is "interested" in those beauti-ful people, but his interest is objective, not subjective. He is interested, not in his feelings about them, but in their welfare. He never fails to "avow" all that is good in them, and he works to "amend" whatever they fail in. The words "~yes them, heart wfints, care hfiunts, foot f611ows kind" run together breathlessly,3 demonstrating an urgency of concern. This urgency, however, comes, not from last-ditch hopes groping in the darkness, but rather from the desire of Christ's heart. It comes from Christ's unconditional interest in them, not because of some particular beauty in them, but simply because of God's unfailing love for them. Christ can succeed where the speaker of the poem fails. His omniscient vision "eyes" all people without Review for Religious interruption. The speaker gladly acknowledges that from heaven our Lord gazes on them perpetually. And his "foot" can "follow" them without interference. This phrase "foot follows kind," incidentally, is a remarkable terse statement of the mystery of the incarnation. Thanks to the Son's taking on a human nature, he can "follow" us, as of one "kind" with him.4 As Hebrews puts it, "since the one who saves and those who are being saved have a common origin, Jesus does not hesitate to treat them as a family.''5 Being divine, Christ can follow us; with a human nature, he cannot help following us. From this, the sonnet's last line flows smoothly, both in its music and its logic. Being our "rescue" (the Messiah saves us from death) and our "ransom" (his sacrifice itself saves us), he has proven himself to be our "first, fast, last friend." Friendship is what the lantern-seeker yearns for but is denied. Abiding friendship, however, is precisely the promise which Christ fulfills.6 From the speaker's existential, self-absorbed lament about his unfulfilled affection for certain beautiful people, he arrives at a place of peace. His conviction that Christ's love for these peo-ple is complete, unlike his own, consoles him. One apparent weakness in the argument of this poem is that the conclusion seems to have been reached too facilely. It seems superficial or unreal that the speaker could assuage his sadness simply by calling Christ to mind. A study of Hopkins's life, however, suggests that the bur-den of this poem was likely learned and earned through a real personal struggle. One episode in his life shows how this sonnet may be somewhat autobiographical. In the winter of 1865, when he was a twenty-year-old Oxford student, he met a young man several years his junior named Digby Dolben. Dolben's cousin Robert Bridges appears to have asked Hopkins the favor of help-ing the younger man gain admission into Oxford. Dolben 65.3 2006 Farrar ¯ Lantern out of Doors was unforgettably vivacious and artistic. The two young men shared a passion for religion and poetry composi-tion. According to Hopkins's celebrated biographer Robert Bernard Martin, Dolben must have made a pow-erful impression on Hopkins's soul.7 His feelings, how-ever, were ambivalent: he relished this friendship, but also struggled with his desire to deepen it. When cir-cumstances required that Dolben move away later that same year, Hopkins was left feeling empty. When he learned of his friend's tragic drowning two years after-wards, he was devastated. Although Hopkins did not elaborate on these feel-ings in his letters or journals, there is a laconic journal entry from 1873: "I received as I think a great mercy about Dolben." This line was written immediately after a ten day spiritual retreat. It is remarkable that this per-son, with whom he had enjoyed communication only for a number of months, would be on his mind all these years later. It is more remarkable that the memory would surface as a consolation after a time of intense prayer. What had been going on in Hopkins's mind all this time? I believe the "Lantern out of Doors" provides a key. The connection between this episode and the sonnet-- albeit speculative--is compelling. Dolben's passing through Hopkins's life was much like the poem's lantern. In Hopkins's quiet and introverted life, Dolben's effer-vescent personality and artistic sensibilities must have been "rich beams" glinting in Hopkins's "marsh air." Moreover, Dolben's departure, first by "distance," then by "death," probably left him feeling much as the poem's first eleven lines leave us readers feeling. We can speculate that Hopkins tried to cope with this predicament psychologically. At this time he was embarking upon an earnest spiritual journey, one which would lead him first to become Catholic and then to join Review for Religious the Society of Jesus. It was a fertile time for him, spiri-tually and artistically. His journals and letters give ample evidence of a soul immersed in wonder and contempla-tion. Hopkins's Ignatian spiritual formation inspired him to seek God's presence in all things. Doubtless, his sad-ness about Digby Dolben entered into his contem-plative exercises. That journal entry referring to the mercy he received about Dolben was most likely a fruit of these devotions. The inspiration of the last three lines of the sonnet might, then, have flowed quite naturally. In a moment of contemplating Christ, the consolation mer-cifully came to him concerning Christ's invincible friend-ship with Dolben. If we could indulge in further conjecture about this sort of contemplation, it is reasonable to suppose that a key might be found in St. Ignatius's Spiritual Exercises. For Hopkins as a Jesuit, this text could have been foun-dational; any experience of consolation could well have been understood in its light. One teaching in the Exercises stands out. The fourth point of the Contemplation to Attain Divine Love instructs the exercitant "to consider how all blessings and gifts descend from above. My lim-ited power, for example, comes from the supreme and infinite power from above. In like manner, justice, good-ness, pity, mercy, etc., descend from above just as the rays from the sun, the waters from the spring, etc.''8 Here one is being directed from a consciousness of blessings and gifts toward a contemplation of the God from whom they descend. It is plausible to imagine the 65.3 2006 Farrar * Lantern out of Doors 290 young Hopkins--still staggered by the radiant gifts that Dolben had brought into his life--in an effort to come to terms with his loss, contemplating the infinite power of Christ, who made these gifts shine through his late friend. And would this not have inspired Hopkins to trust that Christ's light will continue to shine upon and through Dolben for all eternity. Whether Hopkins can see it or not, he can still experience the healing which comes from the conviction that his friend is in very good hands. As Peter Milward elegantly puts it, "the last word 'friend' emphasizes the truth that the 'lantern out of doors' has its end in the love of Christ.''9 Perhaps many of us have had similar struggles and breakthroughs. I, for one, am constantly reminded of feelings of attraction toward the lantern-like people in my life: and also of the helpless sadness of separation. One example comes to mind, which arose out of my work as a hospital chaplain. I responded to a patient's request to visit him. Let us call him John. We enjoyed a rich conversation, about an hour long, about his spiritual his-tory, his family, his hopes for the future, and the mean-ing of life in general. It was the same the next two days. These visits were very fulfilling for me. It was no trou-ble for me to squeeze my schedule to find time for John. On the fourth day, to my surprise, the bed was empty. I discovered he had been discharged just a short time ago. A flood of questions came to mind: What did this mean? Was he feeling better? Why didn't he tell me he was leaving? This last question vexed me most. Like the sonnet's lantern-watcher, my thoughts were more on my letdown than on John's welfare. I felt guilty about that. I also felt guilty about getting so close to a patient. I remembered the hoary old adage of Clinical Pastoral Education: "Be careful about letting the ministry be a satisfaction for your personal needs." Review for Religious But why should I deny the good feelings that these visits with John had given me? They made me feel valu-able as a chaplain, and I wanted more. Like Hopkins contrasting the "much-thick and marsh air" of his mun-dane life with the "rich beams" some people's lives send forth, I wanted to feel that light. It helped me feel com-petent and useful. It gave my ministry an emphatic sense of purpose. I felt connected with this patient and wanted to connect some more. Then, like a lantern in the night, he was gone. I wish I could say that I rebounded immediately and arrived at a profound conviction akin to the insight of the last tercet in Hopkins's sonnet. But to this day I still feel some emptiness about John. As I later spoke with a friend about this, I realized how much emptiness there is in my heart about the many interesting people who have passed into and then out of my life. While I may not have "gotten over" the various sorts of grief occasioned by these losses, I often experience moments of consola-tion about them. I will find myself in the Liturgy, in prayer, in a conversation with someone, or reading, for instance, when some kind of assurance mysteriously comes. It is a consoling belief that Christ is watching over all God's children, that somehow they are all safe in his care. My attempts to analyze or describe these moments of consolation invariably, end in futility. What I can say is that they give me peace. I suppose what hap-pens is that my attention graciously moves from my own self-centered emptiness about the loss to a contemplation of where these individuals are in Christ's perspective, that is to say, watched over, loved, cared for by him. They are welcomed into friendship by their "first, fast, last friend." There are manifold ways to deal therapeutically with loss. Books teaching cognitive techniques consistently 65.3 2006 Farrar ¯ Lantern out of Doors find their place on bestseller lists. Granting the effec-tiveness of these techniques, I hope that believers will also consider the simple insight offered by this lovely poem. I hope we will forever keep our hearts open to seeing that those who have journeyed beyond our eye-sight remain within our Savior's. And there is a consol-ing corollary, that Christ watches my lantern too. Notes 1 Norman H. MacKenzie, ed., The Poetical Works of Gerard Manley Hopkins (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), no. 113, p. 40. 2 Peter Milward, A Commentary on the Sonnets of G.M Hopkins (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1985), p. 62. 3 This effect is aided by the fact, as Milward (p. 63) observes, that the accents are on the verbs. 4 "Kind" has a double meaning here, nature and benevolence. These meanings are especially lovely in contrast to the rhymes (1) "mind" in the phrase "out of mind" and (2) "wind," the speaker's futile visual pursuit of the lanterns' apparent windings. The suggestion in the word "kind" is that the remedy for the speaker's sadness is that Christ is of a kind with us and is kind as well. s Hebrews 2:11, from Eugene H. Peterson, trans., The New Testament in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2002). 6 See John 15:13-15. 7 Robert B. Martin, Gerard Manley Hopkins:/1 Very Private Life (London: Harper, 1991), pp. 80-170. 8 The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, trans. Anthony Mottola (New York: Doubleday, 1964), p. 104. 9 Milward, Commentary, p. 63. Review for Religious RAYMOND R. RYAN Today's Candidates: Who Are They, What Do They Expect? Occasionally, as I try to explain to interested questioners what is going on in the novitiate, their eyes glaze over and I hear them internal-izing W.C. Fields's famous comment, "There's less here than meets the eye." Actually there is much more here than meets the eye. Formation today is dynamic, not static; not only for "them," but also for "us." Otherwise it is only a game, a series of hoops to be jumped through with blithe disregard for the future. Concern for that future, however, has prompted a great deal of research on the char-acteristics of today's candidates for religious life and priesthood. Perhaps a few findings from that research will help us better understand our new-comers, our novices. The fall 2004 issue of Touchstone, the official publication of the Raymond R. Ryan OSA, a former novice director, writes from the Augustinian Provincialate; 20300 Governors Highway; Olympia Fields, Illinois 60461. being religious 65.3 2006 Ryan * Today's Candidates ConversiOff iS ctnii iuou s through: initia[ a nd formation, and.it n ver s opS.i National Federation of Priests' Councils, features an arti-cle by Dominican Andrew Carl Wisdom: "Why Every Generation Matters in Preaching." He indicates that every congregation is made up of four or five distinct commu-nities: Builders (1901.-1924), Silent Generation (1925- 1942), Baby Boomers (1943-1964), Generation X (1964-1981), and Millennials (1981-present). He chal-lenges preachers to be aware of this intergenerational phe-nomenon and address homilies to each generation. It is not uncommon for a novitiate class or a postnovitiate for-mation community to have three generations represented. One of those younger men puts it this way: "I am not simply in formation, but in a real sense in re-for-mation. I am already someone with a full life, commitments, and deeply held con-victions. I don't know that the order is all that ready for people like me." Another, reflecting on his for-mation experience, remarks: "It is understood that we all have faults and reach various levels of maturity dur-ing different stages of our li~'es. However, it is of par-ticular concern when . . . one who has a reasonable, relatively healthy sense of self is now in formation with others who are considerably younger or much older, or have not yet resolved such pressing identity issues as their own sexuality. A formation team must be equipped to recognize and address such disparities within a for-mation community, rather than treat everyone with a one-size-fits-all approach." These observations make us aware that formation today is quite a venture. The two brothers quoted had Review for Religious good insights. One looks for re-formation. For the other, one-size-fits-all formation can be deformation. Obviously, intergenerational living with various levels of maturity and immaturity not only is a challenge, but can be a heavy cross. We who are supposedly "formed" can attest to how adult immaturity adversely affects our communal life. Before mentioning some formation components as they relate to today's candidates, I quote Msgr. Dennis Sheehan, senior Catholic chaplain at Harvard University, regarding some current candidates: Today's seminarian is older and more experienced . My fear is that at times we will form a priest accord-ing to all the directives and requirements. But, if he has not tracked that with the ongoing conversion of his intellectual, moral, and religious life, we are likely to find a formed priest who is only a partial Christian. ¯ . In this generation, when so many come to us chronologically and psychologically older, it is far more difficult to change basic assumptions. They will learn the Scriptures and theology and pass examina-tions . . . but then what? Often enough they can become a canonical enforcer. The collaborative can-didate becomes a clerical Caesar. (Seminary Journal, fall 2004) While Msgr. Sheehan is concerned with priesthood can-didates, his observation can also apply to candidates for religious life. His concern is that both initial and con-tinuing formation be considered matters of unending conversion, a quite Augustinian outlook. Life is a con-tinuing call to change and grow. Conversion, then, is continuous through initial and continuing formation and it never stops. For this reason, today's formation programs have both a strong programmatic component, which presents the elements of Catholic, Christian, and Augustinian (or Benedictine, Franciscan, and so forth) spirituality, and a 65.3 2006 Ryan ¯ Today's Candidates 296 personal/communal component. The latter has four interconnected goals, asking each candidate to: ¯ know himself and his stow; ¯ commit to building and sustaining healthy intimacy in his life; ¯ learn, or continue to learn, and understand that integration is a lifelong process. The gospel calls us to work at continuing conversion and to invite others into that lifelong and life-giving call from the Lord; ¯ allow himself to live in the tensions encountered, accepting that these are a part of integration. We cannot always reconcile tensions or "fix" things. God's presence is experienced just as surely in darkness as in light. The practice of solitude brings perspective, sometimes peace, but always a centering in Jesus, self, and others in our actual circumstances. These goals are spelled out more concretely in some of the following ways. Candidates have spiritual directors at all levels of initial formation. Directors meet those in formation monthly. The history and continuing stoW of God's call is a part of these discussions. When I was in a peer supervision group while novice director, our facil-itator, a Dominican sister with age, wisdom, and grace asked us, usually at a time of conflict or self-doubt, "And what's going on in you right now as you relate your stow?" I did not like the question, even after four and a half years in the group. Why? Because it forced me to clarify what I did not want to face or did not want to integrate into my life. Indeed, sharing ourselves brings deeper self-knowledge and a deeper realization that, the more personal the problem, the more universal it is. Formation today, along with the previously men-tioned personal elements, encourages the communal dimension, in ways perhaps strange or at least fleetingly uncomfortable to some. The "climate check," which we Review for Religious in our province used, is helpful. It is a simple statement of some truth about ourselves, our families, and our lives; it helps us "tune in" to each other--or perhaps find our-selves "on the same page," discovering a commonality of experiences. When community members suffer from misunderstandings or hurts, they are encouraged to meet together. One-on-ones, especially in conflict situations, can help them work through interpersonal difficulties. Sometimes things do not work out as hoped; that can be helpful too. We can ask what this tells us about each other and ourselves: "What's going on in us right now?" Postnovitiate formation invites all of the community members to attend house chapters and community meet-ings-- our more formal community structures. These can effectively introduce newer members into our time-hon-ored ways of being together. Contemporary Augustinian formation encourages personal and communal sharing. This is done not because psychologists have invaded our mid

Issue 58.1 of the Review for Religious, January/February 1999. ; fo r relg io iu s, Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living jANUARY-FEBRUARY 1999 ¯ VOLUME 58 ¯ NUMBER 1 Review for Religious is a forum for shared reflection on the lived experience of all who find that the church's rich heritages of spirituality support their personal and apostolic Christian lives. The articles in the journal are meant to be inforntative, practical, bistorical,'or inspirational, written from a theological or spt~itual or sometimes canonical point of view. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at Saint Louis Universi~, by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-977-7363 ° Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: foppema@slu.edu Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP P.O. Box 29260; \,Vashington, D.C. 20017 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. ©1999 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library, clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Regina Siegfried ASC Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Jean Read James and Joan Felling Kathryn Richards FSP Joel Rippinger OSB Bishop Carlos A. Sevilla SJ David Werthmann CSSR Patricia Wittberg SC .Chrfisfian Heritages and Contemporary Lfiv~ng JANUARY-FEBRUARY 199~ * VOLUME 58 ¯ NUMBER 1 contents 6 28 perspective. Apostles and Martyrs: Consecrated Life at the Bishops' Synod for Asia John Mansford Prior SVD presents the challenge of the 1998 Synod for Asia to enter into a threefold dialogue--with religions, cultures, and the marginalized. Catholic Guides in Dialogue with Buddhist Practice Paul Bernadicou SJ reviews the progress of Catholic writers in their efforts to provide a fruitful exchange between Christianity and Buddhism. 35 42 traditions Lithuanian and American Sisters: A Lively Interactive Dance Barbara Valuckas SSND describes some of the similarities and differences in the issues facing women religious in the West and in Lithuania. Serpents and Doves: The Company of St. Ursula Ann White draws our attention to the pioneering Ursuline Marie Guyart (Blessed Marie of the Incarnation) living out the vision and spirit of the foundress, St. Angela Merici, to combine the secular and sacred, the worldly and the religious. spirituality 48 The Art of Discernment: The Aesthetic Dimension Xavier Plissart MAfr explains that a basic and essential quality of disce~:nment is that it should strive to be as common as possible in its insight and process, and as universal as possible in the aim toward action. Review for Religious 61 The Still Point: Contemplation Kathy Dunne RC shares her experience and her insights into the unitive way, a way not isolated in prayer, but intimately connected with the dance between the contemplative and apostolic life. 68 82 .aging Caring for Our Own: Competent, Personal Long-term Care in a Faith Perspective Imelda Maurer CDP pictures how life in long-term care looks for some communities of women religious and the witness that is given to the human values that our faith provides. What Is My Mission in Retirement? Francis Blouin FIC clarifies the call of service especially for those who no longer serve in active ministry. 86 report Scrupulosity: Age-old Problem, Holistic Response Paul Duckro, C. Alex Pollard, and Jason Williams describe a synergistic collaboration between behavioral science and religious faith for finding an effective response to the problem of scrupulosity. departments 4 Prisms 98 Canonical Counsel: Living the Evangelical Counsels 103 Book Reviews Janualy-l.¥brllaty 1999 Many of us are familiar with the late Henri Nouwen's Return of the Prodigal Son--a book in which Nouwen reflects on the Gospel story and Rembrandt's painting of the same title displayed in the Hermitage musuem in Saint Petersburg in Russia. Some years after writing the book, Nouwen died while he was on a journey to Russia to participate in a television fea-ture dealing with the painting and his book. Nouwen's fascination with Rembrandt's painting of the famous Lucan parable makes a special appeal to us all in the year 1999. As we continue to follow the direc-tions of Pope John Paul's apostolic letter "As the Third Millennium Draws Near," we know that the year 1999 is dedicated to seeing things "in the perspective of Christ: in the perspective Of the 'Father who is in heaven'" (§49; Mt 5: 45). Just as the previous two years were dedicated respectively to Jesus Christ and to the Holy Spirit, so this final year preparatory to the new millennium is focused particul.arly upon God--the One Jesus calls Abba-Father. A dynamic is uniquely associated with this third year of preparation. It is the journey motif. We are to pay special attention to the fact that we human beings are '.'on the journey to the house of the Father." The God we come to know on our journeying is not just a good God but a God of forgiving love, a compassionate God. Following an allusion made by the pope, w.e might iden-tify the year 1999 as the year of the parable of the prodi-gal. Like the prodigal, we all are on the road leading home. Like the prodigal, we may have a mix of feelings about the life choices we have made and the values we Review for Religqous. have lived. Like the prodigal, in the midst of evaluating our life we sometimes find ourselves needing to throw ourselves on God's mercy--and ready to do so. In one way or another, then, we tend to find ourselves on the road with the prodigal, similar in our rue-ful disquiet about past failings and in our modest plans for a fresh start. Most important, though, is our coming to the ever new and deepening understanding of the reality of God's relationship with us--the One who keeps watching for us whenever our approach, the One who hastens to embrace us into the family. Demanding as the actual journeying of our life may be, our attention should be fixed primarily on the journey of our heart. The heart needs to be quiet and hear the questions: Where are we now in our journey? Is life for us Christians lived truly as a pilgrimage--a journey with a direction? How have we come to know God in our adult years? Is God the one we experience as so compassionate to us that we feel the pull to address God with Jesus' intimacy-of-love word Abba? Most commonly, pilgrimage evokes a picturing of a group mov-ing onward together. So, too, in our pilgrimage we are not alone. Our Christian community in all its various forms--family, parish, sodality, religious congregation--makes real that it is a "we" jour-neying together to the Father. The call to a new evangelization summons us, already known in Pauline times as a people of "The Way," to be welcoming to a humanity searching for the way. Pilgrims are known to tell stories as in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and pilgrims are known to sing songs as the psalms so often describe. As we continue our journeying in 1999, we need to tell one another our own parables of a pilgrimage home. Together we sing songs of praise to the Father "who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing'I (Ep 1:3-4). The year 1999 can be a special pilgrimage for us all. David L. Fleming sJ Januao,-Februaty 1999 JOHN MANSFORD PRIOR Apostles and Martyrs: Consecrated Life at the Bishops' Synod for Asia Nowhere else in the world is religious life flourishing-- in both its traditional and more contemporary forms-- as it seems to be in Asia. Thus, unsurprisingly, of the 252 participants at the Synod for Asia (19 April to 14 May 1998), some 90 were members of religious orders or congregations, 36 percent of the total. Among these 90 were 63 of the 188 synodal fathers (including 10 superiors general) and 27 of the 58 auditors and experts (including 8 sisters, 5 priests, and two brothers). These numbers, of course, do not represent the pro-portions of consecrated life in Asia and are not intended to. Eight sisters among 244 men reflects neither the presence nor the role of sisters--let alone other women--in the mission of the Asian churches. It was, after all, a synod of bishops, not a, meeting of religious. The ninety religious were present because religious are active in Asia today at all levels of ecclesial life. But with over a third' of the participants belonging to religious orders and congregations, religious life in Asia was not far from the surface of the synodal discussions. John Mansford.Prior SVD has worked in Indonesia since 1973 and writes from Seminari St. Paulus Ledalero; Maumere 86152, Flores-NT:r; Indonesia. During the Synod for Asia, he was liaison officer for the English-speaking press. His article is being published also in Informationes SCRIS, the in-house publicatio~a of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societie~ of ApoStolic Life. Review for Religious The theme of the synod--"Jesus Christ the Savior and his mission of love and service in Asia 'that they may have life and have it abundantly'"--does not refer directly to consecrated life, but it is central to religious life. Religious are active agents in Jesus' mission of love and service, and so consecrated life was referred to in the context of mission. The evangelical theme of the synod was explained at leng.th in two presynodal documents, the lineamenta (guidelines) published in September 1996 and the instrumentum laboris (working docu-ment) published on the eve of the synod itself (February 1998). I wish to glance briefly at these two documents before looking at the synodal documents themselves. Presynodal Documents While all the lineamenta are of interest to religious as mis-sioners, there are just six explicit observations on consecrated life in this document. Half of these are in chapter 2, on the history of Christianity in Asia. Regarding mission in Asia before the 12th century, we read: "Most of these early missionaries and bishops were monks; others were merchants and ordinary Christians" (§9). The important point here is that Eastern-rite churches have been in Asia since Apostolic times and are not the result of Western colonial expansion since the days of da Gama and Columbus. These churches in the Middle East (from Palestine to Iran) and 'in southern India (Kerala), founded long ago by "monks, merchants, and ordinary Christians," are Asian and are accepted as such amid the dominant local populations, whether Muslim or Hindu. This was emphasized time and again by the patriarchs and bishops of these churches. Unfortunately, the story is. different for other churches in Asia. In the 15th and 16th centuries, missionary activity went hand in hand with the colonial expansion of Portugal and Spain. Even today, five hundred years later and half a century since most Asian countries achieve~l political independence, these Latin-rite churches are still looked upon as Western imports. Although some churches were initiated by laypeople (in Indonesia, for example) or even were founded by laypeople (in Korea, for exam-pie), many of these missi6ners were religious. Thus we read in § 10: "Between 1510 and 1640, Franciscans, Jesuits, Dominicans, Augustinians, Carmelites, and Theatines all established houses in Prior * Apostles and Martyrs Asia." Despite the colonial link, the lineamenta emphasize these orders' pioneering work of inculturation. Clearly, the guidelines are rereading history with the needs of contemporary mission in mind. The small, "half-hidden tradition" of dialogue in the past is about to become the great "major tradition" for dialogue in the future. "Many 'missionary-minded' religious congregations sprang up in Europe during the 19th and 20th centuries. Several of these congregations are still at work in Asia. During t.his same period a number of Asian religious congregations of men and women estab-lished themselves in Asia, particularly in India and the Philippines. During the 19th century, for the first time women ventured out into distant lands in Asia to bear witness to Christ and his gospel and to serve the poor . They also became a very essential part of mission in Asia, especially in the preparation of catechumens and the education of children" (§12). One of the signs of renewal since Vatican Council II is the way in which education, previously domesticating, is now. more and more following a liberating model. Such postconciliar renewal is taken up in the following section on "Lessons Learned from History." Among "Significant Contributions" after Vatican II are "con-tinental structures . for the religious in Asia, such as the Asian Meeting of Religious (AMOR), [which] bring the particular churches in Asia together and help coordinate their missionary and pastoral activities" (§14). Perhaps AMOR has achieved more than any other collegial body in opening up the leaders of religious orders and congregations to the wider social realities in which they live and work. This is surely the vital role that Asia-wide bodies are filling: awareness building and ongoing formation among religious leadership. There will be no new evangelization without a shift in consciousness (one of Longeran's "conversions"). Shifts in consciousness come about when we listen to each other and discover the links between our differing situations. Ond important sign that the local churches are now becoming mission-sending churches instead of being exclusivelj~ or mostly mission-receiving churches is the emergence of new Asian mis-sion societies. In the past "the agents of mission were mostly mem-bers of religious orders, congregations, and missionary institutes. Today the local churches of Asia have a number of Asian mis-sionary institutes" (§ 15). As we shall see, this was later taken up on the floor of the synod. Review for Religious Towards the end of the lineamenta ("Agents of Evangelization," §32), the term "consecrated life" is used for the first time. This is in the context of a mission theology of religious life. "It is a very heartening thing to note that many particular churches in Asia have already established mission institutes to send missioners to other countries, even though they themselves are in need of missioners in their own countries. Asian bishops have a particular responsibility to promote mission institutes and to be generous with their personnel for mission areas. Religious orders, congregations, and mission institutes have played a very remarkable role in the evangelization of Asia from the very beginning. Consecrated life is a very privileged means of evange-lization. Persons consecrated by religious vows can dedicate themselves fully to evan-gelization work because of their radical choice of the evangelical counsels, their total availability, their capacity for origi-nality in mission methods--as the history of mission shows, their spirit of generosity and their easy mobility." In this way the lin-eamenta sum up consecrated life in Asia: its historical contribution, distinctive witness, and recent developments. Responses from Asian episcopal conferences to the lineamenta were numerous, some of which have been widely published. Those of Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, and India appeared in the East Asian Pastoral Review (no. 1, 1998). The instrumentnm laboris, or syn-odal working document, is thus a commentary by the preparatory committee upon the lineamenta, taking into account the views of the Asian bishops. Not surprisingly, the instrumentum is very dif-ferent in both tone and accentuation from the initial document. It is closer to Asia. Religious life gets five explicit mefftions, and these are of inter-est: First, in the historical section, it is regretted that the pio-neering work of dialogue with cultures and other Asian religions was discontinued so quicklyi "Even though the missionaries' efforts met with many successes, it is felt that a proper understanding of these elements in the work of evangelization would have led to a greater acceptance of the faith by the people of Asia . The church's rediscovered appreciation of other religions and cultures should find greater expression in her missidnary approach" (§14). There will be no new evangelization without a shift in consciousness. Janumy-Feb~wa~y 1999 Religious today are being called to recapture these creative insights from the past. However, there is a price to pay. In continuing Jesus' mission of love and service through interreligious and inter-cultural dialogue, consecrated life in the Latin rite will have to leave behind its Western heritage and become radically Asian. This latter point was brought up many times on the floor 6f the synod. While no section in the lineamenta was devoted to religious life, the whole of §16 of the instrumentum is. devoted to "Consecrated Witness." Mention is made of the "steady increase in the number of vocations during the past decades," both to "tra-ditional religious congregations and institutes which are Western in origin; in recent years a number of new local religious congre-gations have sprung up in Asia." "In many cases o . . service pro-vided by missioners has led to martyrdom." "Witness in Asia has ¯ . . come from a great many of the church's religious orders and congregations who have made a major contribution to the growth of the local churches in Asia during the last five hundred years of evangelization. Tens of thousands of religious sisters and brothers, by their love and unselfish service to those who suffer from poverty in its many forms, have contributed to nourishing the faith of many in the church in Asia. Some of these have given an invalu-able service to local churches by establishing houses of formation, especially seminaries. They have been able to reveal the compas-sionate, loving, and caring face of Jesus to the peoples of Asia. Religious brothers have given an outstanding service to the cause of general education, vocational training, technical education, and developmental works. Contemplative religious have also made a unique contribution to the Christian mission in Asia by their prayers and their witness of complete dedication to a life of union with God." Missioners are contemplatives in action--this is a favorite saying of John Paul II. The evaluation of Catholic mission history in Asia (920, "Leaven in Society") highlights the work of religious in educating the laity. Not aJfew outstanding national leaders in cultural, eco-nomic, and .political affairs, even in countries where Christians are a tiny minority, are alumni of Catholic schools. Towards the end of the instrumentum are two more refer-ences to consecrated life, neither of which' is found in the initial lineamenta. In 942, "The Word of God and Mission," we read: "Some responses ask for a greater attention to the Sacred Review for Religious Scriptures, the word of God, in all areas of church life, especially by bishops, priests, deacons, those in consecrated life, catechists, and lay missioners. Preachers, especially missioners, should draw from the Bible and lead their hearers to take up the word of God for personal study and inspiration . God's word has an inherent power to touch the hearts of all peoples, both Christians and believers of other faiths." This link between the centrality of the biblical apostolate in mission and the centrality of the word in the life witness of the missioner came up later on the synodal floor. Finally, in "The Service of Dialogue," we read: "The mission of the church takes place in interaction with others of which dia-logue is an important aspect. Some bishops in Asia have placed an emphasis upon what they term a 'dialogue of life and heart.' . ¯ . Cloistered sisters, who lead lives of prayer and love in open friendship with their neighbors of other faiths, have shown them-selves to be among the most effective practitioners of the dialogue of life." This is one of the few references to contemplative life in the presynodal documents. While just two participants in the synod were from contemplative orders, a central part of the synod was the link between contemplation and action. God-experience and authentic life-witness are crucial. Proclamation in Dialogue During the first seven days, 191 interventions were made by the synodal members and auditors. A quick, thematic analysis of these interventions follows. Twenty-three interventions were on °interfaith dialogue, 18 on the local, church as a communion of communities (a participative, collegial church). Sixteen interven-tions were on inculturation, 11 on the church's option to accom-pany the poor and margin.alized, and 10 on the challenge of economic globalization. Another 10 were on Asian spirituality and God-experience, 7 on youth, and another 7 on the church in China. Six focused on the ancient Apostolic churches of the Middle East, 5 on issues concerning women, 5 concerning the laity, 4 con-cerning schools, 4 concerning ecumenism, 4 concerning indigenous peoples, 4 concerning family life, and so on. VVhat picture emerges from this rough breakdown? Seventy-six percent of the intervention~s (146) dealt with four main topics: the Asian churches in diaiogue with other faith traditions (43 inter-ventions), the church becoming Asian by dialoguing with living Janttary-Februat.'y 1999 Prior ¯ Apostles and Martyrs r ¯ ] cultures (41 interventions), the churches learning to dialogue with the poor (33 interventions), and the Asian church as a church of the laity (29 interventions). Thus, for the bishops and observers, the threefold dialogue with other religions, with cultures, and with the marginalized looks to the context, approach, and con-tent of the New Evangelization. In this threefold dialogue Christ will become all in all, "that they have life and have it abundantly." Clearly, members of religious orders and congregations are involved in this threefold dialogue, one way or another. In responding to Jesus' mission through the threefold dialogue, con-secrated life itself is evange.lized. It must be noted that only three interventions took up conse-crated life as its sole subject (§§2"5, 81, and 99), while three supe-riors general included religious life as one of their topics (§§68, 133, and 134). Others touched upon consecrated life as part of their intervention. Ten superiors general spoke of various aspects of mission. Some other interventions are of direct relevance to religious, those on Asian spirituality, for instance, and on the strug-gle of women. I here pinpoint a few major issues culled from these interventions. Women in Church and Society Keeping in mind that the great majority of religious are women and that the majority of missioners in Asia are women also, the few interventions on women are of particular impor-tance. Sister Filomena Hirota MME (Japan), one of the eight sis-ter auditors pres.ent, spoke on women's growing awareness and on women's movements which demand that the fundamental equal-ity and dignity of all women and girls be respected in thought, attitudes, and practices. After referring to statements by the FABC (Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences) over the years, she said: "The church in Asia has a predominantly feminine face. In many countries women constitute 70-80 percent of its member-ship. The presence of women in pastoral ministry, their service to the poor and marginated, their commitment to peace and jus-tice in ecumenical and interreligious relationships, and their sol-idarity actions in promoting the dignity and equality of all women, men, and children have been significant and important." She went. on to say: "A new way of being church in Asia calls for a church in solidarity with the cry of women in a prophetic Review for Religious way." The church is called to "become a credible sign of the dig-nity and freedom of women in society and in the world" (Fourth FABC Assembly). The church has to find a concrete way to respond to the Holy Father's words expressing regret and apology for wrongs and insensitivities toward women in the church: "May this regret be transformed, on the part of the whole church, into a renewed commitment to fidelity to the gospel vision" (Letter to Women, 29 June 1995). She made five proposals: (1) "Members of Mother Church are called to be agents of communion, to create wholesome and equal relationships of compassion and care among humankind and with nature." (2) "Theology from women's perspectives and experiences should be introduced in seminaries and mission formation courses." (3) "It is important, indeed necessary, for male members of Mother Church to discover and grow in 'feminine' insights and attitudes in imita-tion of Jesus (see FABC Assembly 1990) so that their service may be fully and genuinely human and Christian in a society where the logic of domination is destroying both human beings and nature." (4) "Future priests should be formed so as to accept women as equal disciples and companions in their evangelization work." (5) "As a concrete sign of recognition of the fundamental equality of all bap-tized persons (including their dignity and rights) and the church's commitment to uphold women as equal partners, it is urgently rec-ommended: (a) that there be a minimum of 30 percent participa-tion of women in all church organizations and councils; (b) that in the church all women, including religious sisters, be justly com-pensated for their work; (c) that women be given support and opportunities which will enable them to study theology and related subjects; (d) that in each diocese a committee be formed to address injustice, especially against women and children, and to take effec-tive appropriate action in coordination with other local, national, and international organizations; (e) that all language (which sub-consciously influences our conscious attitudes) of church-related writings reflect the equality of men and women. May Mary of the Magnificat accompany us in this jourfiey as we women commit ourselves to Jesus' mission of love and service in Asia!" Appropriate here is the intervention of Pastor Agustina Lumentut, of the Central Sulawesi Christian Church of Indonesia, The church in Asia has a predominantly feminine face. Januat3,-FebruaD, 1999 Prior ¯ Apostles and Martyrs one. of the ecumenical delegates from the Christian Conference of Asia. She noted: "In Asia many countries are afflicted by a mon-etary and economic crisis. Therefore poverty and suffering increase for men, but in particular for women who will be hit most by the rising prices of their basic needs. Often the husbands and the older children of Asian women have gone away to the big cities to find a job and never return. No 'syn-odos,' no 'walking-together' any-more for many Asian women and their families. But there is a 'syn-odos,' a 'walking-together' with women from the same reli-gion, but also from other religions, women who have similar expe-riences. As Asian women theologians have stated: 'These shared experiences can become one of the primary sources for theologi-cal reflection, for rereading the Scripture, for a new interpretation, a new perspective.' As long as Asian women find the courage to tell each other their stories and share their .experiences, they have hope. Women are walking together. But is the church walking with them?" David Fleming SM, superior general of the Marianists (inter-vention no. 68), reflected on the compelling power of feminine images of the holy in Asian religions. In Hindu spirituality female images usually stand for shakti, power, creative energy. In Bengali Hinduism great attention is paid to Durga, a feminine image of the holy that is portrayed, almost like the Woman of the Apocalypse (chap. 12) as conquering the forces of evil, crushing the serpent's or dragon's head. Such feminine images, far from inducing passivity and helpless resignation, point to great social dynamism. The many feminine figures in Asia have arisen in a context of theo-logical reflection and catechesis that-is totally different from ours and surely unacceptable to us as Christians on the level of doctrine. Nevertheless, they enshrine some religious imagery that we Christians naturally find realized in Mary. She is a holy woman of contemplative sensitivity, one who experienced God rather than analyzed God. She is full of compassion and sensitivity to the poor and suffering, in dynamic solidarity with them, sharing their strug-gles as a woman of the people in an oppressed nation. In herself she lives a harmony with God, with her fellow human beings, with nature, and with society. David Fleming ended by saying: "Much of this Asian sensitivity for what we might roughly call the 'feminine' aspects of the holy is in fact integrated into the tender and almost cbnnatural devo-tion to Mary that characterizes so many Asian Christians. I am Review for Religious not talking of an integration of doctrine or of any new theologi-cal assertions about Mary. But I believe that a culture that shows so great a sensitivity to the feminine side of the holy has a great deal to contribute to our Christian experience of Mary, not only in Asia but also in the rest of the world. It helps us see the dynamism and vitality of Mary in the work of salvation and her power to motivate us to a commitment in solidarity with the poor. In this way we can give a greater Asian content to the conviction often expressed by the Holy Father that Mary is the 'Star' enlight-ening and directing the progress of the new evangelization in our era." All this is of interest to religious, both women and men. What images of God have we internalized, which images are we proclaiming by our lifestyle and in our work? God-Experience Time and again, bishops spoke out on the centrality of authen-tic experience of the human and the divine. I take up just one example, the presentation of Bishop John Osta of Patna, India (intervention no. 37). It is, "Bishop John said, "not enough to repeat doctrinal or theoretical formulas; personal witness to a personal experience is called for." Bishop John called for a new contem-plative lifestyle for all in the church. In this "rebirthing" of the church, religious have a pioneering role: live the Christian mystew in an Asian way! Integrating prayer forms from other Asian reli-gions is not syncretism, he maintained, but a demand of our times. The bishop continued by quoting FABC (Hong Kong, 1977): "The decisive new phenomenon for Christianity in Asia will be the emergence of genuine Christian communities in Asia, Asian in their way of thinking, praying, living, communicating their own Christ-experience to others . We should beware of seeing our future mission in categories that belong to the past, when the West shaped the churches' history. If the Asian churches do not dis-cover their own identity, they have no future." David Fleming made an interesting contribution on some aspects of the "dialogue of religious experience." His nine years in Nepal and India informed his presentation. He said: "To speak to the heart of Asian people and enter into a genuine dialogue of religious experience, religious and bishops should give special attention to developing the Christian contemplative life in Asia, as well as to enriching the contemplative dim.ension within all insti- P~o__r_ ¯ ~ostles and Martyrs, tutes of consecrated life, in order to create inculturated forms of living the spirituality of each institute. This is an aspiration widely shared, but not always so well realized, by religious institutes pre-sent in Asia." He continued: "Interreligious dialogue on the level of reli-gious experience involves a giving and a receiving, so that much can be learned from the deep religiosity of people and from their religions. Such dialogue shows us concretely how the Spirit of God has been at work through the centuries in the religious expe-rience of others. We often find that interchanges with seekers of holiness in other religions open up new vistas for Christian life and especially refresh our'memory of elements in our Christian spir~ itual heritage that we have tended to forget and neglect." He gave some examples: "A genuinely inculturated celebra-tion of the Eucharist. Very often, after participating in liturgies that integrated elements from the great variety of Indian cultures-- Hindu, Muslim, animist--Indian Catholics told me how richly these inculturated liturgies moved them, touching something that had perhaps been buried and a bit regretted in their souls during their years of taking part in more Western-style liturgies." A sec-ond example: "The disciplines of yoga direct us to pay greater attention to an approach to the body that disposes us to prayer. Similar teaching exists in our Christian tradition, especially in the hesychasm of Eastern medieval Christianity. But I doubt if we will easily rediscover this neglected dimension of spiritual discipline without the help of interreligious dialogue." Another example: "Attention to the rich oriental teaching .on praying with a mantra has sparked a fruitful renewal of c'ontemplative prayer among Christians in our time, often called 'centering prayer.' A similar approach was inculcated in ancient Christian monasticism, from the Egyptian desert through John Cassian, and in the oriental Christian tradition of the Jesus Prayer. The prayer of the rosary is, in its own way, within the same tradition. But today many Christians, East and West, are rediscovering this contemplative form of prayer through interreligious dialogue." Cardinal Eduardo Martfnez Somalo, prefect of the Congregationfor Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (CICLSAL) gave the 81st intervention. The cardinal's eight points emphasized the centrality of t~tal dedication by the consecrated person. The key to mission witness is who she or he is, not what she or he does. Cardinal Martfnez Somalo linked the Revlew for Religious contemplative and mystical dimension of consecrated life to an ascetical lifestyle. This comment is particularly pertinent as Asia suffers a major monetary crisis on top of long-standing systemic poverty and injustice. In simplicity and prayerful silence, religious undergo day by day conversion to the gospel. After the primacy of religious experience, the cardinal emphasized the need for a solid theological formation, particularly necessary as we enter into dia-logue with Asian cultures and other Asian religions. He ended on a note of joy and hope at the many vocations to religious life in Asia. These key issues echoed and strengthened the contributions from Asia itself. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, superior general of the Jesuits, con-trastedthose who work for results with those who live out of love (intervention no. 97). The high-quality institutions run by reli-gious orders do not automatically proclaim the love of God. Our apostolates proclaim love when they are run by people "through whom God's love shines." Similarly with the work of dialogue: we dialogue in love without calculation or ulterior motives. In our apostolates we do not proclaim self but Christ crucified. I was reminded of the saying of John of the Cross: "Where there is no love, put love, and you will reap love." A short comment, one of many during the synod, about the centrality of God-experience, came from Bishop Gratian Mundadan (intervention no. 124) of Bijnor of the Syro-Malabar rite, India: "A Hindu sadhu once told Abhishiktanandaswamy: If you want to touch the heart of Indians, every one of you must become a guru. A guru is one who has deep God-experience. Such a guru does not quote, does not instruct, does not formulate, does not dogmatize. The guru shares personal experience of God, It is not just a question of presenting Jesus Christ as the guru; every Christian needs to become a guru--deep in the experience of God. . Spirit-filled and Spirit-led aposdes began their mission with sur-prisingly great success . "Unfortunately the scenario changed. The communities of the Spirit became institutionalized. When possessions, power, and authority increased, the need to rely on the power of the Spirit decreased. The Holy Spirit remained the forgotten person of the Holy Trinity. The humble, poor servant Christ, who came to serve and not to be served, was forced to assume the status of a power-ful king instead of continuing to be the King of the heart. The church began to rely on competency and human efficiency, doc- Jamtao, oPYbruaO, 1999 Prior ¯ Apostles and Martyrs trinal as well as juridical. If the church's power and authority comes only from competency and human efficiency, then we are facing a crisis in our mission. For such a competency based on knowledge, ideas, administrative skills, and laws will search for its legitimacy in the rational, in the human. The power of the church is reli-gious, spiritual, power from heaven. When the leaders of the church are devoid of such a spiritual power, they'will take shelter in juridical power. "There is an urgent need to change this image. The leadership of the church has to change the style of functioning, to become more spiritual, free from institutional authoritarianism and fully at the service of the gospel and the world. Such a leadership will be able to animate people to God-experience and help them translate this experience into fraternal love. This is to be the original con-tribution of the gospel to Asia, where other religions concentrate on God-experience alone without any effort to serve the brethren. The leadership of the church will have to discern and activate the vari-ous charisms of the whole Christian community: build up commu-nities of love and fellowship as did the Apostles. Such a leadership will seek to strengthen the capacity of the people of God to become true faith communities as against the dichotomy that exists today between faith and life among Christians: make these communities powerful evangelizing communities, empower the faithful and enable them to face the challenges of the present day and of the future with interior power, power from above, and not with worldly wisdom and efficiency. ".Following the way of Christ, the church in Asia has to assume the way of kenosis, of self-emptying, of the cross, of loving and self-giving service. We have to develop a kenosis ecclesiology. We have to shed attitudes of power, domination, influence. Such a church will appeal to the Asian mind . Let the call of the synod to the church of Asia be a return to the sources, to the spirit and style of the early church, where the Spirit of God reigned." Asian Mission Societies Edward Malone (Hong Kong) is the long-serving assistant secretary general of the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences (FABC). The bishops of south, southeast, and east Asia have belonged to FABC since 1970; they are now to be joined by the churches of central Asia. Father Edward devoted his intervention Review for Religious (no. 99) to Asian mission societies: "Although the number of [Asian] Christians remains small in comparison with Asia's bur-geoning masses (2-3 percent of all Asian peoples), this 'little flock' (Lk 12:32) seeks to share its riches and discovery of Christ with neighboring peoples . They are aware that 85 percent of all the world's non-Christians live in Asia. "Responses to the call of mission and evangelization within Asia have taken a variety of forms. Most international institutes of women and men have a home in Asia. New groups and new forms of religious life, secular institutes, and lay orga-nizations have emerged to respond to the call of world mission. Yet I wish to highlight a unique ~ and essential form of mission response. This charism is that of the missionary society of apos-tolic life. In recent decades, six such societies of men have emerged in Asia: the Missionary Society of the Philippines, the Missionary Society of Saint Thomas the Apostle (India), the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of Korea, the Missionary Society of Thailand, the Lorenzo Ruiz Mission Society (Philippines), and the Heralds of Good News (India) . These societies of men who are pledged to lifelong commitment to foreign mission bring a unique--and essential-~- contribution to the church's missionary activity. "These mission societies of apostolic life contribute a partic-ular focus to mission. Their contribution is ad genres, ad exteros, and ad vitam. They direct their efforts to evangelization ad genres, to those who have not yet heard the liberating and salvific Good News of Jesus Christ; ad exteros, to peoples outside their own coun-try, cultural milieu, and language group; and ad vitam, through a lifelong commitment to this unique form of mission witness. There are countless local churches in Asia that owe the emergence of their faith and communities to the dedicated labors of such mis~ sion societies of apostolic life founded in other parts of the world. The 'time of the heirs' has come for all local churches of Asia to respond by establishing such mission societies . A local church is not intended to live alone; it is 'not a community in isolation from other communities of the church one and catholic. Rather it seeks communion with all of them' (FABC 1). This is a unique con-tribution that mission societies of apostolic life can bring to the local churches throughout Asia. Such societies can become 'bridges 85 percent of all the world's non-Christians live in Asia. Januaty-Febt'tlat3, 1999 Prior * Apostles and Martyrs of communion' by which the sister local churches of Asia can appreciate and exchange their unique gifts. In this way the gospel is proclaimed, communion is strengthened, the 'dream of catholic-ity' emerges and is concretized . Though not limited to Asia alone, their growth will result in Asians evangelizing Asians, the emergence of authentically missionary local churches, the strength-ening of bonds of communion among the churches of Asia . " Edward Malone then pointed out developments that foster or hinder mission ad genres. First, in an ecclesiology of communion, we need bridges of exchange and communion. Missioners ad genres foster communion among sisters churches. Second, churches that do not experience this exchange (sending/receiving) can become closed ih upon themselves. They could become vulnerable to local ideologies and a closed nati'onalism. Third, if ad genres mission is not promoted, there will remai~ many unreached peoples through-out Asia. Fourth, pastoral care even keenly felt must not be allowed to derail the local-church ad gentes mission effort (this has often happened: working abroad with nationals from the same church of origin does not fulfill the ad genres vocation). Father Malone con-cluded by mentioning two current temptations: (1) the "tempta-tion of success" (to settle down with the visible results of evangelization, hesitating to turn over the parishes, schools, and institutions to the local church and diocese and move out to new frontiers) and (2) the "temptation of pastoral care" (seeking to answer all the pastoral needs of a diocese and so losing the will to reaffirm the original charism, "to g9 and make disciples"). Ours must always be the motto of the apostle Paul: "Christus me misit non baptizare, sed evangelizare" (1 Co 1:17). Edward Malone's informative and provocative contribution drew two responses from superiors general of mission societies that originated in the West. Father Franco Cagnasso, PIME superior general (intervention no. 13 3), welcomed the Asian missioners, that is, those who remain authentically Asian. Their presence is positive for the whole church. They are less institutionalized and live close to the poor. Many have a valuable interiorized approach to the mystery of Christ. People from the other continents have redis-covered their Christian faith through reaching out to Asian spiri-tuality. Father Franco ~lso welcomed the fact that Asian churches were open to receiving cross-cultural missioners from outside Asia. The more the Asian churches become self-sufficient pastorally, the more they can move out to dialogue with others. Review for Religious This contribution was followed by that of Father Raymond Rossignol, superior general of the Missions of Paris (intervention no. 134). He emphasized that each and every church should be open to send and receive cross-cultural missioners. No church should be encapsulated. History has left the Asian churches with a problem: they are perceived by majority communities as being foreign (Western). Also, in the past, Western missioners have tended to dominate local church personnel. One reaction to this is for each church to look after itself without outside "interference." However, we need to find suitable ways to ensure that cross-cultural mis-sioners can be present in all churches--not just in those who are not yet "self-sufficient." Raymond Rossignol concluded by saying: "No church is so poor that it has nothing to offer others; no church is rich enough that it cannot receive from others." Formation of Religious One of the burdens of history is that Western-style churches were planted in Asia during the colonial era. In the words of the president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Sri Lanka, Bishop Oswald Thomas Colman Gomis (intervention no. 141), "the church has remained foreign in its public image and expression, in liturgy, art, architecture, mannerisms, and presentation of doc-trine, and above all in patterns of life, especially those of her reli-gious . Most of my brothers and sisters here, I believe, would agree with me that this image remains very much a block to evan-gelization today. This synod [should] find some formula to erase this scar inherited at birth by many churches in the countries of Asia." One place to start is formation. Bishop Arturo M. Bastes (intervention no. 25) gave a tour de force, finishing his presentation a split second before the micro-phone was cut off. A former SVD provincial, Bishop Arturo of Romblon, Philippines, spoke on formation for religious in the contemporary Asian context. His exposition focused on four important shifts taking place in the Asian churches: a shift from a Eurocentered church to an authentically Asian church, a shift in our understanding of history, a shift in the model of church, a shift in our understanding of spirituality. Each shift has its impact upon formation communities. ¯ According to Bishop Arturo, the church's mission in Asia has been approached from the perspective of a Eurocentered church, Prior ¯ Apostles andMartyrs deeply conditioned by the European colonialism of the times. Formation of religious was or still is monocultural, Western or European. While religious vocations are rapidly decreasing in Europe and the rest of the Western Hemisphere, there is an ever increasing number of religious vocations in Asia. A contextual-ized formation is suited to the mentality of Asians. There should be real insertion in social reality. Asian formators are developing practical methodologies in contrast to Western academic models. Academic study needs to be accompanied by practical method-ologies in the light of Asian realities. The second shift is in our understanding of history. The great world religions Hinduism and Buddhism, whose cradle is Asia, antedate Christianity by thousands of years. Christianity was born in Asia, but has been alienated from Asia by becoming Eurocentered. The Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines proposed that the synod "explore exhaustively in an open and humble way the revelatory nature" of the religions of Asia and their impact on the church's proclamation of Jesus. There is much that the church can learn from other Asian religions regarding the values of God's reign. Persons beginning religious-life formation need a great feeling of respect for other religious tra-ditions which offer "salvation" even before the coming of Christ. Christian religious should not feel "superior" to people of other traditions. Asian formandi and formandae need to remain Asian even when they join international congregations. The third shift is in church models. When the church embed-ded itself in Europe, a mindset arose that considered Europe Christian and the rest of the world pagan. Unfortunately, they seem to have identified Christianity with whatever is European. Many third-world churches are striving to shift away from a tri-umphalistic model to a church identified with the social condi-tions of the people. Without a sense of the poor, there can be no genuine following of Jesus in Asia. Hence, candidates for the reli-gious life in Asia should be trained to have both an affective and effective commitment to the poor. All religious congregations today emphasize "preferential~ option for the poor." The question is: Do we really mean it? The "passing-over to the poor" is admit-tedly one of the most difficult transitions for a religious congre-gation. The fourth shift highlighted by Bishop Nrmro ~ls in our under-standing of spirituality. Traditionally we have associated spirituality Review for Religious with an institutional way of living. We need to shift our under-standing of spirituality from institutional to incarnational. More basic to each congregational charism is being rooted in the incar-nation of Christ. There is a dynamic and essential relationship between culture and spirituality in a common humanity. The three characteristics of an incarnational spirituality are self-transcen-dence, search for meaning, and the gift of self. These are at the heart of every spirituality, whether Christian or non-Christian. Globalization of the free market is attacking Asia; the prospects of the third millennium are frightening. Religious women and men of Asia should join forces to fight, con-sumerism by living a spiritual life that is accessible to their fellow Asians, whatever their creed. Bishop Arturo concluded by suggesting that religious candidates should seriously study and reflect upon the spirituality of other Asian religions besides the teachings of the Judeo-Christian Scriptures. The Spirit is present in Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, and even primal religion. The vocation of Asian religious today is to save Asia, by the wisdom and depth of Asian spirituality with which Asians feel at home, from the onslaught of materialism coming from global market forces. Asian spirituality is not opposed to the teachings of Christ, for it is a true manifestation of God's Spirit working in all peoples. Janet Wang, president of the Conference of Major Religious Superiors of Women of Malaysia-Singapore-Brunei, spoke of dia-logue within the church: only a church in dialogue can dialogue with cultures and other religions. She spoke of mission in the light of the church as communion. The church in Asia needs to grow in dialogue of life and heart so as to be a visible and efficacious sign of communion in the multiracial and multireligious societies in which we live. While we are challenged to intensify interreligious dialogue and dialogue with culture, we cannot ignore the need to improve our capacity to dialogue within the church at the grass-roots level--among priests who work in the same parish, as well as among priests, religious, and laypeople. One of the best forms of The great world religions Hinduism and Buddhism, whose cradle is Asia, antedate Christianity by thousands of years. Prior * Apostles and Martyrs For formation to become Asian, future l rofessors need to do their special studies in Asia rather than in Rome or elsewhere in the West. evangelization in secularized societies like ours is the witness of love and reconciliation, unity in diversity, authority as service. The Spirit is calling us to move away from the image of a cler-ical institution to the building of a participatory church where priests, religious, and laypeople have a common vision of church as communion. The church in Asia will become more alive and efficacious to the extent that the laity and religious are actively involved with their parish priests in pastoral plan-ning and decision making. Sister Janet said, "Our religious communities need to be recognized as Christ-centered basic ecclesial communities within the local church." Changes in attitude, however, do not come automatically. Persons need to be formed in a gradual, experiential way. Sister Janet concluded: "May I strongly recommend, also on behalf of the Conference of Religious Major Superiors of Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei, (1) that seminarians be formed to a better understanding of consecrated life in the context of the ecclesiology of communion, (2) that pri'ests, religious, and laypeo-pie be formed together towards a new way of being church. With hearts open to the action of the Spirit, we need to listen to the word of God, to pray and reflect together, to search together, and in an atmosphere of dialogue to carry out pastoral planning, pastoral care, and mission outreach together as church, the family of God in Asia." Francis Adeodatus Micallef, apostolic vicar of Kuwait (inter-vention no. 43), also spoke of the spiritual formation of religious. "Spiritual formation of candidates should not suffer as a conse-quence of formation programs . Lifestyle should reflect the deep spiritual formation which these centers are imparting." The key word here is authenticity. Bishop Peter Chun Hon-Ting of Kuching, Malaysia (inter-vention no. 62), spoke on seminary formation; his comments are germane not only to clerical religious. Bishop Peter Chun empha-sized the absolute need for a sound knowledge of the religiocul-tural situation of one's country and a critical knowledge of the ReviewforReligious economic and political conditions that affect people. Many bish-ops emphasized the link between contemplation and involvement, spirituality and politics. Bishop Peter also stressed the dignity and equality of lay and clerical, the Bible as the soul of all theology, and the integration of Asian philosophies and spiritualities into the curriculum. For formation to become Asian, future professors need to do their special studies in Asia rather than in Rome or elsewhere in the West. Not far from the question of formation is that of spiritual direction. Vicente Cajilig OP, secretary to the Office of Education and Student Chaplaincy FABC (Philippines), gave the one inter-vention on spiritual direction. He said: "Spirituality in Asia, as seen by formators, is a form of journey and accompaniment. This journey follows a certain pathway that leads to interiority. The model of all models is Christ, with whom the formandi and for-mandae are configured. The directee arrives eventually at the stature of Christ." He concluded that, above all, a "spiritual pro-gramme that prepares spiritual directors themselves is important. While formation in theology gives candidates a firm foundation in the faith, the handling of the spiritual task requires added know-how on the journey of the Spirit." Schools A continent-wide synod is not the place to look at individual apostolates in any meaningful detail. Where the churches in Asia are small, even insignificant minorities, elite schools have been an important apostolate. As independent governments and majority communities have developed their own, even better, school systems (see intervention no. 125 by Bishop Leo Laba Ladjar of Jayapura, Indonesia), this traditional apostolate is being increasingly ques-tioned. The preferential love for the poor also raises fundamental questions. Alwis Sunanda FMS (Sri Lanka) put it like this: "An educational system, especially at the tertiary level, committed to the service of the values of Jesus and right relationships, orients its curriculum and research towards greater understanding of the social forces at work in exploitative societies such as exist in parts of Asia. It shines light on exploitative and liberative forces in those societies and tries to motivate students and teachers to choose a set of values different from the existing capitalistic, consumerist, wasteful, gender- and ethnically biased values. Its library and social January-February 1999 Prior ¯ Apostles and Martyrs communications would be a help to the poor and the needy, those who are marginalized, and exploited women and men." Brother Alwis, however, went on to suggest that "the social system in the context of Asia tends to ensure that Christian schools serve the interests of more affluent groups in society. How valid, in practice, is the argument that we can influence the future shape of our soci-ety by training the children of the elite in our schools? Are we not, instead, put in a position of maintaining the existing social order, to the extent that our own values and lifestyle are adjusted to continue a system of education that bolsters, if not aggravates, the inequalities? Often a glaring incongruence exists between the gospel we teach and the work we do, between our expressed mes-sage and the lives we live. We ourselves, though, might not notice this by reason of our great dedication to the cause we serve." Brother Alwis concludes, "Today we may have a better chance of being faithful to the call of the gospel by working in programs that foster nonformal education, adult education, values educa-tion, and education through peoples' movements rather than through traditional educational systems." This is just one thoughtful contribution among the many that were made about various apostolates. What is clear is that, fifty years after most Asian countries became independent, religious orders are having to look again at many of their traditional apos-tolates, successful as they superficially look. The Propositions The synod is over and the bishops are back at their posts. Some time in 1999 an apostolic exhortation will be published, based upon the 59 propositions drawn up during the final days of the synod. Two of these propositions, numbers 27 and 28, deal respectively with "consecrated life" and "mission societies of apos-tolic life and other mission societies." I did not receive a copy of the propositions, and the synodal members handed theirs back to the secretariat. From what I heard in the synodal hall, and the notes I made, I can make the following brief cominents. In Proposition 27, religious are looked upon as a reminder of the universal call to holiness who inspire a self-giving love towards everyone, especially the least of their brothers and sisters. The synod calls upon religious to undertake a renewal and revitaliza-tion of their commitment to proclaim the saving message of Jesus Review fo," Religious Christ. Formation should be Christ-centered and contextualized, faithful to the group's charisms, with emphasis upon life witness. Spirituality and lifestyle should be sensitive to the religious her-itage of the people they live with and serve. Proposition 28 acknowledges the continuing contribution made by mission institutes of apostolic life. The recent founding of mission institutes of apostolic life in Asia itself is an expression of the missionary dimension of the churches of Asia. The synod encourages the further establishment of mission societies charac-terized by their commitment to mission ad genres, ad exteros, and ad vitam. Encouraging Words Each and every woman and man dedicated to the consecrated life in Asia has received renewed encouragement from the 1998 synod to .continue the daily witness of risking oneself for Christ's sake. We have been challenged, some thirty-six years after the opening of the Second Vatican Council, to take up the language of the threefold dialogue with religions, cultures, and the marginal-ized and to flesh it out in lives of radical witness to the incarnate Word and graceful Spirit. This threefold dialogue is one integral movement of evangelization, the evangelization of the whole of life in all its myriad dimensions. As apostles of the crucified and risen Lord, we promote life in multicultural, multifaith Asia. As martyrs to the truth-giving Spirit, we endeavor to live ascetically with the marginalized. There is no reason for holding back: we have the dream, we know the strategies. We have the documents, we have the official encouragement~ The only real barrier is the narrowness of our minds and the smallness of our hearts. "Have courage, I have conquered the world!" On 16:33). "For God is greater than our hearts" (1 Jn 3:20). Janualy-Februa~y 1999 PAUL BERNADICOU Catholic Guides in Dialogue with Buddhist Practice Ion the latter 1960s Thomas Merton, prophetic here as in many ther areas with fresh religious insight, declared that, "far from being suspicious of the Oriental mystical traditions, Catholic contemplatives since the Second Vatican Council should be in a position to appreciate the wealth of experience that has accumu-lated in those traditions." His 1967 book Mystics and Zen Masters included an earlier essay expressing admiration for the 16th-cen-turyJesuit missionary effort in China, seeing that effort as a pro-logue to contemporary religious understanding. Merton was joined by a bevy of other Catholic scholars eager now to enter into dialogue rather than to proselytize in their mis-sionary outreach. In the words of the council's Declaration on Non-Christian Religions, Catholics were now asking themselves how these Asian and other ways try to pierce "that ultimate and unutterable mystery which engulfs our being, and whence we take our rise, and whither our journey leads us." The council docu-ment not only gave permission to respect the teachings of these other ways, but also invited Catholic scholars to "acknowledge, preserve, and promote the spiritual and moral goods found among them, as well as the values in their society and culture" (§§1, 2). Just before his tragic death in Bangkok at an East/West monas-tic conference, Merton wrote about his deeply moving sight of the Buddha sculptures at Polonnaruwa (Asian Journal, New Paul Bernadicou SJ chairs the University of San Francisco's theology department and is tertian instructor for the California province of the Society of Jesus. His address is 2130 Fulton Street; San Francisco, California 94117. Review for Religious Directions, 1993, pp. 233-236): "I mean, I know and have seen what I. was obscurely looking for. I do not know what else remains, but I have now seen and have pierced through the surface and got beyond the shadow and the disguise." He wrote beautifully about these huge, silent figures "questioning nothing, knowing every-thing" with their great yet serene smiles. Another Catholic monastic voice from that period was Aelred Graham's, who in Conversations: Christian and Buddhist Encounters in Japan (Harcourt, Brace, 1968, p. xiv) recounts how he sought to pass from the area of academic study to that of firsthand experi-ence of Buddhism. In his sixtieth year, after long experience as a Benedictine, he had the opportunity to speak with some for whom the Buddha was a role model no less than Jesus was for him. He describes the value of such religious encounter as "not at the peripheral level of Christian ecclesiology, which still preoccupies so many Catholic theologians, but at the basically existential level of who we are and what human life is all about." Jesuit Guides The Jesuit missionary H.M. Enomiya Lassalle, already in Japan before World War II, eventually inculturated his Christian Zen meditational practice into a Zen-style Jesuit retreat center in the countryside at a remove from bustling Tokyo. He published his personal findings regarding the helpfulness of Zen for an enhance-ment of Christian meditation. In Zen Meditation for Christians (German original, 1968; Open Court Publishers, 1974, pp. 151- ¯ 152), he illustrates this conviction with the parable of the prodi-gal son. In the typical way of Christian meditation at the time, you would reflectively think about the youth's family circum-stances, then the effrontery of his demand for his inheritance, then his degradation after wasteful spending, and finally his remorse and return to his father's house. A deeper form of medi-tation would not simply use~ the prodigal son as a symbol, but identify with him as an image of oneself. The person meditating would thus become the prodigal son. It is myself who reveled in our father's house only to estrange myself and now hanker to return in repentance and humility. "When we perform medita-tion in this manner and begin anew each time we practice, our heart is then purified and transformed directly and immediately through meditation--rather than indirectly through intellectual Janua~y-Februa~Ty 1999 Bernadicou ¯ Catholic Guides in Dialogue In Zen the method of purification involves working on koans, but in Christianity the emphasis is on meditation and the importance of Scripture. considerations of the will." This type of meditation is similar to Zen, wherein the Zen practitioner becomes one with a koan (that is, a Zen paradox designed to break through discursive con-sciousness to intuitive insight). ~ Heinrich Dumoulin, a Jesuit colleague of Lassalle at Sophia University in Tokyo, edited in the 1970s a series titled Religious Encounter: East and West which was "intended to promote an understanding of the living unity, diversity, and meeting-ground of reli-gious phenomena, Asian and Occidental." Dumoulin's own first contribution to the series, Christianity Meets Buddhism (Open Court, 1974, p. 198), emphasized that interreli-gious dialogue can contribute uniquely toward opening up a new horizon. Both Christianity and Buddhism involve a search for ulti-mate reality, and a dialogue between the two is "perhaps one of mankind's greatest hopes." A Jesuit of Japanese origin also at Sophia University, Joseph Kadowaki, whose youthful background had been Zen Buddhism and who was later baptized a Christian, came to recognize similarities between Zen monastic training and his own Jesuit novitiate training. In Zen the method of purification involves working on koans, but in Christianity the emphasis is on meditation and the imlSortance of Scripture. After he began to practice Zen, Kadowaki found that he could read the Bible in a new light. His book Zen and the Bible (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977) describes the method used in solving a Zen koan and shows how to appreciate the many para-doxical or obscure koan-like passages in the Bible. William Johnston, the fourth member of this quartet of Jesuit scholars of Zen at Sophia University, recently published his mag-num opus, Mystical Theology (HarperCollins, 1995, reprinted by Orbis, 1998). He has for more than twenty-five years been in the vanguard of the Christian and Zen Buddhist dialogue. He pub-lished Christian Zen: A Way of Meditation in 1971 (Harper and Row; 2nd edition, 1980); it provides explicit guidelines for a way of Christian meditation that incorporates Zen insight. Wordless Review for Religiot,s meditation, a modified lotus position, rhythmical breathing, and the use of koan are explored as Zen practices which can heighten Christian meditation. This interest in meditation led to his scientific investigation into its effects: Silent Music: The Science of Meditation (1974; reprinted, Fordham University Press, 1997). Johnston surveys what scientific research has uncovered about altered states of con-sciousness, brainwaves, and biofeedback. He investigates both Eastern and Western meditation by which one enters deeper lev-els of consciousness. The discovery of such meditation's "passive energy" and of other physiological and psychological benefits show its power to heal and comfort the distressed. And Johnston points out how the "nonattachment" and "knowledge of empa-thy" required in meditation can help people find genuine friend-ships and intimacy in their relationships. Thus he has added insights from modern science into the dialogue between Eastern and Western religious traditions. His Mystical Theology (1995) updates this message for many contemporary laypeople practicing meditation and finding them-selves drawn into mystical states of consciousness. John of the Cross wrote such a theology for the 16th century, and Johnston attempts it for our own century through his ongoing dialogue with modern science and with Buddhism. "Traditional mystical theology was written for monks and nuns . This is the age of the laity. Now married people who live a busy life in factory or classroom or office or laboratory aspire to a life of meditation and mysticism" (p. I0). They look for spiritual guidance as they grap-ple with problems of sexuality, social justice, world peace, and protection of the environment. Trappist Guides Also at the forefront of contemporary Catholic encounter with Asian practice are the adept Trappist advocates of centering prayer Basil Pennington and Thomas Keating, who have taken up where fellow Trappist Thomas Merton left off. In his 1977 Daily We Touch Him (Doubleday Image, 1979) and 1980 Centering Prayer (Doubleday Image, 1982), Pennington explored how to adapt the principles of Transcendental Meditation (TM) and Zen to Christian meditation. Daily V~e Touch Him is a simple but helpful guide to finding God's presence in one's own daily experience: "God is pre- January-February 1999 Bernadicou * Catholic Guides in Dialogue sent to us from the very first instant that he calls us into being-- and thenceforth forever he touches us at every point and level of our being. He is present to us. But are we present to him?" (pp. 14- 15). With Centering Prayer the focus is on returning to the roots of early Christian prayer, especially in the Eastern church and the patristic traditions. Centering prayer combines the best features of this Eastern Christian practice in a blend of East and West that inspires personal Christian prayer today. Thomas Keating likewise explores the Eastern Christian roots of his contemplative heritage in Open Mind, Open Heart (Continuum, 1994). The book moves beyond discursive meditation and acts of devotion to the intuiti'~e level of contemplation. Keating surveys the history of contemplative prayer in the Christian tradition, and follows with step-by-step direction in the method of centering prayer. He manifests how such an approach opens one's mind and heart to the contemplative dimension of the gospel. His recent Intimacy with God (Crossroad, 1996) builds on his earlier volumes by summarizing material from talks he has given in more recent years to people ranging from advanced prac-titioners of centering prayer to persons just starting out. He con-tinues to provide a Christian alternative to the appeal of Asian practices. His conviction is that our journey into intimacy with God leads us "powerfully outward, toward the bonding that we call the Communion of Saints: the capacity to relate to one another with the unconditional love with which Christ relates to us" (p. 160)~ Keating's prayer instruction parallels the apophatic style of much Buddhist meditation. Christian Theology and Buddhism An outstanding Catholic interlocutor with the Buddhist tra-dition on a more speculative and theological level is the Jesuit Aloysius Pieris, who was the first non-Buddhist to receive the doc-torate in Buddhist studies in his native Sri Lanka. His Love Meets Wisdom: A Christian Experience of Buddhism (Orbis, 1988) consists of a series of essays which explore the social as well as the spiritual side of Buddhism, its political and its religious visions, and issues important to the ongoing Christian-Buddhist dialogue. Pieris thinks that Christians can learn from Buddhism, integrating their own prophetic teaching .of love with the Buddhist mystical appre-ciation of wisdom. If heart-to-heart dialogue is genuinely pur- Review for Religious sued, agapeic Christianity and gnostic Buddhism will be mutually complemented and enriched in an integration of compassionate wisdom that could transform the plight of the oppressed poor and of our threatened environment. Pieris's more recent Fire and VVater: Basic Issues in Asian Buddhism and Christianity (Orbis, 1996) further expands on these liberation themes. Current Contributions Such informed exchange between Catholic and Buddhist monastics continues to proliferate in current publications. Three particularly impressed me when I recently surveyed the literature. 1. The Ground We Share: Everyday Practice, Buddhist and Christian (Shambala, 1996) is a conversation between Zen roshi Robert Aitken and Benedictine monk David Steindl-Rast, edited by Nelson Foster. Their dialogue begins with everyday practice rather than with philosophical and theological concepts. The result of their intense and lively conversations was to uncover the com-mon ground of meditational experience that gives hope for fruitful exchanges between Christianity and Buddhism into the future. 2. In The Silent Dialogue: Zen Letters to a Trappist Abbot (Continuum, 1996), David G. Hackett corresponds with sev-eral Trappist monks of St. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts, dur-ing the 1970s, particularly Abbot Thomas Keating. Mter Hackett's conversion to Catholicism, he set out on a two-year stay in Japan, where he experimented with how Zen practice could deepen his Christian prayer and spirituality. Abbot Keating proved himself a knowledgeable and astute guide in his comprehension and inte-gration of Eastern ways to Christian prayer, as we might have sus-pected from his own writings. 3. The Gethsernani Encounter: A Dialogue on the Spiritual Life by Buddhist and Christian Monastics (Continuum, 1997) captures the voices of some twenty-five Buddhist and twenty-five Christian monks and nuns in a discussion of their contemplative traditions Christians can learn from Buddhism, integrating their own prophetic teaching of love with the Buddhist mystical appreciation of wisdom. Januaty-Febtwa~y 1999 Bernadicou ¯ Catholic Guides in Dialogue at an historic meeting hosted by the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky. The Dalai Lama, who first suggested the conference, also recommended that it be held at Gethsemani in memory of Thomas Merton, whom he had met just before Merton's untimely death while attending a similar Buddhist and Christian monastic exchange at Bangkok. Though scholars in the field of spirituality were present, the focus of the convocation was more expressly on the everyday practice of meditation and prayer in the two tradi-tions. What steps help to progress in meditative enlightenment? What does each tradition have to contribute to our profound human yearning for an encounter with ultimate reality? What can we say and how must we respond to the compassionate wisdom with which this encounter enlightens the seeker? Prescience and Continuing Hope Just before his tragic demise in 1968, Thomas Merton stated in the Temple of Understanding meeting in Calcutta: "I think we have reached a stage of [long-overdue] religious maturity at which it may be possible for someone to remain perfectly faithful to a Christian. commitment and yet to learn in depth from, say, a Buddhist or Hindu discipline and experience." Few realized at the time how prescient this provocative comment would sound nearly thirty years later at the 1996 Gethsemani gathering. Review for Religious BARBARA VALUCKAS Lithuanian and American Sisters: A Lively Inter°active Dance Lithuania, the geographical and cultural gateway to east-ern and central Europe, was the first Soviet republic to declare independence from the Soviet Union just as the last decade of this century began. Almost immediately, American sisters of Lithuanian birth or descent, and American sisters from other ethnic backgrounds as well, went to Lithuania to knit bonds of friendship with women who had been cut off from the, world of women religious during five decades of military occupation and brutal repression of the Catholic Church. Going in response to requests from the Lithuanian congregations,. they were sponsored by the Office to Aid Eastern and Central Europe, of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB), by the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), by the Hilton Fund for Sisters; and by many other organizations including their own congregations. The sisters gave canonical consultation on the adap-tation of constitutions, assisted in the formation of the Lithuanian Conference of Mfijor Superiors, gave pro-grams of theological updating and ongoing formation, and conducted retreats and days of recollection for sis-ters who could barely remember what these were. In Barbara Valuckas SSND wrote "Lithuania: A Return to My Ancestral Home" for our May-June 1995 issue. Her address is Pilgrim Ministries, Inc.; 9 Academy Hill; Watertown, Connecticut 06795. Januao,-l~¥btvtary 1999 Valuckas ¯ Lithuanian and American Sisters the early days of this lively dance, the Lithuanian sisters encour-aged their American counterparts to take the lead although their United States partners learned innumerable steps from them. By 1997 the dance was well along, but the partners were begin-ning to shift places. In January 1997, while I was in Lithuania conducting a program evaluation, the president of the Conference of Major Superiors described plans for the first Congress of Lithuanian Sisters, to be held the following August. When I asked her about the main purpose of the congress, she' replied in two simple but profound words, "We exist!" To be able to affirm this after experiencing decades of efforts to exterminate religion and religious persons from Lithuania was a touching testimony to the deep faith and high courage of the Lithuanian sisters. Some months later, those of us who had worked with the sis-ters in Lithuania received invitations to attend the congress as guests. The invitations were addressed to "you, who have walked with us from the beginning." Our joyful response to this invitation brought us to Kaunas, the old capital of Lithuania, to be enthusi-astic onlookers as the Lithuanian sisters celebrated their own dance of survival and hope for the future. The theme of the congress was "the past, the present, and the future." The president of the Conference of Major Superiors, who had herself experienced years of surveillance by the KGB, recounted the sisters' sufferings during the years of occupation. One of her most startling revelations, however, was this: At the beginning of the occupation, there were seven congregations in Lithuania; at the end of the five decades of attempted annihilation, there were twenty-four! Some of this multiplication was due to the success-ful efforts of KGB infiltrators to fragment the existing congrega-tions, but much of it was due to the clandestine formation of new congregations. God provided for the future of the church through the courage of women who received their entire formation in secret. The several hundred sisters who attended the congress included older sisters who had entered established congregations before the occupation, sisters who had entered existing or new congregations secretly during the occupation, and sisters who had entered the various congregations since independence. These three groupings have had very different experiences of religious life, and yet they face together the challenge of bringing religious life in Lithuania into the future. Review for Religions This will mean facing and moving through the problems of the present. The speakers at the congress were very honest in naming these problems. They are not very different from the ones facing women religious in the West, although the historical context and hence the resolutions may be somewhat different. Some of the main issues identified by speakers at the congress were public wit-ness, community life, and just compensation. Public Witness As in the West, the sisters in Lithuania are grappling with the question of what it means to give public witness. At this point, much of this issue is being discussed in terms of the religious habit. Almost all of the sisters attending the congress wore habits even though they had not ordinarily done so. That is, as an American sis-ter of Lithuanian origin pointed out to us, most of the congregations had never worn habits because they had been formed during the occupation, when habits were forbidden. When Pope John Paul II visited Lithuania in 1993, however, the sisters were asked to come to their meeting with him in the cathedral wearing habits. So the sisters created habits on the spot and appeared before the Holy Father wearing them. They wore them again for the congress. The bishops who were present at the congress and some of the sister speakers expressed the wish that the sisters wear their religious dress at all times. It is worth noting that, unlike the sisters in the West, the women religious in occupied Lithuania were forced to give up their habits and their ministries overnight. Their change to sec-ular dress had not come about from reflection on the Vatican II documents and on the relationship of religious life to culture. By forcing the religious to put their habits away, the occupiers made the church virtually invisible overnight. Now the church hopes to regain its visibility, and wearing the habit or not is a central question. It will have to be resolved from within the lived experi-ence of the Lithuanian sisters, although they have been very inter- As in the West, the sisters in Lithuania are grappling with the question of what it means to give public witness. January-February 1999 Valuckas ¯ Lithuanian and American Sisters ested in learning from the sisters of the West how the habit issue wasrdealt with and resolved. Community Life o Along with their habits, the various congregations lost their buildings, their communal spaces, overnight. Many religious women were forced out onto the streets and lived there or in fields or barns until they were able to find work and lodging. All through the years of occupation, they lived in little flats with one Or two other sisters or with relatives and friends, wherever they could find a place. Now, although somd of the congregations have begun to get their property back from the government, many are still without a common space. Some of the sisters are afraid to form communities again because they have forgotten how to live com-munity life. Others are eager to try it, but feel the need for help in the skills of building community together. The middle group of sisters--those whose formation was clan-destine-- is numerically the smallest; this leaves the elderly sisters and the newest members trying to negotiate a common life :across the barriers of age and extremely different life experiences, Some of the speakers at the congress referred to these cross-genera-tional tensions and pleaded for patience and more effort to deal with them in the process of building community. A special difficulty faces the sisters who have not received' their property back or who never had common property to begin with. The elderly sisters in these congregations live in tiny flats scattered around the cities and villages. They are often dependent on the younger members for both financial support and physi-cal care. It is not uncommon for young sisters to finish a day's work only to begin visiting the individual elderly sisters, bathing them, shopping for them, and providing for other needs of theirs. These younger members are also expected to contribute their services to the growing ministries of a church that has emerged from the underground and seeks to make its voice heard ~in the culture once again. While these conditions are not directly com-parable to conditions in the West, assuring that younger mem-bers have time and space for their own formation and are not unduly burdened with maintenance issues is a Western concern as well. This situation is related to another issue narried by the Lithuanian sisters. ~ Review for Religious. Just Compensation Now that the church is free to operate in the open, the sisters are expected to give time and energy to parish ministries, catech-esis, and so forth. This is usually in addition to their full-time work in the secular economy, which provides the sustenance they and the elderly members in their care need. Speakers at the congress acknowledged the heavy burden placed on the sisters because, to date, their work for the church has gone largely uncompensated. Some speakers indicated that questions have been raised among church officials about why sisters need salaries or pensions. All of this would be very familiar to sisters from the West. Common Questions, Other Questions, Other Steps Given the similarity of the issues facing women religious in both East and West in spite of their cultural and historical differ-ences, one would assume that the dance that began at the begin-ning of this decade could go on for a long time, growing more unified as it moved into: the future. This, however, may not be the case because other dancers have moved into the space in an effort to change the dance into another kind of movement. Some of this change of step has come into Lithuania in the form of newspapers and magazines that portray women religious and reli-gious life in the West as quite degenerate. Some has come in the form of living persons. In informal conversations at the congress, some of the Lithuanian sisters spoke of making a retreat during the summer at which the retreat master gave considerable time to frightening descriptions of religious life in the West. The Lithuanian sisters heard, for example, that sisters in the West had no prayer life and that they had boyfriends. These insinuations had the effect of sowing doubt and suspicion even in sisters who had had very pos-itive experiences of the American sisters who had worked with them directly. Some of the bishops and sister speakers at the congress were quick to warn the Lithuanian sisters about negative influences from the West, especially about feminism and about failure to adhere to the teachings of the church. That some of these warnings came from the very leaders who had invited the American sisters to attend the congress may be a sign of the confusion and ambivalence toward the West that is Janua~y-Febtvlary 1999 Valuckas ¯ Lithuanian and American Sisters In every multicultural dance, there are tensions and always the danger of stepping on one another's cherished values. becoming more prevalent, not only in Lithuania, but in other countries of eastern and central Europe as well. One sister speaker exhorted the Lithuanian sisters to cling to the values of their own religious heritage and not to "turn jewels into stones." Although the majority of the grass-roots Lithuanian sisters begged'us to return to continue sharing experiences with them, seeds of doubt and uncertainty had been sown in their hearts by their own lead-ership. Since the years of occupation and Soviet-style education conditioned most Lithuanians not to trust anyone, these seeds may be falling on soil that is still receptive to doubt and mistrust. An example of this occurred during and after the congress. Speakers represent-ing both the bishops' confer-ence and the superiors' conference stressed the serious need for Lithuanian sisters to be trained in the skills of spir-itual guidance and spiritual formation of others. In fact, the sisters who had attended our workshops in earlier years had, in their evaluations, requested training in these skills. Yet our offer to pro-vide this very kind of assistance with highly trained sisters from the United States was met sometimes with polite silence and some-times with suspicious questions. In such circumstances, it is only natural to wonder about the future direction of the dance. In every multicultural dance, there are tensions and always the danger of stepping on one another's cherished values. It is clear that the Lithuanian sisters need to find their own way, a way that is true to who they are. They need to be able to say "We exist!" not just about their survival through a difficult past, but also about the present and the future. Part of that existence, however, is going to be in an increasingly interde-pendent world. If the "We exist!" is for the future, it may mean enlarging the phrase to "We exist together!" The fact that the Lithuanian con-gregations were able to move from relying on their own congre-gations to creating an intercongregational formation committee is a sign that, given time and trust, they have the inner resources to Review for Religious move to a larger "we." The initiation of this intercongregational committee had, in fact, been inspired by the intercongregational nature of the teams of American sisters who had come to work with them. The Lithuanian sisters quickly saw that a larger "we" was not only possible but very rich in its possibilities for a happy sharing of many various gifts. We sisters from the West, on the other hand, need to keep remembering that our "we" is not the only "we" in the world. We need to be willing to look at the fears and suspicions about us. To the extent that they are justified, we need to allow ourselves to be called to conversion of heart and life. To the extent that they are not, we need to live with integrity and truth and to search patiently and mutually for new dance steps. Perhaps it is in our conversion of heart together that the Spirit will lead us all in a new dance of interdependence. Dispossessed Who believing would not hope? the child asked herself, dismantling in one stroke a holy triad. But stay, time-taught. It always does. Faith came easy. She was born believing unseen worlds. ¯ And lo~? Without it, there'd be chaos. As for hope? That limpid bird fled, sickened with the weight of errant expectation-- until finally the woman lay down and cried and cried and cried and cried-- while faith and love held hands and waited. Maryanne Casey Hannan .Tanaa~y-Febtvtao, 1999 ANN WHITE Serpents and Doves:, The Company of St. Ursula I n Quebec City, high above the St. Lawrence River, some eligious women live behind a cedar fence in a convent, sup-posedly set apart from the world. Yet the world of New France, as it existed nearly four hundred years ago, comes to them every single day in the persons of innumerable Amerindians. Who could possibly tell where these women's religious life leaves off and worldly life begins? We divide life into the sacred and the secular, and have done so since the 16th century, when Reformers who thought and prayed under dull northern skies became 'disengaged from the ideas of Renaissance painters and explorers and princes of Europe's sunlit south. Ever since, we have distinguished the worldly--rev-elers and artists and livers of free lifestyles--from religious peo-ple who go to church, pray, do good works. This division blurs the truth about people in both categories, sacrecl and secular. Consider the Company of St. Ursula, a boldly daring 16th-century Roman Catholic women's community. In the Ursulines' lives, religion and worldly adventure mixed inseparably. But Ursulines do not appear in secular books that tell adventure sto-ries. Ursulines show up in books about religion, written in sober words that mask the daring quality of their thoughts and acts. The Ursulines first caught my attention in Quebec City, where their convent has stood in the Rue Donnacona since the 17th century. As I gazed at the convent's faqade, I wondered why Ann White has a Ph.D. in history and teaches at the Edmund Burke School in Washington. Her address is 5130 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., apt. 203; Washington, D.C. 20008. Review for Religious any woman would give up cultivated, comfortable French life for the frigid wilderness of Quebec. My guidebook said the nuns came to found a girls' school. Everyone knows the name of Samuel de Champlain, the explorer who established the first French settle-ment at Quebec City, but how many know the name of the woman who started the first girls' school in the Nev~ World? She was Marie Guyart, member of the Order of St. Ursula, who arrived in Canada from Tours, France, in 1639. Her name fails to appear in books about explorers' and pioneers' adventures because those are "secular" stories. Yet Marie Guyart was a pioneer. Starting a girls' school anywhere in the 17th century was a pioneering act, and starting a school in the New World for girls of warring Amerindian tribes required a large dollop of pioneering bravery. Not only Marie Guyart's physical bravery impressed me, but also her idea of adventuring in unknown spaces. She had never traveled outside the Touraine region of France, yet as she sat in her convent she pictured herself in what she called the "vastitudes" of New France. "My body was in our monastery, but my spirit was tied to that of Jesus and could not be enclosed," she said. What did she know about Canadian vastitudes? Practically noth-ing. She had never heard the word "Canada" until four years before she departed for its frosty landscape. But being enclosed within four walls of a convent in Tours did not prevent her from imagining herself founding "a -house for Jesus and Mary" in an unknown land across a vast ocean. Marie Guyart acquired her expansive, daring cast of mind from her Ursuline company, who inherited it from their founder, Angela Merici. As much a child of the Italian Renaissance as Christopher Columbus, Angela Merici founded the Ursulines just forty-three years after Columbus's first voyage. Columbus, says one of his biographers, combined Christian faith with an impulse toward expansion. We ignore the faith, concentrate on the expan-sion, and place him in our secular category. Angela Merici pos-sessed the same Renaissance combination of faith and expansiveness as Columbus, but we ignore her expansiveness, con-centrate on her faith, and pop her into our religious pigeonhole. Angela Merici did not found the Ursulines until she was in her sixties. A farmer's daughter from northern Italy, she spent years working with a group of lay Christians to relieve misery brought to Brescia, a city near her birthplace, by the French inva-sion of Italy. She helped to organize orphanages and refuges for January-February 1999 White ¯ Serpents and Doves prostitutes, and she worked in a hospital for incurables, the only hospital that would accept Brescia's increasing numbers of syphil-itics. By the time Angela Merici traveled to the Holy Land around age fifty, her skills at helping the sick and the poor were well known--so well known that, when she stopped in Venice on her way home from Palestine, the city fathers asked her to remain there and organize charitfible works in their city. She said no. Furthermore, she left Venice immediately, so that they could not ask the archbishop to command her to stay. Soon afterwards she went to Rome, where once, again there came a request to borrow her skills. This time the pope himself, Clement vii, who asked her to remain and organize charitable works in his city. Surely this was an offer that Angela Merici could not refuse. Any "religious" woman would say yes to the pope, would she not? Angela Merici said no. Her Renaissance mind fit no pigeon-hole. She went back to Brescia to formulate a vision as expansive in its own way as Columbus's vision. Her company of women, named after a 3rd-century patron of young scholars, would be the first Christian company dedicated to instructing young girls. They would also tend the sick. These female teacher-work(rs would live in the world. No medieval convent walls would constrain them; they would freely walk the streets of north Italian cities from Milan to Venice. This Ursuline plan ignored religious/secular categorizing. Though Angela Merici never met her contemporary Martin Luther, her mind grasped the same idea that his mind grasped, a very old Christian idea, that the church's lay people--worldly, sec~ ular people--hear God's call as clearly as the clergy, the church's religious people. Angela Merici created an institution that blended the religious and the worldly. A young woman joining the Company of St. Ursula would pledge herself to virginity, but she would not live in a convent and she would not wear a habit. She would live at home with her family as she taught girls and tended the sick. Before Angela Merici's time, young women faced a stark, secular-versus-sacred choice: they could marry or they could enter a convent. Angela Merici's Ursuline plan gave them another option: pursuing useful work in the world while maintaining a religious identity. Habits of religious pigeonholing make us see Angela Merici, with her piety and good works, as blandly "religious," while we ignore her extraordinary worldly shrewdness. Not only did she Review f!~r Religious have enough sense of her own purpose to spurn a pope's offer, not only did she single-handedly offer devout European young women a new vocational opportunity, but she also obtained a papal decree permitting members of her company to hold a dowry from their families just as securely as if they were marrying or entering a convent. Moreover, her Testament for the Ursulines' four-woman board of directors shows she understood that her young women would face changing circumstances in the future: "If, according to times and needs, new rules should be made, or any change introduced, do it prudently and with good advice." It was with such worldly sagacity that Angela Merici deployed her Christian faith in 16th-century Italy. She shows us what Jesus meant when he told his disciples they needed to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Angela Merici's "religious" accom-plishment is incomprehensible without an understanding of her "secular" insight. ~ As her Ursulines spread throughout northern Italy and into France over the next half century, people with a pigeonholing men-tality-- churchmen, parents of Ursulines, and Ursulines them-selves-- changed the company's organization into something more recognizably religious. When Marie Guyart became an Ursuline in 1631, less than a hundred years after the first Ursulines signed their names in a book in Brescia, she entered a convent and, she donned a habit. The Company of St. Ursula, contrary to Angela Merici's vision, by Marie Guyart's time had become a religious order like other religious orders. Yet even in a convent Marie Guyart shared Angela Merici's expansive Renaissance spirit as she thought about the danger of dying from hunger and cold or at the hands of Canadian savages. These considerations, she said, made "no change at all in the dis-position of my spirit." "Secular" explorers like Champlain were plainly not the only people in 17th-century France who dreamed great, daring dreams. In New France (whose soil she kissed upon her arrival), Marie Guyart continued to live according to the rule of enclosure. She Angela Merici's Ursuline plan gave another option: pursuing useful work in the world while maintaining a religious identity. Januaty-Febt'uaty 1999 lq/'Isite ¯ Serpents and Doves This mixing of sacred and secular in the Canadian convent yard was part of Marie Guyart's theology. and her fellow Ursulines lived in convent buildings set within a large yard on the promontory overlooking the St. Lawrence River. They stayed within the yard's cedar fence, obeying their religious rule about not going out into the "world." But this enclosure was very different from the Tours convent for Marie Guyart: In New France the woodland world came to her: Algonquins, Montagnais, and Hurons; Abenakis, Nipissings, and Attikamegues; Iroquois girls sent by their mothers to learn the elements of the Christian faith. Twenty to fifty young girls lived in a boarding school that the Ursulines established within their convent walls. Amerindian men also visited the convent, for a meal or for instruction or simply to find out what went on there. Marie Guyart wrote, "I see generous and brave captains on their knees at my feet, begging me to have them pray to God before they eat." Moreover, this mixing of sacred and sec-ular in the Canadian convent yard was part of Marie Guyart's theology. She not only wel-comed inhabitants of Canada's woodland world to her convent, but also saw her savage Christian converts as every bit as religious as those labeled religious, the Ursulines and Jesuits in New France. "A savage confesses just as well as a reli-gious," she said. The Jesuits emphasized how hard it was for Amerindian Christians to behave the way they thought Christians should behave; Marie Guyart saw in them the full capacity for Christianity. The converts' devotion, she said, reminded her of the Christians of the early church. So what do these moments of Ursuline history--the lives of Angela Mericiand Marie Guyart--show us? That enclosure in a convent is bad? That the Ursulines-were more progressive than ,other Catholic groups because at first they spurned convent life? By no means. Ursuline history shows us Christian life without religious/secular categories: Angela Merici taking advantage of Renaissance Italy's expansive spirit to create an effective vehicle .for faith; Marie Guyart joining Christ among the Amerindians while living in a convent. Jesus did not say, be a serpent or a dove, choose between the secular and the sacred. He said, achieve worldly wisdom and reli- Review for Religious gious innocence, both at the same time. The famous figures who lived five hundred years ago, at the birth of the modern age, do not fit our narrow classification scheme of religious versus secular. Emperor Charles v was as much a man of faith as he was an effi-cient 16th-century ruler. Martin Luther was as much poet as priest--so much the poet that, in the judgment of one Reformation historian, if he had lived in another age he would have produced an epic rather than a new church. Michelangelo's art fused his awe of human beauty with his awe of the greatness of God. Nonetheless, we are in the habit of relentlessly classifying these people--the "religious" writer, the "secular" politician, the "sec-ular" artist--missing the breadth of their persons and the com-plexity of their accomplishments. Not so rigidly fixed in our minds as these famous figures, Angela Merici and Marie Guyart will fly right out of their religious pigeonhole if we let them. The two Ursulines were wise enough to take advantage of Renaissance Europe's expansive spirit, faith-ful enough to take big risks for Christ. Their lives overmatch our narrow categories of secular and sacred. Each was worldly and religious, both serpent and dove at the very same time. "But you, who do you say that I am?" (Matthew 16:15) Not in wisdoms Echoed from borrowed minds, Nor in quick phrases Caught and snatched and etched On today's tongues, Not even in the warm whispers Patterned on a mother's speech, A teacher's truth, A prophet's cry. Who do you say that I am When only you are left to form the words? When only I am left to listen? Suzanne Mayer IHM JanuaL'F-FebruaO, 1999 XAVIER PLISSART The Art of Discernment: The Aesthetic Dimension In this paper I discuss what I call the aesthetic dimen-sion of the art of discernment. I want to show that dis-cernment is an attempt to enter into the original divine creative dynamism for the whole of creation. This attempt is itself a creative activity aimed at realizing creation's original harmony. Since the whole of creation shares the same source and is directed towards the same goal, discernment should ideally be a striving towards communality. Consequently, a basic and essential qual-ity of discernment is that it should strive to be as com-mon as possible in its insight and process, and as universal as possible in its aim toward action. Theological Foundation Creation The initial insight for spiritual discernment is that God is active in our world, that creation is dynamic. The original goodness that God imparted to creation is more a life than a state: divine life continues to be breathed into the whole of creation. Essentially, discernment is a matter of seeing more accurately where and how this Xavier Plissart M_Mr has done formation work and taught in various African countries. He is currently attached to the Centre de Recherche et de Documentation Africaine. His address is: Bukavu, R~p. D~m. du Congo; B.P. 333, Cyangugu; Rwanda (Africa). Review for Religious divine "inspiration" is operative. The effort to see this depends upon our having the faith conviction that God's creativity in our regard is a genuine invitation to participate in divine life, an invi-tation that recognizes the full validity of creation's "otherness." The faith insight above applies to the totality of creation. Everything created proclaims in some way the fullness of divine life. But the proclamation acquires a special significance when we turn to. humans beings, for it depends upon their receiving an invitation to proclaim God's life and their conscious responding to it. Created in the image of God (imago Dei), we in turn become creative through our free response. We have the imagination (in Hebrew, yetzer) that makes it possible for us to integrate our actions in the flow of divine creativity, or not. Consequently, it is important for us to discern and decide how we shall orient our life and direct our actions. Context and History Divine dynamism has been at work in creation from the begin-ning, and human consciousness, responding in various ways, has shaped our world until the present day. We must, therefore, be fully conscious of the past. Discernment always implies looking back (if we use visual imagery) or listening (if we use acoustic imagery). God's conversation with the world and with humankind results in what we live and experience today. At the most personal level, St. Ignatius Loyola advises retreatants of the Spiritual Exercises to examine regularly the content and flow of their spir-itual life and life of prayer. Many religious persons and commu-nities today have gained great benefit from what is called "life review" to see God at work in their own history. It is also common practice now to try to "read" the "signs of the times" to see the underlying current. Believers find God at work, but unbelievers alike may discover the dynamism of creative energy with which they want to connect. Believing that God has been and is active in the world, we see, too, that we have the creative potential to go with or against this divine activity. In the Spiritual Exercises Ignatius describes in detail how one can become aware of inner movements that are aligned with the divine plan or that militate against it. This takes place in a context of faith and in an atmosphere of prayer. His analysis of consolations and desolations has served as a guide for many. Recently, however, spiritual writers have felt the need to widen the Plissart ¯ The Art of Discernment field of application. When we become more keenly aware of all the areas in which the Spirit of God is at work, it becomes evident that we must try to widen our horizon if we want to obtain a more accu-rate idea of God's action, a wiser discernment. Consolations and Desolations Revisited Ignatius himself implicitly recognizes the need for an inter-personal attentiveness to the Spirit when he advises that discern-ment should take place with the guidance of a spiritual director. Today we would include here the validity and even necessity of discussing the matter with one's spouse (if one is married) or a uniquely close "soul friend." An uneasiness in the friend or spouse might be a sign of desolation, and both persons would do well to become aware of it in the effort to find the will of God. Ignatius speaks of taking into account the position of the church. If with Vatican ~I we see the church as the people of God, our attentiveness to God's presence becomes broader and much more varied. Tensions in a community could well be interpreted as "desolation," or gratuitous excitement as false "consolation." We could and should make use of the well-developed techniques of group dynamics and see how a discerning insight might help us to perceive more clearly whether the movements animating a par-ticular group are from God. The vision we speak of here comes from faith; it can be of advantage only to individuals and groups that genuinely want to follow the Lord. Similarly, in discernment we do well to explore critically the meaning of divisions, resentments, estrangements, and insensi-tivity within ecclesial structures and institutions to see how these "motions" speak to us of God's creative or challenging activity in our world. Can we say that controversies on, say, contraception or feminism have nothing.to tell us about the divine activity in our world and in the hearts and minds of God's own people? I believe that an unwillingness to see the significance of such "movements" would represent a dire lack of a discerning spirit. Jon Sobrino, Enrique Dussel, J.B. Libanio, and others have shown clearly how, as we find ourselves confronted with a theol-ogy of domination, we must take into account the sociopolitical reality in order to make a valid discernment. The option for the poor which theologians of liberation advocate is not just another theological position. It is the result of a careful reading of the core message of Jesus in its relationship with the social reality. Review for Religions As the Quakers tell us, the "light of God" is also present and active beyond the confines of the circle of Christian believers. Indeed, this was also recognized in the documents of Vatican II. So we will have to .learn to discern how God speaks through the political debates of our present age, through intercultural struggles, through the economic and ecological issues of our world, and through people's search for a cosmic spirituality. Would we not say that people's uneasi-ness when faced with news ¯ items depicting poverty can be a sign of "desolation" calling for conversion and a change ¯ of heart? Would we not say that people's fear of an atomic disaster can~ be understood as a sign of "desolation" in a world which gives priority to war over peace? Would we not say that the renewed interest and practice of meditation of all kinds is a sign of "consolation" in a rediscovery of the importance of the inner world? The first, step in this reflection has brought us to the conclu-sion that, if we truly believe that God's Spirit. is indeed active in the world and if our aim is to integrate our decisions and actions as perfectly as possibly into this creative dynamism, then we will have to widen considerably the scope of our attentiveness to the divine presence. Our discerning of God's ~vill seems ~to bring us much further than it used to, well beyond the realm of personal spiritual life. No more can we think of attaining holiness through a private imitation of Christ (see Castillo). What we have examined is the first aspect of discernment, the "listening" element. It corresponds to what is called in Ignatian spirituality the "discernment of spirits" and also, in the Quaker tradition, to the simple prayer meeting. The regular practice of such discernment helps people to be more aware of God's pres-ence in their life. But it should also help friends or groups to a vision of where God is leading them communally. It can give us an insight into God's guidance for the church, for society, and indeed for the whole world. Acquiring such a common insight will be of great advantage in tackling the second aspect of discernment which we examine below. Tensions in a community could well be interpreted as "desolation," or gratuitous excitement as false "consolation." January-FebtvtaD, 1999 Plissart ¯ The Art of Discernment Anthropological Foundation: How Do We Decide? The Point of Entry Insight into the divine activity is not just an academic exercise. We have already indicated above that it has a very clear purpose. We do not "listen" to the voice of God simply to admire its har-monic quality. We want to add our voice to the symphony. Peters clarifies the distinction between discernment and elec-tion, but goes too far when he says that "the method [of election] is a way of finding the will of God, and has nothing to do with dis-cerning movements" (p. 30). Our insight into God's creative activ-ity inevitably challenges us to a response. Thus we seek not only to hear God's voice, but to discern God's will. This becomes a direct call. The general inspiration which we have discerned ini-tially takes shape gradually and becomes a specific invitation. This is where we move from a "discernment of spirits" to a process of election: we are faced with alternatiyes, and we have to make a choice. What is happening is that we become aware of a krisis, a fork in the road. This requires a diakrisis: deciding which way to go. The process of decision is always situated existentially, and it is good, indeed important, to know the path that has led to it, the approach to the point of entry. Ignatian spirituality has clarified the process itself, but has not specified precisely the scope of what to consider. In the Spiritual Exercises lgnatius's guidance in the pro-cess of election seems to be directed mainly to an individual mak-ing a decision about his or her future state of life. But commentators indicate that the principles are not restricted to such instances. Since Ignatius and his companions use similar prin-ciples for many of their decisions, it would seem that the process of election is applicable to all levels of human decision. This is indeed to be expected if we are fully aware of divine invitations at all levels of human activity. So we have to widen the scope here also. The most obvious level of decision making is that of the con-scious self. It concerns an action for which .one will be directly and personally responsible. But not many decisions, if any, are totally private. So the interpersonal is nearly always present in decision making. It is then a decision that affects those who are involved in a relationship, and we would expect that the process of discernment would implicate all participants. Decisions concern-ing close friendship and marriage are good examples of this, and Review for Religious one can widen the scope to community decisions, family deci-sions, and so forth. The moment of decision, the need for discernment, may not be obvious when persons reflect and discern purely as individuals, but may become obvious on the social level and then brought down to the personal. Good examples of this would be an eco-nomic crisis or a population crisis, each with its repercussions on the life of the community, the family, and the individual. Still wider areas of decision may involve cultural changes, religious or institu-tional sclerosis, or natural disasters. These will require decision-making processes that have a wide place of entry, but do not ignore personal elements (which are never absent). In these areas Ren~ Simon's reflection on the relationship between law and discernment is helpful. The process of election will be very different, but the basic elements will be these: insight based on some interpretative belief, examination of the challenge by means of dialogue, and proiection towards the realm of action for assess-ment and choice. With regard to the charismatic role of discern-ment in relation to institutional sclerosis, Ladislaus Boros makes the following interesting remark: "The charismatic and underiv-able aspect is essential to the church, .for God has never retired, as it were, in favor of the official ecclesial administration. Nor has he abdicated in favor of the guidance of the Holy Spirit given to the higher and highest instances of.the church. God himself is the Spirit [see Jn 3:8] blowing 'where it listeth,' [blowing] alike on children and idiots, the poor and simple, and theologians of all kinds" (p. 78). Clearly we are dealing here with a widening continuum. Division into sections is arbitrary. Yet there appear to be both an inner limit to this continuum and an outer one, limits beyond which we seem to lose control. At the inner limit we enter so deeply into the self that the processes become unconscious. The creative dynamism is still active, but escapes our grasp. Eastern religions (Hinduism and Buddhism) and perhaps certain forms of Christian mysticism situate our connection to the absolute at this level. At the outer limit we grope toward the immensity of the cosmos and fail to grasp it. This time it is the far heavens that are beyond us. Within these two limits we can set the realm and scope The interpersonal is nearly always present in decision making. Januaty-Febrnaty 1999 Plissart ¯ The Art of Discernment of responsible praxis, the point of application of the process of discernment leading to action. The Question of Universality We are now becoming more aware that any discernment in a process of election has repercussions at all levels. Wherever. the stone may fall, it creates ripples over the whole surface of the lake. Decisions involve the same universal creative dynamism, and they have effects that resound through the whole realm of responsible praxis. This would seem to make the task of discernment abso-lutely daunting: What attitude, then, can we take? Many spiritual writers indicate that discernment does not lead to certainty. This is something we must accept at all stages of the process. We try to examine God's creative and dynamic presencefin our life, in the life of others', in our society and culture, in the world as a whole. But our point of view is inevitably limited. We try to take into account the flow of our own life from the moment of birth, or the flow of history in our communal, eccesial, or social context, but we cannot see the whole picture. Then when a prob-lem occurs, when the moment of decision arises, we try to situate ourselves in this picture, to ga~ther all possible data that might be relevant, but we can see only a few elements and have.,to be con-tent with that. We want to listen to as many people as possible because each one can give us a useful insight into the light of God that illurfiines our search, but there is always more light beyond, which we cannot fathom. We do not want to be biased; we want to be "indifferent" and try to avoid undue influences from our own background, from our s6cial or physical environment, and so forth, but we cannot extract ourselves from our own existence. We may try to see the consequences of a certain decision so as to make a better assessment, but we can see only that far, and no further. Clearly we cannot take everything into account. One rather unsatisfactory way in which this problem has usu-ally been solved, at least at the practical level, was to look at the process simply from its point of entry. For instance, if the issue was to decide about my own vocation, I would simply examine what my decision on this should be in the context of my life, and leave other decisions to be made by others, for example, church offi-cials, parents, civil authority, and so forth. Or, if the issue involved natural science--whether, for example, .to continue to develop nuclear technology--scientists would limit themselves to the sci- Revibw for Religious entific possibility and expediency and leave civil rulers to decide on the social consequences. In a sense there may be a vision of faith in such a position. If each person decides validly within his or her restricted level of insight, can we not trust the original cre-ative dynamism to realize the harmony that is its aim? Perhaps. But I believe that the above position has far too often been interpreted in a minimalist way. I believe that it is defeatist and dangerous. I believe that a true vision of faith will require of us that we try to achieve as wide a scope as possible. Therefore, at the close of this paper I would like to advocate a maximalist inter-pretation of the question I raised in the previous paragraph. The Criterion of Harmony Common Discernment Spiritual discernment and discernment in view of making a decision according to the divine will have always been considered an art. This is an implicit acceptance of the tentative value of the conclusions that are reached. But at the same time it points to the totality of impact of any decision within the whole creative flow. Our attentiveness to God's voice in our life and in the world cannot be restrictive. It must always tend to its widest possible scope. Only then can the full impact of divine creativity be recog-nized and accepted. The search for the divine will in any particular instance, and the attempt to discern which course of action would best coincide with that divine will, must situate the process of examination as widely as possible. I emphasize that it is" in the measure in which this is attempted and achieved that the dis-cernment will be a valid one and that global harmony will be fos-tered. Some examples will show this more in detail. A young woman aware of God's presence in her life, believes she is called to serve God in a special way. She enters a process of discernment to find out whether and how she should respond to such an invitation. Clearly, at least three groups will have to be involved in her discernment process to make it valid. First, she will have to consult with family and friends. The decision would Our attentiveness to God's voice in our life and in the world cannot be restrictive. January-February 1999 Plissart ¯ The Art of Discernment change not only her life, but also their relationship with her. Second, the new group she wants to join will have to be part of the discernment too, since the decision means that the group will or will not go through the change of integrating her into their circle. Third, the discernment will involve the church in which the com-mitment would be made, since her decision will occur in that con-text. Traditionally, each group of people would make their own dis-cernment and, if no consensus was reached, the final say would be settled through the exercise of authority. Yet it seems evident that a greater harmony could be achieved if each group would in some way participate in a common process of discernment. The young woman can dialogue with family and friends about her pos-sible vocation. She can dialogue with the new group to see how her decision would affect her and them. Members of the group can meet her family and exchange opinions on the project, church officials could speak with representatives of the group about the decision, and so forth. If each participant is genuinely searching for guidance from above, the. decision-making process itself and the outcome of it will foster harmony among these people. Such coop-eration will witness to divine creativity at work. Another example. A local religious community wants to decide whether to continue its insertion into a depressed urban area or take on another responsibility. Traditionally, they go through a process of discernment as a group while their superiors also con-sider the decision. Though the local church community might be implicated in the decision, it might not be consulted. When groups arrive at opinions separately, tension easily arises if and when sep-arately formed opinions do not coincide. Here again a common discernment process--at various levels according to possibilities-- would undoubtedly foster harmony: Let the local religious group and the local Christian community meet and exchange on the pro-ject. Let superiors come and .discuss the issue with the local reli-gious community. Let all persons in the several groups be given a chance to go through their personal discernment process in dia-logue with each other. Let the local church authorities dialogue with the group of religious and with the local Christian commu-nity, and so forth. Let the participants allow, in each of these encounters, the Spirit of God to illumine their hearts and minds through the contributions of others. Thereby they will witness to. God's creation of, respect for, and empowering of people who Review for Religious have wonderful differences among themselves. In doing so they will certainly create harmony. A final example. A number of homeless people have occupied a derelict building and are now threatened with eviction because the area must be transformed into a recreation ground. The home-less people refuse to leave. Some local pastors support them in the name of the gospel. The local politician is under pres-sure because the potential inv

Issue 56.6 of the Review for Religious, November/December 1997. ; Living NUMBER 6 Review for Religious is a forum for shared reflection ~n the lived experiehce of all who find that the church's rich" he~'m_ges .of spirituality ~upport tbei~ personal and apostolic Christian li6es. . The articles in the journal are meant to be informative, practical, or inspirationM, written front a~ tbeoflogical or spiritual or s6metimes canonical poin~ t of view. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at Saint Louis Universit3, by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: FOPPEMA@SLU.EI)U Manuscripts, book~ 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 McDonot, gh OP 1150 Cedar Cove Road ¯ Henderson, NC 27536 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information o,1 subscription rates. ¢1997 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 nse, 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 [br the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. for religious Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Regina Siegfried ASC Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Jean Read James and Joan Felling Iris Ann Ledden SSND Joel Rippinger OSB Edmundo Rodriguez SJ David Werthmann CSSR Patricia Wittberg SC Christian Heritages .and Contemporary Living NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1997 # VOLUME56 ¯ NUMBER6 contents virtues Solidarity--More than a Polish Thing Marie Vianney Bilgrien SSND sheds light on the importance of solidarity as a virtue, especially in the preparation of the Synod for America. The Paradoxical Courage of Ananias John L. Barber draws a picture of the disciple Ananias in which the various attributes of his courage guide us in our Christian following. working together 578 587 A Quilt, a Council, and a Church Margaret Mary Knittel RSM proposes that the processes of quiltmaking and the processes of organizations call for an ever active interdependence among equal people before a loving God. Community--Healthy or Dysfunctional? Joel Giallanza CSC makes some practical observations about the choices we make for a healthy community life and describes various causes of dysfunction. 599 The Elderly among Us Eagan Hunter CSC reflects upon the importance of the elderly ~x~ among us for the vital continuity of our religious life. Revie~v for Religious 605 614 being missioned Interreligious Dialogue and the Jesuit Mission Thomas Michel SJ explains the beneficial implications of interreligious dialogue and describes the personal transformation that results. Misery Meets Mystery in Montenegro: A Survival Guide for North American Religious Annette M. Pelletier IHM pictures the "reason" for hope in the flourishing of consecrated life in North America by describing her experience of the people of the Peruvian pueblo Montenegro. perspectives 623 Itinerancy, Stability, and the Freedom of No-Where Brian J. Pierce oP examines the ascetic freedom common to apostolic itinerancy and monastic stability, the freedom both to go wherever God's Spirit moves us and to stay put wherever we have come to see that God dwells. 636 642 Grass-Roots Religious Jeanne McNulty OCV presents reflections on some new ways of living consecrated life. Jesus, Frogs, and Dancing Eileen P. O'Hea CSJ tells of the rich experience of an ever developing relationship with Jesus that deepens our love of God and love of neighbor. departments Prisms Canonical Counsel: Habit and Habitus: Current Legislation Book Reviews Indexes to Volume 56 November-December 1997 prisms Jesus Christ is the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega, Lord of the new universe, the great hidden key to human history and the part we play in it. --Paul V-I, homily in Manila, 29 November 1970 ~esus presents us Christians with two inestimable gifts: familial intimacy with God and a share in divine vision. St. Paul speaks of God giving us wisdom to understand the mystery, "the plan he was pleased to decree in Christ, to be carried out in the fullness of time: namely, to bring all things in the heavens and on earth into one under Christ's headship" (Ep 1:9-10). Overwhelmed with the vastness of the vision, we rightly focus on the gift of intimacy. But, as we come to the end of each liturgical year, we receive reminders about the twinned vision which our relationship with Jesus entails. The many Gospel incidents of his curing blindness imply our need for Jesus to give us ever greater sight along with a deepening love relationship. One of the Gospel titles which Jesus elicits from us throughout our lives is "Teacher." As we continue to reflect on the Scriptures and receive graced insight into relationships and situations of our daily life, we become aware that Jesus remains our teacher as he was for the people during the time of his public ministry. A teacher provides information, presents new ways of seeing things, and makes connections with previous experiences, allow-ing further insights to develop. Through the gift of the Spirit, Jesus. continues giving all the richness of divine perspective. The Spirit's action gives hope to the church, whose vision is always in process of renewal. Through the focus of scripture readings during this changeover from Ordinary Time to Advent, the church faces each of us with our personal responsibility to examine whether we continue to deepen our relationship with Jesus and Review for Religious whether we allow Jesus to keep expanding our vision. The ques-tion for us: Do we seek out Jesus as our Teacher? If we enter into Matthew's final-judgment scene, how does Jesus find us "seeing" and dealing with our fellow men and women? With our aware-ness of ecological balance, how responsible are we to an envi-ronment given over to our care? Does "all things being created in him" affect our attitude of reverence in exploring Mars or some galaxy in the future? We talk about "getting stuck in our ways." We sometimes car-icature it as a special problem for the older person, but it has no age boundaries. We see children quickly get into certain ritualized ways of playing. We certainly know such patterns in our own behavior. In fact, prejudice is a fixed way of seeing or of relating. In the face of personal and historical evidence, it is a paradox to be engaged in a growing relationship with Jesus and at the same time to cling to prejudice. Does prejudice signal to us that we may be trying to focus myopically on the Jesus relationship without let-ring Jesus be Teacher for us? We may forget that faith vision is a grace always to be prayed for. Perhaps we have placed ourselves more in the position of Peter refusing to let his feet be washed, and we too need to hear Jesus' reprimand that unless we allow him to wash our feet (that is, allow our relationship with Jesus to affect our way of seeing and of acting) we will end up having no rela-tionship with him. We need to be challenged by the Pauline vision to enter into the divine pleasure of reconciling everything--both on the earth and in the heavens--in Christ. At the close of a liturgical year, as we listen to the Gospel accounts of end times and final-judgment scenes and then move on, in Advent, to the careful preparations for God's entering into our human history in Jesus, we realize anew how we are called to play our part in the cosmic vision--what St. Paul called "the mystery of Christ," the divine de, sign of salvation. Like St. Paul, we too want to make Christ known, hoping to make every human being complete in Christ, since in him--the image of the invisi-ble God--we see God's image of what it means to be human. And in our Christmas awe we continue to pray that we may have eyes to see that Mystery Incarnate, "the fullness of him who fills the universe in all its parts.'? David L. Fleming SJ The editors and staff of Review for Religious wish all our readers a most blessed Christmas and New Year! Noventber-Decevnber 1997 MARIE VIANNEY BILGRIEN SolidaritymMore than a Polish Thing virtues For too long, people have equated the concept of solidar-ity with the Solidarity Union Movement in Poland in the 1980s. On the other hand, many people have not paid any attention to solidarity because they thought of it either as a Polish thing or as just a passing event. For a few years solidarity generated written articles and symposiums after Pope John Paul II named solidarity a virtue in his 1987 encyclical Sollicitudo rei socialis. Can one birth new virtues in our religious tradition? I suspect one can, if one is pope and writing an encyclical. So maybe sol-idarity is a Polish thing! In any case, interest in the virtue soon died down. I know this because in 1994, when I was in Rome writing my dissertation tided Solidarity: d Principle, an Attitude, a Duty, or The Virtue for an Interdependent I4rorld, I seemed the only one interested in it--especially as a virtue. Yet there is a new surge of interest, due to the linea-menta prepared for the Synod of America titled Encounter with the Living.Jesus Christ: Vday to Conversion, Communion, and Solidarity. In the lineamenta, solidarity is referred to as a principle, a duty, and a virtue. Individuals and groups are urged to practice solidarity "to channel effective aid to groups and nations which suffer from poverty." Solidarity as a virtue is "a morally necessary reaction to the exis- Marie Viarmey Bilgrien SSND, director of the Hispanic ministry office in the diocese of Baker, may be addressed at P.O. Box 823; Madras, Oregon 97741 Review for Religious tence of injustice in social conditions" that affects many individ-uals and nations. Emphasizing the fact of interdependence, the lineamenta stresses that solidarity must be practiced not only by individual persons, but by entire peoples and nations, inasmuch as the world is economically, culturally, and politically more and more interconnected. What one country does regarding migra-tion, the use of natural resources, the drug trade, genetic manip-ulation, international economic relations, and so forth affects many other countries. The lineamenta stresses that solidarity is part of the church's social teaching and is to be practiced by everyone (§55); it explains as does Sollicitudo rei socialis that, if we want to undo the structures of sin so prevalent in our world, the solution lies in the moral realm. Just as sins of individuals create structures of sin that take on a hideous existence of their own, "an all-consuming desire for profit and thirst for power," so too acts of the virtue of solidarity by individuals, groups, and nations can build up structures of virtue that have a "decisive influence on economic programs and policies, on social communication, on culture, on healthcare, and so forth" not only locally but also nationally and internationally. It will be interesting to see how the idea of solidarity plays out in the meetings and documents of the Pan-America synod. Solidarity has a longer history than most people realize. It appears five times in the Latin of the Vatican II documents: twice in Apostolicam actuositatem, §8 and §14, and three times in Gaudium et spes, §§4, 32, and 57. In reading the texts one can glean that solidarity has an important spiritual dimension. It is a part of charity and has an individual and a universal dimension. It creates a responsibility to act. Jesus' incarnation shows his and God's sol-idarity with humanity. Our response to that gift is the practice of solidarity, recognizing that we are one family, that we have received gifts and talents to be used cooperatively--for the good of the whole family. Paul VI used the idea of solidarity extensively, especially in Populorumprogressio (see §§17, 43, 44, 48, 62, 64, 73, 80, and 84). It also appears in the Italian translation of Pius XII's encyclical Summipontificatus in 1939. He understood solidarity as the unity Jesus" incarnation shows his and God's solidarity with humanity. November-December 1997 Bilgrien ¯ SolidaritymMore than a Polish Thing of the human race, our.common origin from our Creator, sharing a "common habitation, this world of ours whose resources every-one has a natural right to enjoy., as they are needed for preser-vation and self-development." John Paul has been writing about solidarity since 1969. In his book The Acting Person, in describing personal development, he devotes a whole chapter to the necessity of attitudes of both oppo-sition and solidarity for the true and complete development of mature persons. In naming solidarity a virtue, he gives it greater importance. What does that mean? Solidarity as an attitude, duty, or principle only helps people to do the right thing, but as a virtue it helps them to become good. Duty implies decision and action, but virtue implies a disposition, a power, a perfection. Duty asks, What should I do? Virtue asks, How should I be? Virtue helps us do the right thing for the right reason. Solidarity is a virtue not only for individual persons, but also for groups working together and for nations in a world that is ever more interdependent. Solidarity is the virtue that can move society to the good. Solidarity is the virtue that can transform persons and society. In describing the virtue in Sollicitudo rei socialis, John Paul says that it is the response to relationships in a world that is inter-dependent; "it is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good" (§38). He adds that the virtue is valid only when we recognize others as human persons, equal in dignity; when we feel responsible for those who are weaker--the poor (§39). In two paragraphs he lays out the components of the virtue of solidarity: interdependence, the common good, the dignity of the person, the preferential option for the poor. Solidarity recognizes that people, nations, all of creation are interconnected. What happens in one area of the world can have tremendous effects in another part. The actions of individuals, nations, and blocs of nations either increase the structures of sin (thirst for power, all-consuming desire for profit, ethnic wars, unjust wages, inhuman working conditions, patterns of violence and sexual abuse) or can build up structures of virtue (cooperative efforts to bring about a more just world and preserve the integrity of creation: the United Nations, groups concerned about ecol-ogy, peace-and-justice commissions, and so forth). Solidarity as a virtue recognizes people as equal in dignity and worthy of respect. Solidarity as a virtue sees each person as a Review for Religious member of the world family, as an image and likeness of God. Instead of looking at others as simply other, solidarity helps us to see them as neighbors, as brothers and sisters. From this flow the importance and necessity of working together to preserve the human family and the integrity of creation. Some of this can be seen in the work of the U.N. as it sends groups to work with refugees or promote peace between warring eth-nic groups. One sees the virtue in Doctors with-out Frontiers, who work in many parts of the world, and in other volunteer groups promot-ing health, education, and housing in poor coun-tries of the world. In accepting and recognizing the human dignity of each person, there must be a focus on those who are poorest. Both John Paul and Paul VI noted that their eyes were opened to the poor during their travels to Latin America and India. When one stands in a different place, one sees differently. Moving out from the Vatican palace to the streets of Calcutta and the barrios of Rio de Janeiro changes the view. Their eyes were opened; their awareness of people's suffering intensified. After those journeys, both popes talked more and more strongly about the necessity of "an option for the poor." In Sollicitudo rei socialis John Paul explains that a preferential option is not an exclusive option, but is a "firm and irrevocable option." Solidarity with its component of an option for the poor helps us to see the wider issues, the intertwining of systems and structures that oppress the poor rather than raise them up. Somewhere, in solidarity's judgment, the poor have a role. It is not true solidarity if the poor are overlooked or treated with conde-scension. In each judgment that is made, each action taken, one should ask: How will this affect the poor? The real goal of an option for the poor is to move beyond helping them and provid-ing care. The goal is for the poor to be authors of their own actions, to make their own decisions, decisions that are effective in moving them from poverty to participation in society. The goal is for them to be no longer .treated as children incapable of tak-ing care of themselves, but to participate in decision making so that the effects of solidarity are felt by all and begin to reshape the unjust structures that keep the poor poor. Only when the poor Solidarity recognizes that people, nations, all of creation are interconnected. November-December 1997 Bilgrien ¯ Solidarity--More than a Polish Thing are treated with full dignity will the virtue of solidarity begin to flourish in all its splendor. What is at stake is the common good, the good of all and the good of each individual, and solidarity is the virtue that commits everyone to the common good. Solidarity directs nations to sub-ordinate their national interests for the good of the planet, for the good of all. Solidarity directs individuals to transcend their greed and selfishness and focus on the good of the whole. Our years of selfishness, of greed for power and money, have caused havoc in the environment and have placed future genera-tions in jeopardy. No one can quash worrisome questions about the "greenhouse effect," about the dangers of the ozone level in the atmosphere, and about unknown effects of massive deforesta-tion and the continuous piling up of industrial waste. We continue to kill our planet. The widespread experimentation and manipula-tion in the biological sciences has outrun our ability to make moral decisions. Those decisions or indecisions will have for future gen-erations repercussions that we cannot predict. Solidarity is the virtue that can bring us to a greater consciousness of the importance of our moral decisions. Solidarity, by focusing the common good, reminds us that the differences of race, gender, ethnicity, culture, and economic status do not have to be divisive. Solidarity is the virtue for the third millennium. It has the capacity to inform interdependence in such a way that persons, peoples, countries, and nations will relate to each other equally, as members of the same family. Solidarity as a virtue orders actions and relationships towards the common good. It is the virtue that can transform a world of unjust structures, structures of sin, into structures of virtue, structures of justice, family structures. The general secretariat of the Synod of Bishops in its working paper has begun to answer the call of John Paul to unite all peoples of the Western Hemisphere and offers the practice of solidarity as one of the ways to solve the massive problems and inequities of the two continents. Conversion, communion, and solidarity in, with, and through Jesus Christ will be important on the journey into the third millennium. Solidarity is only the beginning. Review for Religious JOHN L. BARBER The Paradoxical Courage of Ananias anlthe pages of the sacred text, we find many courageous, but so human, people. One .such bold, authentic person was Ananias of the Book of Acts. The prelude to his encounter with Paul (then named Saul) is recorded as follows: A disciple called Ananias who lived in Damascus had a vision in which he heard the Lord say to him, "Ananias!" When he replied, "Here I am, Lord," the Lord said, "You must go to Straight Street and ask at the house of Judas for someone called Saul, who comes from Tarsus. At this moment he is praying and having a vision of a man called Ananias coming in and laying hands on him to give him back his sight." When he heard that, Ananias said, "Lord, several people have told me about this man and all the harm he has been doing to your saints in Jerusalem. He has only come here because he holds a warrant from the chief priest to arrest everybody who invokes your name." The Lord replied, "You must go all the same, because this man is my chosen instru-ment to bring my name before pagans and pagan kings and before the people of Israel. I myself will show him how much he himself must suffer for my name." Then Ananias went. (Ac 9:10-16)~ We know very little about Ananias, other than what we glean from this short account in Acts; he was "a disciple" of Jesus and lived in Damascus. Rather than being a longtime citizen of that city, our Ananias may have been a refugee from the persecution of Christians in Jerusalem. Though this is uncertain, we will John L. Barber, a lawyer, married and the father of two college-age sons, is also a lay minister at St. Paul's Episcopal Church. He writes to us from 600 Nokomis Court; Winston-Salem, North Carolina 27106. November-Decentber 1997 Barber ¯ The Paradoxical Courage of Ananias Saul is not only a real person, but also a symbol for the challenge to move from what we know, from safety, into the unknown and risk. --y-72J assume that he was indeed one who had fled from religious oppression. From Paul's address to the Jews of Jerusalem, we learn he was also "a devout follower of the Law and highly thought of by all the Jews living" in Damascus (Ac 22:12). Apparently his name was a common one, for in Acts we meet two other Ananiases. The first appears in chapter 5--Sapphira's husband, who lied to the Holy Spirit--and in chapter 23 we encounter the other, the high priest who ordered Paul struck on the mouth. In the same type of human plight in which our faith is tested, the constancy of Ananias was tried. In this sense Saul is a metaphor for those predicaments into which we must walk, involving a difficult or dangerous person or situation and presenting some risk from which we fear harm. The potential injury we face may not be as grave as the arrest and imprisonment that Ananias dreaded. Nonetheless, to us it feels and seems harmful, and we are afraid. As we journey on our Christian pilgrimage, all of us must face our own fear-provoking Sauls. Who are these Sauls for us? They are those places and people to which we would not go, were it not for God leading, moving, and stirring us and urging us to grow. They are life passages and problems we would not engage in, were it not for God inviting us or interrupting our lives. Saul may appear in life passages such as a midlife crisis or that time when the last child leaving home creates what is commonly called "the empty nest." In these interruptions we lose our bearings. Our "Saul" in them is the challenge of finding our direction again and reorienting ourselves. They might be crises like a divorce or the death of a spouse or loved one, the loss of a job or dissatisfaction with one's career. In these situations we face Saul when we are forced out of our ruts to seek new or renewed meaning for life. Saul is not only a real person, but also a symbol for the chal-lenge to move from what we know, from safety, into the unknown and risk. He is a sign for that time in life when our devotion to God demands concrete but hazardous action. We may find our Sauls in people with whom we have some Review for Religious confrontation, particularly if we are conflict avoiders. On the other hand, the Saul could be a confrontation with our own selves as we meet the challenge of seeing the truth in our own failings and weaknesses, limitations andsins, and dysfunctions and addic-tions. The dangerous Saul might be the challenge of learning healthier ways of relating and living. These types of self-con-frontation, in which we face the painful reality in our own hearts, can require even more courage than conflict with others. Typically, life's Sauls, in the guise of hard and risky challenges, involve both types of encounters: encountering self and encountering another person or some passage or crisis. For both of these, fortunately, we have a guide in the person of Ananias: he faced his own fear and Saul as well. A pattern for a bold Christian spirituality, he presents, when viewed from dif-ferent angles, a multidimensional courage. What, then, were some of the facets of his intrepidity? His Christian courage involved at least five attributes: openness before God, obedience, reluc-tance, calculated surrender, and the gift of grace. Openness before God The characters of the Bible portray many different stances or postures vis-~a-vis God. The prophet Jonah tried "to get away from Yahweh" (Jon 1:3). In Genesis, after Adam and Eve suc-cumbed to temptation, they hid from the Lord God who came to them "walking in the garden in the cool of the day." Ananias, on the other hand, was neither taking flight nor hiding. While he may have fled the persecution in Jerusalem, he did not flee from God. The Lord did not have to say to him, "Ananias, where are you?" as he did to Adam (Gn 3:8-10) or unleash "a violent wind on the sea" as he did against Jonah (Jon 1:4). Instead, Ananias had laid, himself bare before God, saying, "Here I am, Lord. Speak, your servant is listening." This "I-tere I am, Lord" stance in the presence of God is the courageous spirituality. Living "out there," in front of God, is the stalwart posture of discipleship. It is scary to live openly before God. What sins will God allow us to see? How will the glow of his love and the heat of his righteousness feel on our faces? What sufferings that our broth-ers and sisters endure will we, too, be privileged to face? What will the Lord ask us to do? For example, we pray earnestly, longing to hear God as clearly as Ananias did. Then, L.f-73 November-December 1997 Barber ¯ The Paradoxical Courage of Ananias when we do, we are hesitant to do what God has asked of us. We question God, saying, "Lord, did you really say what I thought you said?" or "God, I wanted you to speak to me, but I really don't want to do what you asked." Hiding from God among the trees of the garden is the spir-ituality of fear. Taking flight from God is the spirituality of escape. Openness before God is the spirituality of Ananias. Obedience The obedience of Ananias flowed out of his openness before God. This aspect of courage led to another, that of obedience. Courage for the Christian is different from bravery in other con-texts. For the believer, courage is connected to our obedience to God. An outgrowth of Ananias's openness was his vision in which he heard God speak, a time of intent listening for and to the voice of God. According to author Henri Nouwen, there is a com-monalty between obedience and intent listening. The word obe-dience springs from the Latin ob-audire, which signifies intent listening? Such intent listening is an act of courage in itself. For, if we begin to listen, we may come to know the sound of God's voice. And, if we come to know the sound of the voice, we may actually hear it. And, if we hear what God has to say to us, we are left in a dilemma of response and answer, as was Ananias. Reluctant Courage In our society we tend to view brave people as those who have no fear. In fact, the word "fearless" is a synonym for "courage." Yet, if we wait until we have no fright or consternation before we take a particular action, we will never act; for who among us is never afraid? This, however, is all-or-nothing thinking. Instead of being either valiant or afraid, we are simultaneously both3--valiant and afraid. Bravery, in truth, is action in spite of fear. In the face of the terror which looks us straight in the eyes, courage is a life stance or attitude which enables us to go to that dreadful place where God may be leading and we otherwise would not travel. For Ananias, bravery existed coexisted with his fear. He was obviously afraid of Saul, who journeyed to Damascus "still breath-ing threats to slaughter the Lord's disciples" (Ac 9:1). Having ReviewforReligious heard the Lord, Ananias responded by saying, "But, Lord, let me point out a few things to you. This Saul is a dangerous man. He might arrest me and put me in prison. I've already fled Jerusalem to get away from persecution, and now you want me to walk straight back into it." There is no evi-dence that Ananias ever got over being afraid of Saul. Although he was reluctant in his fear of Saul, Ananias nevertheless responded in faithfulness to the voice of God. He went to Saul in and with his fear. Following the example of Ananias, courage for the Christian exists not in overcoming our human- Courage for the Christian exists not in overcoming our humanity, but in our humanity. ity, but in our humanity. For the Christian, courage lives where there is obedience to the voice of God in spite of a very real dread. A Calculated Surrender For the Christian, courage is also an ambiguous place of ten-sion between knowing and counting the costs of our obedience, on the one hand, and, on the other, surrendering to consequences of our listening to God that are yet unknown. It is action flowing out of a paradoxical wisdom and foolishness. Whatever we might say about Ananias, he counted the cost of obeying God. He knew the risks. About our Ananias, there was a certain sophistication and wisdom. He had a firm grip on life as it really is, including the ugly part, particularly if he was a refugee from the persecution in Jerusalem. As a realistic person, his brav-ery was not a gullible one. Arrest, prison, stoning, persecution-- he knew very well what he might be getting into if he obeyed God and went to Saul. He was regardful of the reality of this man, who "entirely approved of the killing" of Stephen and "worked for the total destruction of the Church" by going "from house to house arresting both men and women and sending them to prison." (Ac 8:1 and 3). While he was well acquainted with the kind of man he was, his encounter with Saul also held a very real terror of the unknown and unfamiliar. Ananias did not know whether he would survive this ordained meeting or be stoned to death. Though we count the costs of our obedience, we still cannot know the ultimate out- Noventber-December 1997 Barber ¯ The Paradoxical Courage of Ananias come. The future cannot be envisioned. An old Jewish proverb says that "man plans but God laughs." Despite our best planning we cannot eliminate all surprises and exigencies. For the Christian, courage involves surrender into the hidden outcome of our obe-dience. In our confrontations we must know the risks we face. We are called to be wise as serpents. At the same time we cannot fore-see all the risks, and so our courage must have some element of surrender in it. In facing others we miglit lose our jobs, endure retribution, or suffer alienation in relationships. In the passages and crises of life, we might be forced from our comfortable lifestyle to one of greater risk as well as service and deeper mean-ing. In discovering ourselves as we really are, we may feel the heat of God's gaze with an intensity similar to the sun shining through a magnifying glass. Discomforting it is to see both the chaff and the wheat of the ripening crop of our own lives. Ananias's intrepidity was not naive, but one rooted in reality. Nonetheless, it involved a letting go of his life and relinquish-ment to God. If we are to be brave Christians, we must enter the place of tension between counting the cost and surrender. Gift of Grace We return to the name Ananias. For actors in the Biblical drama, a name was significant. So it was for Ananias. His name is derived from the Hebrew name Hananiah, meaning "the Lord is gracious" or "the Lord shows grace." For us to hear God's voice, the Lord must speak--which in itself is a special grace. With its limited resources, our own courage can take us only so far. Then, in order to heed the sound of God's voice, we come to the point where our humanity needs a healthy dose of grace. God's gra-ciousness is our access to Christian courage that is required of us if we are to be disciples. Grace is the window through which we step from hiding before God to the presence of God. Grace is the threshold which we cross from a fearful inaction to an obe-dience of reluctant courage. The irony of Christian courage is that it requires both a personal achievement and a gift from God. Living openly before God, Ananias of Damascus exposed him-self to hear whatever the Lord might say. Once he heard the voice of God, he responded in obedience. But his response was a human one of courage in its reluctance and hesitancy in its bravery. Review for Religious Realistic in his intrepidity, he both knew the risk and counted the cost of going to Saul. At the same time, he abandoned himself to the unknown consequences. Then he relied on God's grace so that he might be obedient to his voice. To varying degrees we are all Ananiases, whom William Barclay called "one of the forgotten heroes of the Christian Church." The mystery is that we are persons of paradox--as was Ananias; reluctantly courageous, calculated in our surrender, and obedient through grace--as was Ananias. Notes ~ Scripture quotations are from the Jerusalem Bible. 2 Seeds of Hope: A Henri Nouwen Reader, ed. Robert Durback, p. xxix. 3 I am indebted to Maurice Briggs MA for this insight about "all or nothing" or "either!or" thinking ove? and against "both/and" thinking. Rev. Briggs is a member of the faculty in the Department of Chaplaincy and Pastoral Education at North Carolina Baptist Hospital, Winston- Salem, North Cai'olina. Advent Cave Plato knew about the dark, how we prisoners face the wall in chains, only the fire b~hind us letting us see the m~oving shadows we call real. Far above, looms the door to light, reachable only by those who turn ~ away,from all they know. Wisdom, who lived in the cave at Nazareth where parents made a home and carried water to thefire, sitting at night in quiet, thoughts and the animals dozing near embers, the dying light, after a day of learning the real, calls us to turn and face the door. Evelyn Mattern November-Deconber 1997 MARGARET MARY KNITTEL | A Quilt, a Council, and a Church working together The quilt movement should be preserved as a col-lective enterprise with an ethical concern. If taken seriously as women's art, quilts cannot be perceived and enjoyed as isolated aesthetic objects divorced from the relationships of women to each other and to the rest of humankind. Quilts emin~ently pose the question of how one behaves in the asking and viewing of art. --Radka Donnell, Quilts as Women's Art Twenty years ago I took several tries at developing skills "for the home," sensing at first blush of midlife that my. more productive impulses would require something for my hands to do in my old age. Firs~t, there were the needlepoint classes, ~e.~n quilting. Quiltmaking is not for the faint of heart. As a dropout from Advanced Quilting, I can attest to the shaky feeling in the knees when faced with what appears to be an infinite number of steps. This quiltmaking episode would be instructive. As I have come to understand them, both quiltmaking and organizations involve mutuality and interdependence as essential pro-cesses within their respective collective enterprises. A Collective Enterprise In quiltmaking, the mutuality and interdependence of the women are reflected in th~ final product. Design, tex- Margaret Mary Knittei RSM works as a grants consultant for nonprofit organizations. She may be addressed at P.O. Box 634; Geneva, Illinois 60134. Review for Religious ture, color, and template come together through their hands, through their spirit shaping. "Quilts are healing because they accept the uniqueness, the positive difference, and the mortal limit of each human being."1 A quilt's design, texture, color, and template over a period of time will collect these human beings and express their individualities anew. Design, texture, color, template .become interdependent, one with the others, to bring beauty to the whole. The overall design of a quilt needs a working principle, a template, to express the color and'the texture, to specify the difference. One shape, a tri-angle for example, can be the basic design of countless quilts~ The textures of various fabrics add to color and design, with the template giving the basic shape. Color in all its bold or modest hues as textured by the various materials gets a specific shape and then is pieced'into a growing design. The mutuality and interdependence among the quiltmakers affirm them all. Positive differences go somewhere into a future, not wasting time with empty words of control; rather, they speak of vision. Limit recognizes this is a bordered piece, this quilt, and we its .shapers affirm the grace of the moment~, knowing it could be the grace of a lifetime. .Quiltmaking is a healing image, one that includes authentic conversation, meaning-filled relationships, among the people sharing the brganizational life of a parish, a religious community, a church. "Religion here is the sensation of being one with the whole, of belonging, not of subjection.''~ The virtues of quilt-making are the virtues of a healthy human organization. A Demo~cratic and Affirming Mission . Radka Donnell says in her perceptive book: "To the work of piecing quilts I was silently called, and i( took me years to sort 6ut the problems it revealed and the-difficulties it created. The early groups of contemporary quiltmakers were inspired by a sense of mission. If not expressly feminist in each case, this mission certainly was democratic and affirmative of each individual quiltmaker a'nd each quilt. (p. 6) The metaphor of quiltmaking can remind us of the Second Vatican Council's challenge to the church to accept both its divine mission and the human organization called to participate in thLa$t-7-9 November-December 1997 Knittel ¯ A Quilt, a Council, and a Church mission. Facing problems and difficulties, it is an organization capable of error, of hurt and pain, in search of truth, in sea.rch of healing and grace. During the thirty and more years since the council's call, at times its substantive energy seems depleted and diminished; but ultimately, in the hearts of people, the message will never be muffled or suffocated. The post-Vatican church as organization, as. human organi-zation, seems destined for democratic and affirming conversa-tions. That kind of, change and growth lies in the hands of all believers, as people seated as equals around a corporate quilt. If we are quiet.like the quiltmakers, we still hear, from the heart of the council, that call, that sense of being missioned, to the inclu-sive and respectful goodness of lives lived to the full in the sight of God. Our lives continue on, and as we look desperately for mileposts we acknowledge we are still on the way. Concerns for democratically and respectfully affirming connections become earnest calls for better ways of being together, whether it be in a parish, a religious community, or the church universal. Religious organizations, as human organizations, need to face their corporate humanity. A corporate way of being human is important, whether we admit or deny the fact, whether we like it or not. The foibles of people's human interaction can be acutely felt at an individual level. Often, however, corporate humanity recognizes the problems only after many have been hurt. Words like "low morale" or "uncooperative" become blame tags. The dilemma for leadership is that, when you blame, you do not lead. The nature of bureaucracies is to maintain power, no. matter what the cost. The church needs to ask itself just how bureau-cratic it wants to be. If it chooses to be increasingly pastoral, it will find that parishes, religious orders, dioceses, and the church uni-versal will raise new questions, demand new ways of~behaving. Within a bureaucratic church organization, the individual-- parishioner, ~priest, vowed religious, bishop, employee--will mat-ter less than the maintenance of power: posturing, identifying totally with power, seeking to dominate. To survive, members might feel they must be subservient in one way or another. Within a bureaucracy the common good is co-defined with the maintenance of the organization itself. More time and energy are given to protecting a bureaucratically bungled decision than to thinking through afresh what is happening. Things as we hard known them remain the same. In the face of an entrenched Review for Religious bureaucracy, the better educated, the more aware, may leave. Feeling tokenism and lack of care, they may go off, re,searching for their soul. For those who stay, the mission seems dissolved within the bureaucratic. Doing the task mindlessly and relating to self, oth-ers, and God make it all bearable. Fair Dealing Radka Donnell makes this observation about quiltmaking: To be interested in the theory and practice of quiltmaking means to look for fair dealing between women, as well as between men and women. It indicates a readiness to fight against all obstacles preventing us from creating a better world together. (p. 72) One systems view of organizations sees them as made up of four equal subsystems, mutually interdependent in their rela-tionships. These four separate and different subsystems are called the task, the structure, informal groups, and the individual. These four separate and different subsystems function optimally when all are equal to one another in importance and mutually interde-pendent in their relating. If one of these subsystems puffs up, the whole system is affected. The other subsystems get leaned upon, diminishing their contributions within the whole. If one of these subsystems withers, the functioning whole likewise suffers, gets skewed. Parishes; religious communities, and the church universal as human organizations are distinct systems. Each could be said to consist of the four subsystems of task, structure, informal groups, and the individual. The Task as Subsystem. The task in a. religious community would be its charism, the unique mission of a community as per-ceived within the Catholic tradition in its particular context. Similarly, a parish has a particular local task to accomplish. A contemplative group of religious women varies from an active one, and0an inner-city parish from a suburban one. While each participates in a still larger system, locally they are themselves separate organizations. Over time numerous activities accrete to any organization, but its central mission remains. Confusion, dif-ferences, outright hostilities occur when an important question is not acknowledged or goes unasked: "Just who does the sending, November-December 1997 Knittel ¯ A Quilt, a Council, and a Church the missioning?" Is it God, a founder or foundress, this hospital, a church, the history of a town or city? The Structure as Subsystem. The second subsystem to be looked at here is structui'e or governance. Within a community or a parish, we all know the persons making up the structure. Vv'hether community government be elected or discerned, it finds itself in Whether community government be elected or discerned, it finds itself in a quandary of expectations from membership, and from itself. a quandary of expectations from mem-bership and from itself. Likewise, a new pastor looking around for the first time feels various expectations arising. Leadership needs to lead, but, when it does, its performance may not fit pre-conceived notions. Then leadership may be tempted to resist the future; to lean back and maintain the present, and hence to end up reissuing the past. Leadership in the ideal sustains the vision of the common good, which in itself is a process both democratic and affirming. A structure ideally assumes lines and processes of accountability that are at .once just and active. Leapfrogging .and micromanaging from a0distant central office can bypass managers and commit-tees on the scene and violate the rights of the organization itself. Again, if local people .spontaneously blurt out their evaluation of an associate pastor at a parish council meeting, they bypass proper procedures and strip away the individual's right to an appropriate evaluation of job performance. The structure, we need to remem-ber, is one of four equal and interdependent, subsystems contex~ tualized within an organization. Informal Groups as Subsystem, The informal groups in an orga-nization would be various clusters of individuals espousing simi-lar norms and sanctions among themselves. They appear neutral in a well-functioning organization, manifesting as they do a nat-ural affinity of persons. Sometimes, however, an informal group skews an organization, a company, a religious community, or a parish by losing sight of the larger task, the mission, the com-mon good, and seeking its own way of goverfiing the whole. The informal group may try to impose its own values on the majority in any number of ways: by inclusion, exclusion, intimidation, and oppression, by pushing to be the most holy, the most dedicated to Review for Religious the poor, the most attentive to keeping the church intact, the most pro-life. Many masks can disguise the will for power over others, and an informal group in any organization can obscure and even obliterate the vision. The Individual as Subsystem. The fourth subsystem within this model of organization is the individual. Individuals and the moti-vations they bring to the organization impact the entire system. The recognition of the variety of motivations at play within any group can be a sobering and staggering realization. From studies on the impact of opportunity in organizations, we know that the "anointed" in organizations, those high flyers who move quickly through ~the ranks, are given life through our desire to observe them as winners. We endow their ideas and words with more credibility. We entrust them with more resources and better assignments. We have already decided that they will succeed, and so we continu-ally observe them with the expectation that they will con-firm our beliefs.3 The anointed individual in this language of organization-as-system distorts the life of the organization, overshadowing struc-ture, informal groups, task or mission, and other individuals. Other members give over their .truth, their experience, and, in thus surrendering their individual dignity, they suffocate the pos-sibility of democracy or the achievement of the common good. The anointed individual becomes a god. Within a church or reli: gious organization the confusion of gods for God needs contin-ued sorting. Self-Healing Among her comments about quilting, Radka Donnell says: The.more the system gets into high gear, the more self-he~ aling is needed. (pp. 126-127) In church organizations, isolation and wrongly constructed obediences sometimes intensifies the claim of the few to be anoint-eds. A particular organization's structure, informal groups, and task or mission could conceivably be dominated by an anointed; in this mix, religious language might be used to cover ambition, to anoint the anointed. A wonderful scene from the movie Richard 111 swipes at the capacity of religious language to cover up. Richard, pretending to be secluded and hard at prayer, emerges to be "convinced." to November-Dece~nber 1997 Knittel ¯ A Quilt, a Council, and a Church accept the English throne he has serpentinely plotted and mur-dered to acquire, Knowing that people consider him in some way the anointed one, he now considers himself a god. He becomes increasingly foreign to those around him, and later he meets defeat in battle. Have we ever looked on when a locally anointed individual (now apparently feeling godlike as well) strongly inserted irrele-vant and impertinent opinion into a community or parish com-mittee, spilling the work of months down the drain? Numbers of those very committee members, still ~motionally inclined to attribute greater knowledge and perhaps even a cosmic wisdom to the anointed one, may find themselves recoiling in disarray. Can we recall an experience in our lifetime when an individual crashed through the lines of accountability appropriate to structure, manipulated informal groups by feeding them what they want to hear, and used language of mission or church or patriotism to keep the advantage? Is this the call of the prophetic, we. wonder, as we give over our own individual power to this other individual, the anointed? "Prophetic ministry consists of offering an alternative perception of reality and in letting people see their own history in the light of God's freedom and his will for justice.''4 The test suggested is whether the anointed gives space for us to reflect courageously on our 'individual histories "in the light of God's freedom." To con-tinually strive to see one's own history in God's light will be to know our own history, our own experience, anew each time. This is not a blaming game, an unhealed existence, or a quick fix with aphorisms, but a genuine opening in my life, your life, for healing, for Jesus the Christ. Self-healing is not a plastic therapy for believers, but an engagement with a living. God. The question remains: Does the message of an. anointed one leave room for all these variables, for the lights of a freeing God? Margaret Wheadey contrasts the "anointed" individual within an organization to the "dead" individual. Others in organizations go unobserved, irrevocably invisi-ble, bundles of potential that no one bothers to look at. Or they receive summary glances, are observed to be "dead," and are thereafter locked into jobs that provide them with no opportunity to display their many pote.ntials,s A post-Vatican II church unfurled to Catholics a new way of being, and we need to revisit those challenges. Dying to self, we Review for Religious have come to increasingly realize, never meant not unbundling our own gifts, our own graces, as we become acquainted with them. Our own baptismal anointing as Christians, no longer a vague memory, becomes a constant call. But, alas, we knew that struggling to be "undead"--not be to an anointed, just to be undead--would have its own price, Declaring the king to be naked in a bureaucracy brings life-mark-ing, career-reversing implications. A question, a deviation, could bring death-dealing expulsion from the informal life of the group or from the larger organization itself. Each person having and wanting to have influence, each want-ing to "see their own history in the light of God's freedom," becomes incessantly difficult if declared or assumed to be among the "dead." The equality of persons within an organization is the paradigm for the equality of each subsystem in the model offered here. Puffing up one impinges upon all the others. Withering one depletes all. Equality equates to mutuality among members. The Incessant Pursuit The church, embracing sinners in her bosom, is at the same time holy and always in need of being purified, and inces-santly pursues the path of penance and .renewal. (Lumen gentium, §8) The processes of quiltmaking and the processes of organiza-tions call for an incessant pursuit of mutuality and interdepen-dence among women and men equal before a loving God. The Second Vatican Council invited the church of the 20th century to know both its humanity and its wonder. If parishes, orders of women and men religious, and the church universal in a post-Vatican II church accept themselves as corporate human organizations, they will steadily come to under- Stand the strengths and pitfalls that accompany such aggregate groups, The rich heritage of the church cannot afford to forget that it is an organization of human persons. Such forgetting rehearses feudal futility. There is both frailty and strength in its organizational life. At the level of shared humanity, frailties and strengths within any group will always be fa!i'ly evident. To deny this shared humanity is to set up the religious organization as exempt from the foibles and frets that indeed call on God for its life principle. Novetnber-Decentber 1997 Knittel ¯ A Quilt, a Council, and a Church "The church, or, in other words, the kingdom of Christ now pres-ent in mystery, grows visibly in the world through the power of God" (LG §3). To deny the church's humanness is to deny the power of God. As we continue to unpack that sublimely historic event we fondly call "the council," there is more to do, more to remind others about, more for ourselves to be .reminded about. The Roman Catholic Church as a religious organization, ceasing to gloss over its frail corporate humanity, will come to understand its corporateness at a more profound level. The church as a human organization will come to truly trust in the mystery of its shared life of faith in Jesus the Christ. This living quilt we call "church" calls to a people deeply conversant with a living God. Notes I Radka Donnell, Quilts as Women's Art: A Quilt Poetics (North Vancouver, Canada: GaIlerie Publications, 1990), p. 425. 2 Dorothee Soelle, Theology for Skeptics (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), p. 28. 3 Margaret J. Wheadey, Leadership and the New Science (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 1994), p. 60. 4 Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978), p. 110. s Wheatley, pp. 60-61. Subscriptions to Review for Religious can now be ordered or renewed by I~AX and.paid for by MasterCardor ~sa. FAX the order form inside the back cov~r~ or CALL our office with, you~r.tcgedit carol numbi~r:.? o. FAX: 314-~-7-7362 ¯ PHONE: 314297727363 Review for Religious JOEL GIALLANZA Communitym Healthy or Dysfunctional? ~or these reflections about community living in religious .~. orders and congregations, I propose what may seem a curi-ous biblical passage, the one that concludes with "Very well, pay Caesar what belongs to Caesar--and God what belongs to God" (Mr 22:21). We are more accustomed to texts on loving one another or bearing one another's burdens or remaining united and at peace among ourselves or reconciling with one another whenever necessary. All those principles and practices are very important for the life of a healthy community. From this text, however, two :practical norms can be drawn which also are impor-tant for life in community: appropriateness and balance. These two norms are tightly intertwined, like a fine weaving; in fact, both can be drawn from those same words of Jesus: "Pay Caesar what belongs to Caesar--and God what belongs to God." First, appropriateness: We do not give to Caesar what belongs to God or to God what belongs to Caesar. In community we can bring realities into~our life together which are not really appro-priate precisely because they are misplaced: for example, unfair expectations of someone or of one another as a group; unwill-ingness to share or communicate something which by our pro-fession we commit ourselves to share and communicate; personal agendas, with their accompanying attitudes and perspectives, and emotions, which may really belong in ministry or to only one of our relationships or somewhere else altogether. Joel Giallanza CSC writes for us once again from: Congregation of the Holy Cross; Via Framura, 85; 00168 Roma; Italy. November-December 1997 Giallanza ¯ Community--Healthy or Dysfunctional? Serious personal reflection and realistic self-knowledge bring with them the ability to answer this simple question: Where does what I am experiencing--this issue, this feeling, this concern-- belong? Where will it be most appropriately articulated and addressed? Inappropriate placement of issues, feelings, and con-cerns generates an inadequate response. Then all frustrations sur-rounding them will be intensified as they continue to be unaddressed. Second, balance: We give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God at the same time. Of the two points, balance is the more challenging, even on a daily basis. Most of our time and energy as apostolic religious are invested in ministry. This is important, given who we are as religious com-mitted to continue the mission of Jesus in the spirit of our founders and foundresses. Nevertheless, we do need to remind ourselves from time to time that each of us has only one limited pool of time and energy. Too easily we can fall out of balance by expending the maxi-mum of our quality time and energy in ministry--or on some-thing else--and simply neglect community or prayer. While that might never degenerate into complete negligence; we may grad-ually adopt a very minimalist approach to community. Then, from time to time, we may feel shocked that those with whom we live every day have changed or rearranged this or that without our having been consulted. Conveniendy we might forget to ask our-selves if we were sufficiently present, available, and interested when those decisions were being formulated and then imple-mented. Community life can be joyful and it can be painful; at times it can be the greatest of blessings and at times the heaviest of burdens. But never has there been a guarantee, that it would be easy. As long as we are human, working to live closely with other people, appropriateness and balance in approaching our commu-nity life will continue to be significantchallenges. "Pay Caesar what belongs to Caesar--and God what belongs to God." We may not always make that payment perfectly, but we are responsible for making the effort 'to live community with the appropriateness and balance which can facilitate the love and unity we seek. Though other things must also be included, these are principal ingredients that determine the quality of life and health within a community. Review for Religious Quality of Community: Healthy or Dysfunctional? Very little, if anything, about community is theory.It is work to live with one another. But through our commitment it is meant to be a work of the heart. The alternative is that members care lit-tle about one another and about the space in which they live. Gradually each individual b~comes the center of a personal uni-verse which has minimal contact and communication with the other personal universes in the vicinity. Then all the theories about community and loving one another constitute little more than fine words carried on hot air. , Community life, then, can be healthy or dysfunctional. These present thoughts will focus on some characteristics of a healthy community and on some earmarks of a dysfunctional community. The following sets of contrasting characteristics represent spec-trums present in all communities. They are presented here only as a stimulant for further reflection and discussion vis-h-vis the specific experiences and contexts of actual local communities. The health or dysfunction of a community is evident from its location on the spectrum. Determining that location is not a random, arbi-trary exercise; it emerges from the members' individual and com-munal self-knowledge, hgnesty, self-examination, and willingness to adapt. Only then can the members decide what adjustments will facilitate living more effectively as a healthy community. Community or Computer? Communication, sharing and processing information, has a major influence on the health or dysfunction of a community. Healthy choices and decisions are based on sufficient and appro-priate, information and clear communication. This assumes gen-uine listening, not simply hearing. Attentive listening enables us to analyze and respond to. someone's words with understanding and love. , , The alternative is not :merely a failure to listen, though that will be part of it. Much more, the alternative strips the entire interchange--the information sharing and the personal decision making--of any affective, human quality. We may react mechan-ically to what we barely hear, quickly making preliminary and sometimes permanent judgments. As individuals and as a com-munity, we may focus,only on facts, with little regard for how all this decision or this expressed opinion will affect the people involved. Then we are no longer a community, but a computer. November-Decentber 1997 Whether the members are a "community or a computer depends upon how they share and deal with information among themselves, how they communicate with one another. A healthy community remains focused on people; it puts information at the service of people. A dysfunctional community operates much like a computer, focusing on the precision and,.processing 6f infor-mation; it tends to view people as servants of that information. A healthy community strives always to choose and decide wi.th understanding and love. By contrast, a dysfunctional community may be efficient, but is not likely to be person oriented. What needs to be done gets done, but with little regard for the vari-ables of human personality, for people's preferences and per-spect. ives, for the rich nuances that the talents and experience of the individual members could provide. Efficiency may be an important value, but it is no guarantee against dysfunction; only love can prevent that. The quality of communication among community members colors the atmosphere, the climate, the spirit, of their residence, marking it as either a home or a hohsing facility: In turn, that atmosphere affects the quality of relationships among 'the mem-bers and thus the witness,they present to'the world around them through their presence and ministry. Assessing the quality of com-munication within a community is among the mos~t effective and direct means of improving the overall health of that community. Community or Condominium? When the members actively establish and actually engage in their communal lifel the community's ;health benefits d.ireetly. Several elements are involved: first, common call and mission. The healthy commianity understands its call and articulates its mission. This becomes a source ofenergy and provides meaning and direction, with far-reaching implications for every dimension of religious life, from personal and communal lifestyles, to voca-tion promotion, to decisions concerning ministries and the use of financial resources. By contrast, a dysfunctional community drifts without a clear sense of where it is going or how it wants to present itself to the world around it. As a result, irreconcilably wide gaps develop among the lifestyles and philosophies of the various members and local communities and jeopardize the very fibers holding the com-munity together. Efforts to identify and maintain any common Revie~v for Religious call and mission are not a priority among the members of a dys-functional community. A second element of community health is mutual respect. Members have a certain maturity and respect one another's per-sons, possessions, and perspectives. This is not to imply that there will be constant and. consistent agreement; that is not realistic. Respect has more to do with recogniz-ing, accepting, and even honoring the differences among the members than with arriving at some superficial level of agreement. By contrast, a dysfunctional commu-nity has replaced respect with recipe. Its members work hard to redesign one another according to some image or stan-dard' they hold which may have nothing to .do with the ideals put before them by the life and example of the founder, or the constitutions, or the experience and capabilities of the members. Redesigning one another consumes much time and energy that should be directed elsewhere., ~ Third--this expands the preceding point--a healthy community celebrates " the 'members' giftedness. Rejoicing in one~ another's gifts is a concrete expression of respect. This assumes that we have made the effort to know one another's gifts; further, this effort involves sharing and communicating with one another. The challenge here is to go beyond knowledge toward: affirmation and even promotion of one another's gifts. This is possible only if we are secure and comfortable with ourselves, with our own individual gifts and goodness. By contrast, the members of a dysfunctional community tear down one another, not so much through specific hatred or dislike, but because of personal insecurity, being uncomfortable with one~ self. Jealousy and envy emerge from .low self-esteem and superfi-cial self-knowledge. If we feel and come to believe that Our gifts or talents are insufficient and inadequate, we may be tempted to build up ourselves by tearing down others. This may be quite subtle: a roll of the eyes, .a nod of the head, a sigh that commu-nicates "There he/she goes again!" In time the only comfort zone The quality o.f communication among community members colors the atmosphere, the climate, the spirit, of their residence, marking,it as either a home or a housing facility. Nov~nber-December 1997 Giallanza ." Communi~--Healtb~ or D~Cunctional? we may experience is when we maintain our distance from one another. We are polite, but politic: never disturbing or unsettling one another, but also never challenging and ultimately, never really knowing and loving one another. Fourth, a healthy community does, of course, provide and allow space--physical, psychological, and spiritual--for the mem-bers, as individuals and as a community, to be alone and silent, to pray, think, reflect, and relate to God. Maintaining and respect-ing such space requires a level of maturity and comfort that does not equate community with constant togetherness nor reduce it to comfortable superficiality. By contrast, a dysfunctional community sacrifices environ-ment and atmosphere to organization and structure. Though everyone has space, the community does not seem to be alive. There is no sense of an appropriate ambiance, a balance between the private and public forums of the members. Privacy tends to degenerate into secrecy, and public times together become safely and securely sociable. Shared prayer and significant interaction among the members are minimized or routinized to assure the completion of requirements without the responsibilities of com-mitment. Fifth, a certain spirit characterizes a healthy community. The atmosphere, the spirit, of a healthy community encourages the members to feel at home with one another, with the physical space, and with the rhythm of life. This spirit speaks more loudly to prospective members and occasional guests than any other aspect of the community's life. If our guests do not perceive that we .feel at home in this space and with this rhythm of life, then they are not likely to feel at home either. The questions confronting us are direct: Do we feel at home here? Is this an atmosphere which encourages~us to contribute, to be open, to trust? If not, why?- By contrast, a dysfunctional community has a climate from which members try to escape in one way or another. This is most clearly observable when the balance between presence and absence collapses. Personal activities of the demands of ministry are allowed to expand and overflow so that it becomes difficult if not impossible to be present for the community meetings, common meals and prayer, and other gatherings and celebrations as well. Away from the community, members feel more alive, and they feel a heaviness when it is time to return. They find it emotion-ally and spiritually draining to live in this community setting. Review for Religious Sixth, efforts to preserve unity indicate a healthy community. Recognizing the work and the sacrifice involved, the members enter willingly into one another's lives through appropriate self-revelation and compassionate listening. And they willingly make the time for that work and sacrifice. By contrast, a dysfunctional community no longer invests time and energy in the quality of its life. Its members may be quite civil and sociable, but they do not form significant affec-tive and spiritual bonds with one another. Their residing together is merely a coin-cidence of time and space rather than a reflection of a deeper commitment to one another. Given the importance of these six characteristics of a healthy community, when dysfunctional cl~aracteristics are dominant, we no longer have a commu-nity but a condominium. Everything appears to be in order, well organized, running smoothly, and comfortably .appointed--but the place is merely a habi-tation, not a home. Everyone is self-con-tained. People pass one another and exchange all the acceptable courtesies and If our guests do not perceive that we feel at home in this space and with this rhythm of life, then they are not likely to feel atohome either. appropriate pleasantries, but maneuver away from any deeper sharing. Obviously, a dysfunctional community can neither attract nor nurture healthy vocations. Those who desire to live in this way could easily find what they want in a well-managed and efficiendy operated condominium. Community or Cold Storage? Life in community necessitates some personal and communal qualities. Though any list is somewhat arbitrary, I would suggest that members of any healthy communit~ have some basic quali-fies that facilitate and sustain their relationships with one another. In their personal qualities, the individual members of a healthy community will have a rich diversity. These qualities, moreover, will vary from community to community. They will, however, include mutual affection and affirmation, willingness to apolo-gize and to forgive, fostering friendships, generosity, compassion, and joy. All these and others communicate a distinctively posi- Novetnber-Dece'mber 1997 Giallanza ¯ Community--Healthy or Dysfunctional? tive response to two simple questions: Am I / Are we happy in this way of life? Would others perceive that we are happy and enthusiastic as they observe our everyday life? This is not to deny the human reality of the striving of us all, with various ups and downs in community life, prayer, ministry, the vowed life, and personal relationships. Admittedly, these qualities may not always be fully evident in us, but it ig essential that we have a commitment and a willingness to make constant efforts to develop them. By contrast, a dysfunctional community seems only to exist, to survive. It does not give the impression of flourishing with all the warmth and beauty of human relationships. It appears to be merely a group of people occupying the same space together, but never encountering one another on a deeper level that calls them to life. A dysfunctional community does not and cannot commu-nicate that the members are truly happy to be living and carrying out their everyday tasks and responsibilities. Communal qualities do not differ significantly from the per-sonal qualities necessary for healthy community. In fact, they reflect the interaction of those personal qualities among the mem-bers. The health of that interaction is especially evident when community members genuinely enjoy one another's company and are generously hospitable to others. They plan for time together on a regular basis, and they safeguard that time as a priority. VChat they do during that time together is not as important as their tak-ing the time to be present and attentive to one another. That attentiveness will overflow so tha.t guests feel welcome to activi-ties of the members' common life. By contrast, the members of a dysfunctional community find time together to be a chore, and so they reduce it to a minimum, either by unchallenged design or through the deterioration of relationships. It would not be uncommon to find much loneli, ness in these situations, loneliness that is compensated for by hav-ing all or most of one's primary friendships outside the local community. In a healthy context, loneliness can teach us and chal-lenge us to deepen .our relationship with the Lord and sharpen our compassion for and sensitivity to the loneliness of others. In a dysfunctional community, however, loneliness takes a very dif-ferent direction: it tends to breed discouragement and depres-sion which lead to compensatory behaviors. Vv'hen a group gives little or no evidence of these personal and communal qualities, they have cold storage, not community. Review for Religious They live together, but only as if in suspended animation, with-out those human qualities and interactions that bring life and happiness and growth to a community. Even if the members of a local community are not aware of this and do not acknowledge it, their guests will see it, and, most certainly, so will those who are considering a vocation to their way of life. Given the realities, of society,today, many of those considering a vocation to religious life come from environments that have little human warmth, little sense of family. It is. unlikely--if they truly want to live in a healthy way--that they would commit themselves to a life of cold storage in a dysfunctional community. Community or Committee? Community is a straightforward reality. If we do not take the time and energy to create it, if we do not take responsibility for it and take initiatives for it, then it will not really exist. Community is never the result of spontaneous generation, nor does it work by automation. The mem-bers of a healthy community do not abdi-cate their right and duty to make, maintain, and monitor the quality of their common life. They accept the idea that reflection together, sharing, and bonded-ness are key elements in the health of community life. By contrast, a dysfunctional commu-nity seems to drift as the members wait for someone to do something, to take responsibility for moving the community forward. On occasion, some issue or sit-uation becomes a crisis before the members mobilize enough to respond reasonably. For instance, the demands o.f ministry may have been allowed to control the scheduling of regular times together for reflection and sharing, or some members' manipu-lative behaviors may have been left unchallenged for so long that the community now manifests a growing collective passivity. The challenge here is to decide if people's lives together will be a community or a committee. "Committe~" here means a tem-porary group formed for a particular purpose. Its members address an issue or perform a task and then they disperse. Maintaining relationships is not a committee's function; in fact, that could Community is never the result of spontaneous generation, nor does it work by automation. Noventber-Dece~nber'1997 Giallanza ¯ Community--Healthy or Dysfunctional? hinder its efficiency and effectiveness. In the case of a community, however, failure to maintain relationships compromises its capac-ity for being a prophetic presence and witness in and for our world. Community or Convenience? There is a genuine asceticism involved in building and sus-taining a healthy community life. This asceticism has some com-ponents. First, the qualities of love and unity in a community must be personal and individual before they can exist commu-nally. If as individuals we take personal responsibility to foster these qualities by helpful activity, then the group we belong to will do so too. In a dysfunctional community there is a wide gap between talk about responsibility and the reality of what is actually done. Everyone may say "we" do such-and-such, but, in reality, only a few take any initiative or action in response to the situation or issue at hand. Second, within a healthy community, care and concern are given generously and appropriately. Generously, because they are directed to each individual within the community. Appropriately, because they are adapted to the particular situations, personalities, and needs of the individual members. The sensitivity and aware-ness at work here are mutual, respectful, and inclusive. Third, individual, active participation is essential to healthy community life. If individuals do not participate in community meetings or contribute to common decisions, they get in the way of healthy community life. Really, there is not much middle ground in this regard. Silence and passivity are not automatically harmless to the quality of community life, Members of a dysfunctional community are passive partici-pants. Every dimension of their consecrated life--prayer, daily interactions, conversation at meals, attentiveness to guests-- reflects a general lack of energy and interest. The members put their energy and interest outside the community. Two means for facilitating this asceticism are personal accountability and effective conflict resolution. Calling one another to accountability is never easy to do, but it does mark the care and concern, the participation and love, of a healthy community. In a dysfunctional community, life together is lived at Review for Religious the lowest common denominator. Community members do not challenge one another, either because of fear or because no one wants to be challenged. Then the whole community will be only as strong as the weakest member; it will make progress only at the pace of the slowest one. Effective conflict resolution is indispensable. A community with absolutely no conflict is not perfect, it is dead!_How con-flict is dealt with in community can weave the members together into a magnificent tapestry of healing and love, or it can tear them into so many scattered pieces of cloth with no common threads. Often a small event or issue, left unaddressed, becomes infected over time, changing a community from health to dys-function, from bondedness to brokenness. If we are unwilling to practice the components of this asceti-cism and use the means that help us do so, we are no longer speak-ing of community, but of convenience. The dysfunctional community protects and promotes and projects a life of conve-nience. Therefore, whatever is inconvenient--whether it is related to prayer or practicalities of living together or personal relation-ships-- never reaches the level of consideration as a community priority. Convenience can assure that no one is upset, but it also guarantees that people will grow in only minimal ways. The Choice before Us The quality of our community is not a onetime choice; we must choose to live in love with one another day in, day out. If we do not make that choice daily and affirm it by our actions daily, we begin to live something else. Eventually our life together becomes ~omething else: a computer, a condominium, cold stor-age, a committee, or a convenience. We become something, but not community. We give witness to something, but not to unity and love. The choice is ours. We know well the words of Deuteronomy 30:19 calling us to "choose life." Sirach, too, .expresses bluntly the choice before us: If you choose, you can keep the commandments, and to act faithfully is a matter of your own choice. God has placed before you fire and water: stretch out your hand for whichever you choose. Before you are life and death, and whichever you choose will be given to you. (15:15-17) November-December 1997 Giallanza ¯ Community--Healthy or Dysfunctional? Three questions can assist us in reflecting on our individual and communal response to that life-or-death choice which is ever before us. First, what brings us together? VChy are we here? Is it our faith in Jesus and our desire to live that faith through this religious community and its mission? Or is this life simply a way to do a ministry--teaching or nursing or social service or pas-toral work or whatever? Admittedly, our faith in Jesus and the work we do are not mutually exclusive; but the question here con-cerns the foundation of our life's identity and meaning. Second, what keeps us together? Is it our love for one another and our efforts to support one another in living the way of love? Or is it that we have no alternatives and have become comfort-able? Or are we afraid to consider any alternatives? Having no alternatives and being unwilling to consider other options are not good indications that we have made a healthy and mature choice of what we are doing. Third, what flows from our being together? Is it the prophetic witness of our faith in Jesus and our love for one another? Or is it: our accomplishments? The compliment paid to the early Christians was "See how they love one another!" not "See how much they get done!!~ Healthy community is built and sustained by faith and love and witness. Dysfunctional community is concerned only with the work to be done, the status quo, and the results of what is done. Only a healthy community can project Christian life and human warmth and prophetic witness. These thoughts will close with the Gospel te~t which opened them: "Very well, pay Caesar what belongs to Caesar--and God what belongs to God" (Mt 22:21). Because he is referring to a Roman coin, Jesus speaks in terms of payment. His words remind us that healthy community costs something--we will have to pay. A healthy community costs each of us individually because we must constantly give of ourselves,° thus making our commitment to one another real in our attitudes and our actions. COmmunity costs us collectively because we must commit ourselves to make our life together a witness of love and peace and unity. Together we must call one another to this commitment. Dysfunctional com-munity is free of charge. Healthy community costs something. Individually and collectively, we must determine our willingness to make the necessary payment. Review for Religious EAGAN HUNTER The Elderly among Us Tue, we always have had elderly religious among us. But ~ two factors have changed the emphasis. First~ everyone is living longer, in the secular world and in the religious life as well. In 1900 only four percent of the total general population was over the age of 65--one in every twenty-five. By the year 2000 it is projected that as much as thirteen percent of the total :general population will be over 65. Life expectancy has been extended. It is projected that those arriving at age 65 today can expect to live approximately 16.3 years beyond that age. Second, the median age of religious communities is getting older, changing the dimen-sions of the concern. These two factors have made aging in reli-gious communities a more visible, more widely known concern. The problems faced by elderly religious are not necessarily a matter of increasingly poor health. Even though more vulnerable to ill health than in their earlier years, many continue to live healthy lives into very advanced years and some almost until death. Growing old is physiologically and psychologically inevitable, but these changes vary from individual to individual, with no pre-dictable'pattern emerging. Physiologically, advancing years bring problems of lessened mobility, gradual diminishment of the senses (especially sight and hearing), weakened ability to think and remember, Increasingly, heart problems and strokes occur, bones weaken, and arthritic and other impairments increase. Most older religious seem able to adjust more rapidly to various changes in their physiological world than in their psychological one. Eagan Hunter CSC is professor of education at St. Edward's University; 3001 South Congress Avenue; Austin, Texas 78704. Novonber-Deconber 1997 Hunter ¯ The Elderl~ amon~ Us Many times the decline of physical powers causes a brother or sister to remain somewhat isolated within his or her religious house, out of the "mainstream" and interacting less frequently with others. In the religious life we have been taught that one of the major facets of our existence is our contribution to the ministry and apostolate. Our religious formation tends to make us become self-sufficient. When the necessity asserts itself of cutting back on former activities once managed quite easily, older religious may experience feelings of depression, of uselessness. They may feel themselves a burden to others and no longer able to do their fair share. They seek ways and means through which to make some form of contribution to the common life and to the ministry. Sometimes there is a tendency for younger people to assume tasks which the elderly could do if provided sufficient extra time. In the interest of efficiency and effectiveness, we may become impatient and take the tasks out of their hands. Thus for the elderly the depressing feeling of 'not being able to contribute their part becomes magnified. Younger religious must seek ways to continue incorporating the elderly into the community's daily activities. The contemplation of retirement involves a psychological state, a sense of psychological withdrawal from the demands of one's ministry or occupation and the entry into a totally new ori-entation towards oneself and one's work. The taking of this step in our work-oriented society indeed is a milestone event and a very sensitive process. It marks a turning point in one's adult life, a shift from the middle years to old age. The extent to which retirement is viewed as a positive life transition depends much upon the attitudes of the individual. Some have more difficulty adjusting to retirement than others. Some are reluctant to retire, for their work seems to give their lives structure and meaning which is seen as becoming void in the future. What decisions need to be made when facing this stage of one's lifespan? What choices are available to the individual? Such a transitional adjustment incorporates a process of con-templation and evaluation of life's meaning and purpose, one's vocational call to service. It involves integrating the many expe-riences, meanings, and facts of one's life. It brings into focus one of the most incomprehensible concepts of all--one's own human. mortality. Such an adjustment involves acceptance of one's life with dignity and without too much regret for things not done, roads not followed. This reorientation phase of adjUstment should Review for Religious involve exploring new avenues and ways of being involved. The elderly who are well educated and who have enjoyed their work life will desire to continue some type of positive experiences related to that former occupation, but with lessened participa-tion and responsibilities. I had a great-aunt who was a nun. For some sixty years she was a successful teacher and administrator. With the limitations of advancing old age and the resultant physical losses, it became necessary for her to surrender one by one those things which she loved doing and did well. I can remember visiting her in their infirmary before her death. While we were talk-ing, a younger nursing nun entered the room with a tray containing a stack of small plastic cups used to give medication and a small bowl of soapy water. My aunt had insisted that she still could make a contribution, and this was her way. As we talked, she carefully and slowly washed and dried each cup. A contented smile of pleasure filled her face when the nursing nun returned an hour later to pick up the tray and complimented my great-aunt on the help she was to them. Even this litde bit meant much to my elderly aunt. She still was a con-tributing member of her religious community in her own little way. In my own religious community, we have a brother who cel-ebrated his hundredth birthday in 1996. For many years he was an active teacher, administrator, religious superior. In addition to the task assigned him through his ministry, he reached out in other ways to those around him. Before entering the religious life, he had been a member of the Souza band. It was this gift of music he shared with others over the years of his religious life through playing in various civic musical groups and symphonies. After a major stroke, one of his primary goals was to rehabilitate his muscular coordination to the degree that once again he could make joyful sounds to the Lord on his cello. Prayer, music, and his community became the center of his retirement. He continues to have many gifts to share with others, and share he does. Many of us feel the limitations that the ac6ve demands of our ministry place on our personal time. We sometimes feel there is not sufficient time to pray. But, for many of our retired religious, Younger religious must seek ways to continue incorporating the elderly into the community's daily activities. November-Decentber 1997 Hunter ¯ The Elderly among Us time is what they have most of--so we must plug into this spiri-tual "powerhouse." We must stress to the elderly religious that their contribution is to storm heaven in behalf of the concerns and problems being encountered by those in the active ministry. They can pray and are happy to assume this role of petitioner. Seen in the proper perspective, the lives of our older reli-gious need not be brooding or unhappy. We must give them our support and understanding, realizing the emotional tensions, phys-ical trauma, and disease which have become so much a part of their lives. We must remember that these are the community's elderly of today, and that the elderly of tomorrow will be us! How would we want to be treated? Younger religious must be careful not to participate in a form of age stratification within our religious communities. Such strat-ifying may be seen in the general society, with people being divided into classes and castes of various sorts. In such a society it becomes the norm administered to qualify or disqualify indi-viduals for desired roles and positions. Age is a significant variable in such social stratifications and becomes an operative factor in the qualification or disqualification process. Many of our elderly once held leadership roles in commu-nity undertakings. Through age discrimination such religious may feel that their expertise and experiences are no longer sought, that their role in community has been terminated. We must real-ize the symbolic value of their witness roles. It is their footprints that led our various religious communities to the roles we fill today. The elderly hold a vital position in the continuity of our religious life. Vatican Council II speaks, of the heritage of our various religious orders and congregations. We are asked to turn~ to the sources of Christian life, to the inspirations, conceptions, traditions, and ideals of our founders, as well as to those who fol- ¯ lowed later in our histories. We are asked to restore these to our religious life through modifications that meet contemporary reli-gious and social needs. The elderly among us are those who helped mold our particular institute into what it represents today. They,:are our living heritage, our legacy. Thus we must continue to reach out in order to -benefit from their years of knowledge and understanding of our particular mode of living the religious~ life. Their guidance and insights form a treasure which we cannot afford to ignore or'discredit. The elderly religious among us have seen their family mem- Review for Religious bers as well as their religious associates die. More and more of their generation is disappearing. Feeling the loss of these loved ones, they come face-to-face with their own mortality. The pos-sibility of one's own death becomes a factor of life. When young, we tend to believe we are indestructible--death is something asso-ciated with old age, and we are young. Time passes and the pos-sibility of one's death becomes a reality. Our religious beliefs provide us with a solid and positive creed. The Vatican Council stresses that we have been created by God and that, through the passion and death of Jesus, the terrors of bodily death have been conquered. If we live this life fully, we will be restored to whole-ness and a sharing in .the divine life which lies beyond all corruption. "Hence to every thoughtful man a solidly established faith provides the answer to his anxiety about what the future holds for him. At the same time faith gives him the power to be united in Christ with his loved ones who have already been snatched away by death. Faith arouses the hope that they have found true life with God" (Gaudium et spes, § 18). The resultant insights make it easier to develop one's own coping mechanisms for dealing with the future. Yet death remains a mystery. Our goal should be to assist the elderly to reflect upon their life's achievements done in the name of our Lord and to reflect upon the truths of Christianity related to the meaning of life and death. As Erikson points out, the last stage of the human life cycle encompasses old age and the retirement from the pro-ductive years of life. He sees this last stage as ego integrity.versus disgust and despair. The positive outcome of this last stage is an acceptance of one's self and one's life without bitterness or regret. It is a coming to terms with i:he approaching finality of one's life. It incorporates the avoidance of the negative feelings that one's life has been wasted, the avoidance of discontentment about one's limited accomplishments, the "road not taken," the task not done. Upon going blind, Milton feared that God would chide him for wasting talents and gifts that were now lying useless in him. An inner struggle went on until Milton reached the conclusion that, rather than rejecting the role given him by God, he simply needed to accept it. He phrased this acceptance exceedingly well The elderly among us are those who helped mold our particular institute into what it represents today. November-December 1997 Hunter ¯ The Elderly among Us when he said, "They also serve who only stand and wait." This quiet acceptance is difficult, for most people are action oriented. In the declining years of our lives, God is not asking anything heroic. Rather, he is asking for the quiet acceptance of one's infir-mities, one's physical disabilities and limitations, one's sufferings and pains. St. Paul expresses this acceptance when he says, "I find my joy in the suffering I endure for you. In my own flesh I fill up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ for the sake of his body, the church" (Col 1:24). This submission and acceptance can be raised as one's gift to heaven. This is a task we all can do. These elderly religious have preceded us in the labors of our ministries. The burdens ~they carried frequendy were heavy. They did not trudge; they strode onward, for they were people of faith and hope. Approaching the end of their individual journeys, they need our support, our understanding, and our willingness to assist. This we must be willing to give them in their time of need. Simply this is all they are asking of us. To Mary, Journeying (A Visitation Song) "For all your ways~ are beautiful . " Be with us in the morning as with joyful hearts we travel tq carry Christ within us in silence and in song. Be with us as we labor on the hills and in the valleys with your care and with your mercy to all within our world. And when evening shadows lengthen, be our strength as still we journey to our God whose arms await us in the darkness of your peace. Louise Finn CND Review for Religious THOMAS MICHEL I Interreligious Dialogue and the Jesuit Mission "All good theology is autobiography" is a phrase often repeated today. If theology is a reflection on our faith and its implications, then the personal history of how God has acted and is acting in the life of each of us is the starting point for theological understanding. Moreover, as Jesuits, it has been a part of our communitarian spirituality from the beginning to "share our desires," that is, to speak with each other about the great things we want to do for the Lord. From this starting point I would like to share the spiritual desire that has dominated my relationship with God in prayer and work for the past quarter century. It is the desire for greater understanding and love between Christians and Muslims and my desire to make a contri-bution to that end. being missioned Transformation through Dialogue As a Jesuit and a priest,I am today a product of inter-religious dialogue. The way I live my Jesuit vocation is the result of twenty-five years of sharing life with Muslims, discovering the spiritual riches they possess, learning from them, being challenged by them, and at the same time Thomas Michel SJ, secretary of the Vatican Secretariat for Interreligious Dialogue, originally presented this article as a talk to young Jesuits in both Manila and Rome. He may be addressed at Curia Generalizia; Compagnia di Ges~a; C.P. 6139; 00195 Roma PRATI; Italy. ¯ November-December 1997 Micbd ¯ Interreligious Dialogue and the ~esuit Mission having occasion both to bear witness to my faith in what God has achieved for all people in the person of Jesus Christ and to explain to them my understanding of what it means to be a disciple of Christ. In more recent years my apostolate has taken me beyond encounter with Muslims and more and more into dialogue with Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, and the followers of indigenous religions. When I reflect on what has been going on in my life, I see God forming me and transforming me by his grace, over and over, into a person different frbm what I "alas at the beginning of my interreligious journey. I am conscious that, when I teach courses on Islam or when I speak about Muslims, what I say and how I say it are different from the words of someone who has not had my experience of coming to know the Muslim community from the inside. When someone says something tha( pu~ts down or denigrates Islam unfairly, I ~nd myself reacting spontaneously and even emotionally, because they are talking about people that I know, people who have welcomed me into their lives, people whom I love and who have shown love to me. When Muslims are insulted, I feel insulted; when they are wronged, I feel wronged; when they undergo a tragedy, I suffer with them. When something good happens to them, I rejoice with them. When Muslims do wrong, to themselves or to others, I feel ashamed and beg God's forgiveness. When real dialogue occurs, no partner is left unchanged. When I see how much God has enriched my life and deepened my faith through my being in dialogue with others, it is a great source of hope and encouragement to me. For the same Holy Spirit who has been active in my own life is also at work in the lives of my friends of other faiths, using our encounters to touch them too and transform their lives. Most of the time we do not see evidence of this. We work in hope, which is, after all, trusting that God is invisibly active in this world. But God knows that we need encouragement from time to time and gives us "feedback" to keep our hopes alive. About four years ago I received such a .response from Said Khorramshahri, a pious Iranian Qur'an reciter. I had gone to Tehran to represent the Vatican at a national function and was staying about two weeks. Said, a graduate student in English, was assigned to interpret for me at the meetings and conferences that made up my schedule. Review for Religious During this time Said and I had many opportunities to talk about all sorts of things: life in Iran and in Rome, sports, politics, music, our own personal hopes and desires~ and, of course, what is deepest in our lives--our faiths. We shared deeply and hon-estly, and I could often feel the presence of the Lord when we were in conversation. When I returned to Rome, he wrote me a long letter saying that he never imagined that God would use his encounter with a Catholic priest as the instrument by which to pro-foundly change and deepen his outlook on life, faith, and his relations with others. I real-ized that I was not the only one who recog-nized that God was present and active in our encounters. This pious Muslim also saw that God was with us and that "our hearts were burning within us" from the movement of God's grace: I offer this experience merely as an exam-ple. Every Jesuit--every Christian--who has been involved in interreligious dialogue to any extent can tell comparable stories. If my experience has been mostly with Muslims, others could testify to some strikingly similar" experiences of God's activity gathered over the course of their years in dialogue with Buddhists or Hindus, Jews or Baha'is, or followers of the tradi-tional religions of Africans or Native Americans. The point is that, when we truly open ourselves to God in dialogue with another, the Holy Spirit takes over and guides the encounter. As the document "Our Mission and Interreligious Dialogue" puts it, "Open and sincere interreligious dialogue is our cooperation with God's ongoing dialogue with humanity (OMID §5). When we truly open ourselves to God in dialogue with another, the Holy Spirit takes over and guides the encounter. The Need for a Document The document of th~ 34th General Congregation "Our Mission and Interreligious Dialogue" is remarkable. For the first time in Jesuit history, the Society as a whole explored the inter-religious dimension of our Jesuit mission. Certainly, there were always some Jesuits who were involved in various forms of inter-religious dialogue. For a few it was their main apostolate, but for most it was something in which they were involved when they Novetnber-Dece~nber 1997 Michel ¯ Interreligious Dialogue and the ~esuit Mission had extra time, an apostolate they added on to their main duties. Dialogue was often considered a kind of luxury in the Society, of secondary importance to works such as schools, seminary and theological education, parishes. It frequently happened that stu-dents who were interested in carrying out studies on other reli-gions were assigned to other, "more important" fields of study like Scripture, theology, and philosophy. Most of us .involved in dialogue have had the experience of hearing a fellow Jesuit tell us we were wasting our time. "Why do you bother with Muslims?" I have been asked; "you will never convert them." Some comments have seemed to presume that interreligious dialogue and proclamation of the gospel are incom-patible activities, or that dialogue somehow undermined or com-promised the church's mission of evangelization. These questions show that the goal of dialogue was not well understood. It was confused with a type of soft sell, a way to insinuate ourselves into another religious community in order to make converts, or it was seen as a lack of commitment to bear witness to our Christian faith. Dialogue and PrOclamation One of the first issues that the general congregation had to take up was the way int.erreligious dialogue is related to the work of evangelization. It is in this context that the goal of dialogue can be understood. In the one evangelizing mission that Christ gave to his disciples, dialogue and proclamation of the gospel are two distinct aspects. Neither can replace the other. "They should not be confused, manipulated, or regarded as identical, as though they were interchangeable" (OMID, §7). Just as dialogue is not meant to replace proclamation of the gospel, so the duty to pro-claim the gospel must never preempt or negate the work of engag-ing in dialogue. The document describes dialogue as "a new way of being church," in which we discover the "deeper dimensions of our Christian faith and wide~ horizons of God's salvific presence in the world" and engage in activity that "grasps the deeper truth and meaning of the mystery of Christ in relation to the universal his-tory of God's self-revelation" (OMID, §7). What this dense the-ological statement means is that God is at work in the lives of all those who sincerely seek him and that sometimes God's grace Review for Religious produces anyplace in the world people of great holiness, gen-erosity, and love. God carries out this saving work among people of other faiths through the Holy Spirit, who makes use of the religious tradi-tions that people follow to lead them farther and farther along the path of true holiness. Sometimes a person's knowledge of God's saving work in Jesu's Christ precedes: the person is bap-tized and receives the fullness of the Holy Spirit. More often the Holy Spirit precedes people's knowledge of Christ. There is no contradiction here: it is the One God who is at work, whether in Christ'or in the Spirit. Quoting the bishops of Asia, the GC34 document says: "It is the same Spirit, who has been active in the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and in the church, who was active amongst all peoples before the incarnation and is active amongst the nations, religions, and peoples today." We see, then, that the deepest motivation for dialogue is to recognize the Spirit of God wherever the Spirit is at work in the world today and to praise God for the generous action of the Spirit. When we meet Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs, and others who bear the fruits of the Holy Spirit in their lives, our reaction should be to praise and thank God. Time spent with sincere believers of other faiths is time spent in discovery of the many and varied fruitsalove, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control--~at the Spirit continues to produce in the lives of other believers. Four Types of Dialogue and Their Goals "Interreligious dialogue," as the document points out, is not one thing, and the document outlines four basic types of dialogue. The goal of each type is not exactly the same. The dialogue of life is a dialogue on the plane of being, and the goal i~ living together in peace, mutually enriching each other by bearing witness to the values we stand for. The dialogue of action is on the plane of doing--working together to oppose whatever enslaves and degrades people, defending the weak, accompanying the poor in their struggle for justice. Its goal is to build together societies formed in accord with the will of God and in reverence for human dignity. An example of the dialogue of religious experience is what was going on during my time with Said in Iran. The goal is for those November-December 1997 Michel ¯ Interreligious Dialogue and the ~esuit Mission in such dialogue to open themselves fully .to God's movements (God's personal history in the life of each person) so that the Spirit can use them to touch and transform the persons. The dialogue of theological'exchange is to .clarify points of con-vergence and divergence, to overcome misunderstandings, half-truths, and distortions, and to come to a greater appreciation of each other's spiritual values (OMID, §4). It is not meant to arrive at a common formulation, to gloss over the differences between religions, or to find a common denominator on which we can all agree. The irreconcilable differences that we discover should nei-ther surprise nor discourage us, since we acknowledge from the start that each religion, is unique and offers its particular com-plex of doctrines and way of life. Dialogue in Patience and Hope If dialogue is about love (OMID, §6), then it is by examining the qualities of love that we learn the attitudes that must accom-pany our efforts at dialogue. In his great hymn on love in the First Letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul lists some of the qualities of love. It is. significant that the first quality on Paul's list is patience: "Love is patient, kind . oIt is important to spend time reflecting on the quality of patience, because lack of patience, in my opinion, is one of .the great causes of failure in dialogue. Patience includes more than not looking for quick results. I would rather say, "Do not look for results at all." In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna, "Do your duty conscientiously, and do not be concerned about suc-cess or failure?' We might paraphrase this advice by saying that the document "Our Mission and Interreligious Dialogue~' challenges Jesuits to "throw yourselves into this activity, without counting the cost or trying to measure the results." We engage in dialogue because it is our duty as disciples of Christ. As the OMID document puts it, dialogue is an integral element of our Jesuit mission in the world. We are people of hope, .one of the three greatest gifts that God has given us. We work in the hope that God will use our efforts in a way pleasing to God to advance the comingof God's reign in the world. Sometimes we hear people say, "What have you accomplished after all these years of dialogue? There are still religious tensions, ,conflicts, and wars." Review for Religious ~ The same could be said of other aspects of our mission. Those working for justice know that--despite years and years of tireless effort, sacrifices, even martyrdoms, despite vast amounts of time and energy spent--we are still confronted with countless forms of -injustice, oppression, and exploitation in the world. Recent years have even produced new forms. The occasional victories seem few in comparison with the rampant injustices still existing in almost every society. Does this mean that all those efforts at building more just societies have been in vain? No, we recognize ~that we have to keep on struggling in every age, culture, and nation to oppose injustice and defend the oppressed and marginalized. , It-is a similar case with interreligious dia-logue. At the same time that relations between the followers of various religions become better in one place, new conflicts and tensions break out elsewhere. Regions that have had long tra-ditions of people living together in peace sud-denly find themselves enmeshed in religious wars. On the other hand, reconciliation does occur where there has been conflict. People do learn to forgive and move beyond the past. Some peo-ples do find, often through much painful searching and with many setbacks, ways to live together with their neighbors of other faiths. We have all inherited two attitudes that make the effort at dialogue more difficult: One is the modern business ethic of quick and concrete results. In business, people feel they do not have time to wait. If they do not get the job done and done fast, a com-petitor will get an edge on them. People have graphs and tables .and prbjections to show how soon they can expect results. If they fail to achieve them in the time allotted, they go back to the draw-ing board to revise their policies. But it does not work that way with human relations. Things take time, and our efforts may be building a basis of fellowship whose benefits can be seen only in the future. The second attitude that makes dialogue difficult is an attitude of historical optimism that has dominated the philosophy of his-tory in this century. In this view, humankind, through education and technology, is continually evolving towards greater maturity, openness, and well-being. Obscurantism, ignorance, and violence are characteristics of primitive society and bound to be super- We engage in dialogue because it is ourduty as disciples of Christ. November-December 1997 Michel ¯ Interreli~ous Dialogue and the Jesuit Mission seded. In interreligious terms, many Catholics saw the period of the Second Vatican Council as a time when the old religious con-flicts would become a thing of the past. Dialogue would be the instrument of an inevitable result, putting an end to the misun-derstandings and divisions that kept us apart. Patience and Dialogue It seems to me that, if we Jesuits are going to make a contri-bution towards greater interreligious harmony, we must have a more realistic attitude. Dialogue will not solve all the religious conflicts in the world, just as our struggle for justice will never put an end to all forms of injustice and oppression. Rather, dialogue is something that must be carried on in every, society, in every age. Understanding and respect must be built anew in every gen-eration. The challenge will never come to an end, because sin is a part of who we are as humans and, where there is sin, there will be suspicion, hatred, and conflict. The need for patience is not only seen at the macro level of societies and nations. It is also the case in our personal dealings with people of other religions. We are all so full of suspicions, fears, and preconceptions. It takes much rime to get beyond these, to break down the natural resistance that we all bring to dialogue. If people seem unwilling, indifferent, or even hostile to invita-tions to dialogue, we should not be surprised. The burden of his-tory that we all bear is an obstacle that cannot be overcome quickly. We should also not be surprised if dialogue encounters seem superficial or seem to be characterized by an insincere politeness. This indicates that a level of trust at which we can relate hon-estly and deeply has not yet been built. That too takes time and much patient effort. We human beings are not willing to share what is deepest in our lives with people whom we are not yet ready to trust. Until we are convinced that the others will .treat our sharing with due respect, we tend to keep things at a nonthreat-ening, surface level. Only through the slow and laborious pro-cess of forming friendships and building trust do we arrive at the point where people can break through their latent distrust to begin to share frankly and honestly. But, if we Christians are motivated by Christ's love, we will find the determination and perseverance we need, for; as St.Paul says, "Love is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes.?' Review for Religious I mention these negative factors, the effects of sin, because interreligious dialogue, although an exciting adventure of dis-covery of the manifold ways in which God lavishes his grace upon humankind, is also a path on which we encounter obstacles, set-backs, and frustrations and painful forms of self-discovery as well. When we are rebuffed, it is not easy to forgive. When we are misunderstood, it is not easy to go back again and again. When confronted with our own limitations and those of our commu-nity, we are tempted to give it all up and retreat to easier ways of life. However, as Jesuits we have a source of strength that we did not have even four years ago. We have the commitment of our whole Society--of our friends in the Lordmto engage in this aspect of our mission. We are helped to do so by our Ignatian vision that comes from our personal relationship to Jesus Christ. We are urged by the 34th General Congregation to develop a "culture 'of dialogue in our approach to believers of other reli-gions that should become a distinctive characteristic of our Society, sent into the whole world to labor for the greater glory of God and the help of human persons" (OMID, § 17), ' What a tremendous ideal to live for! What a challenge we have set for ourselves! ~Ours is the .generation, living immediately after and formed by General Congregation 34, that can make its document "Our Mission and Interreligious Dialogue" a vibrant part of our Jesuit mission in the world. Many foreign missionaries depend upon,people like you who donate subscriptions for them to Review for Religious. To start a subscription for a deserving missionary, please send $24 to: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Blvd. ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108 To pay by credit card, phone: 314-977-7363. November-December 1997 ANNETTE M. PELLETIER Misery Meets Mystery in Montenegro: A Survival Guide for North American Religious oes consecrated life possess the latent power to continue evangelizing North American culture? Current literature on the topic suggests that the "holy experiment" of founding a culture on evangelical values has turned ominously unholy. The pioneer barks that brought (he Pilgrims, Quakers, and Shakers are saidto be aimlessly adrift, having lost their orientation to the Holy. On the other hand, the heritage of integration evident in the cultures in the Southern Hemisphere, where Santa Fe (Holy Faith) was the principal colonizing feature, suggests the power of the sacred to perdure despite a history marked by gore as well as glory. Upon returning to the United States after a time of mission-ary experience in the cultures to the south, one senses how deep the ache for the Sacred is in North American culture. The pro'- gressive deconstruction of the core values and virtues that made the experiment holy suggests that our culture may have lost its. :heart.~ ',Although you express tous what is most precious to you, you do not realize how far we are from where you are," remarks Fred, Henri Nouwen's "world!y" friend for whom he composed his profound reflections, on what it means to be the beloved chil- ~ren of the Holy,G~od present in secular culture. "You speak from Annette M. Pelletier IHM c0nsid~rs this article, following upon her 'contributions to our Septembe~:-October 1993 and July-August 1994 issues, to be the conclusion of a trilogy on Mystery in relation to conse-crated life. She may be addressed at Convento Santa Rosa de Lima; E. Montenegro; Apartado 18-0703; Lima 11, Peru. Review for Religious a context and tradition that is alien to us . Many, many questions need: to be answered before we are able to be fully open to what you say about the life of the Beloved.''2 What is to be the role of us who are called, consecrated, and sent to proclaim such "belovedness" in this deconsecrated world; of us whose specific task it is to offer radical eschatological testi-mony of the coming of the kingdom? 3 Peter, a designated, author-itative witness of that kingdom (realized 'in the presence and per-son of Jesus), reminded his early Christian community "to always be ready to give a reason for their hope" (1 P 3:15). What, then, would be the reason for our hope that the consecrated life will con-tinue to exert a positive influence on a heart-less culture, one that seems no longer to have experience of the "Holy"? The "reason" for my hope. for not just the survival bat the flourishing of consecrated life in North America escapes the concrete directions suggested by the many and various scientific analyses of consecrated life that appear fis part of a search for a definitive future, The "reason" for my hope springs from what I and many oth-ers have "seen and heard" (1 Jn 1:3) of the Mystery of God made manifest in the misery of the absolute poverty in one of our sis-ter cultures in Latin America, Peru. Montenegro, a densely pop-ulated pueblojoven or asentamiento humano (shanty town) situated about forty-five minutes by bus from Lima, owes its misery to both Shining Path terrorism and the disastrous effects of "fujishock" economics on those who have fled from terrorism in the Peruvian sierra during the last decade. No sociological anal-ysis explains why the pueblo children still danced for the fiestas in their school, Fey Alegria 37, and the sisters and the teachers and families stuck together in hope despite the extreme poverty and the designation of the zone as "red" during the darkest days of the reign of terror.4 One "reason" for hope, then, can be the simple fact that this pueblo and its fragile institutions have survived, despite the unholy One "reason" for hope, then, can be the simple fact that this pueblo and its fragile institutions have survived, despite the unholy cultural influences of terrorism and hunger. November-December 1997 Pelletier ¯ Misery Meets Mystery in Montenegro cultural influences of terrorism and hunger. Here is hard:evi-dence, provided by real people who survived' to live, instead of living to merely survive. The madres solteras (single mothers) who raise children of partners who abandon them for another; the youth who are old before they have a chance to be young; the knot of little children who play on the step of the mission-house door--none of these Montenegro dnawim have access to analyt-ical research charting their survival or demise. They simply live their reality, struggling to survive, struggling to find. meaning. Without the luxury of an education, they meet Mystery in their misery on Mystery's 6wn terms. Even though most of them will never really better their lot in life according to North American standards, they seem not to have lost. the reason for their hope. Yes, large numbers may eventually resort or succumb to every vice that a culture of absolute poverty provokes. Yet there :are those who do survive with their dignity as human beings intaci:. Who are they? How are they able to survive? What do they have to say to the religious missioned to the first world, who also seek to survive, but in a culture whose very richness impoverishes the attractiveness, the beauty, the dignity, and the grace of a way of life in love with Life itself?. Could the observation ofMircea Eliade, the famed scholar of religious anthropology, be true: that the evo-lution of modern cultures has generated an atmosphere of intel-lectual elitism in which detachment from the patterns of traditional religion severs Western culture from its core values and belief systems? 5 So what recourse do persons consecrated to the Holy have if they are to survive the consequences of Western culture's demise? The Word had a special word for the religiously lettered and learned Who came by night to ask him questions about signs seen hinting the advent of a new world within the world. To the Nicodemus-like, Jesus counseled that the lettered and the elite turn and become like a child. Anyone privileged to see, hear, and touch the children who, despite the misery of their absolute poverty and the scourge of terrorism, sing and dance in the desert cannot help marveling at the mystery of their "unreasonable" rea-. son to hope. What do they, the "little ones," the ones immersed in the misery of absolute poverty, have to say about the mystery of their survival? Could it be that their link to traditional popu-lar religion provides them with the treasure which cultures to the north have lost: a reason for hope?6 , Review for Religious Who are these ragtag "children of the dust" gathered on the luxurious slab of cement gracing the mission-house front door? From early in the morning until late in the night, this mob of ragamuffins never seems to wonder about "survival," despite the dubious nature of their next meal. They do not have time to worry. They are obviously too busy creatively constructing their own livable-in-the-now reality. The ever plentiful stones and rocks are transformed in,their imagination to sports cars and trucks. Rags and bits of scrap paper adorn a gringa-faced "Barbie" in highest fashion. So actively engaged in living life to the hilt, these tawny tots are too busy having fun to be concerned about surviving. Sure, they are hungry and ill clad. By our standards they are woefully abused by family systems that claim "the more I beat you, the more I love you." But they are too resiliently cre-ative to let abuse or malnutrition get in the way of living. The ".proper7 things they deserve as fundamental rights--healthcare, education, food--hardly get a thought. One hesitates to say it, but, to almost every visitor, these kids on the step are definitely having fun. Their joy, laughter, unsuppressible desire to befriend anyone, especially foreigners visiting the mission house, betrays the secret entry of Mystery into their absolute misery. Their grasp on an unseen reason for their hope renders ridiculous the first-world worries about where God and religion and the church might fit in a deconstructed culture. "Multiphrenia" is one malaise the Montenegrinos never get. The inner' chaos caused by too much input from too many conflicting media sources promoting ever changing values is a postmodern misery they miss.7 Take, for example, ten-year-old Lorenzo, a victim of his father's abuse. Every so often Lorenzo is whacked in the face. with an iron pipe for not bringing in his share of the family keep. How could little Lorenzo, every visitor's fast friend, keep smiling, jest-ing, and joking despite the ugly scarson his ever dirty face? The Mystery of God peeks through his misery in his nonconcern for predictable "survival." That unerasable smile insists that God's Mystery is manifest even in this most undeserved misery. Just what is it that keeps that smile on his face--and so many others like his!--in this desert valley of so many, many tears? Does his smile betray a reason to hope that we cannot, yet, see? These stepkids also deal with the reality of too few resources and personnel to assure them of a viable future. Most children are without parents until late in the night, when Mom or Dad or November-December 1997 Pelletier ¯ Misery Meets Mystery in Montenegro live-in mate come

Issue 55.1 of the Review for Religious, January/February 1996. ; Review for Religious is a fo,utm for Sb~red reflection on the liVed experience of all who ~nd that the CbnrCb!s rich heritages of spi~tnality support their personal and apostolic Christian lives. The articles in the journal are meant to be informative, practical, or inspirational, written f!,om a theological or spirirudl or sometimes canonical point'of view: Rcview for Rcligious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at Saint Louis University by thc Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Lot, is, Missouri 63108-3393. "l'elcphone: 314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 Mant, scripts, books for review, and correspondcncc with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Liudcll Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counscl departutcnt: Elizabeth Mcl)onough OP St. Bernadette Convent ¯ 76 University, Blvd. East ¯ Silver Spring, MI) 20901 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Second-class postage paid at St. Louis, Missot, ri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on st,bscription rates. ®1996 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to cop)' 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 ,mticc of thc source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying fi~r commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. for religious Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming sJ Philip C. Fischer sJ 'Regina Siegfridd ASC Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Jean Read James and Joan Felling Iris Ann Ledden SSND Joel Rippinger OSB Edmundo Rodriguez SJ David Werthmann CSSR Patricia Wittberg SC Christian Heritagesand Contemporary Living JAlXq3ARY-FEBRUARYI996 ¯ VOLUME55 ¯ NVUMBER1 contents feature Healthy Eating in a Spiritual Context Paul N. Duckro, Randall C. Flanery, and Philip Magaletta consider the biological, social, and spiritual dimensions of hunger, food, and eating in everyday life. leadership 21 Transformative Leadership: Key To Viability Andr~e Fries CPPS highlights the qualities of leadership which address the questions of an instimte's own viability. 34 The Call to Spiritual Leaders: Beacons of Hope Gerald L. Brown SS focuses on the qualities and skills and supports which are a neqessary part of spiritual leadership. 46 55 ecumenism Bridging Interreligious Dialogue and Conversion James H. Kroeg~r MM takes the paschal mystery as the integrating focus of all evangelization, dialogue, and conversion. AVisit to Taizd Dennis J. Billy CSSR shares an experience of the ecumenical vision of Taiz& Review for Religious 61 70 religious life Has the Renewal of Religious Life Been a Success? Doris Gottemoeller RSMtakes the thirty-year perspective since Vatican Council II to highlight five learnings for a vital religious life. ATable Set by Bold Dreamers Eileen P. O'Hea CSJ relates a planning weekend experience in the province life of a religious community that results in a communion consciousness. viewpoints 75 Turning Over a New Leaf: a New Year's Passage Robert S. Stoudt points the annual human phenomenon of making New Year's resolutions to a more efficacious process. 84 Reflections on Turning Seventy Mary Boyan OSU gives an example of how one "thinks old" and is happy to do so. departments 4 Prisms 87 Canonical Counsel: The Potest~s of Religious Superiors according to Canon 596 92 Book Reviews January-February 1996 prisms As Review for Religious begins 1996 and its fifty-.fifth year of publication, some new aspects will be evident. We are using color highlighting through-out the text. The cover color of each issue will carry through in the banner divisions, the running titles, and the pagination. We hope that just a bit of color through-out will be enhancing to the text and pleasing to the eye. Each issue will not only look a little different, but it will also feel a little different. We are reducing the num-ber of pages to help us face the major raise in paper costs and to cope with the escalating mail costs both nationally and internationally. At our last advisory board meeting, we considered the various options of raising subscription prices, separating out mailing costs, or reducing the num-ber of pages and weight of each issue. One of the reflec-tions from our informal survey of readers was that a Review for Religious which would be a little less hefty in size would at the same time be a little more reader-friendly. Our 160-page size made us twice the size of most journals published bimonthly or even quarterly. And so we opted for a reduction in the number of pages. We will have three or so fewer articles per issue, but the quality will remain. We are also pleased that we can keep the jour-nal coming to our readers at the same subscription price. There is a change noted amo.ng our advisory board members. We are welcoming a married couple, Jim and Joan Felling. Jim and Joan have been very active in parish life both in Canada and in the United States, particularly Revlew for Religious through their involvement with the Christian Life Community. Joan is presently president of the National Federation of Christian Life Communities in the United States. Their longtime interest in lay spirituality, their involvement in the Ignatian retreat move-ment, and their respect for the spirituality heritages which our journal reflects make them valuable additions to our board. As editor I want to express my gratitude for the contribution of Joann Wolski Conn to our board and wish her well in her continued teaching, workshop schedule, and writing. On the inside back cover I call attention to the new director for the Xavier Society for the Blind, Mfred E. Caruana SJ. As I acknowledge Father Caruana, I also want to reemphasize~the availability of each issue of Review for Religious on cassettes to the visually impaired. Readers can note the contact address on the inside back cover. Revie& for Religious also announces the publication of a new book, Ignatian Exercises: Contemporary Annotations. It is Book 4 in The Best of the Review series. Edited by David L. Fleming SJ., the book includes an original introductory a~rticle "Following Christ More Nearly: Discipleship in Ignatian Spirituality" and twenty-eight other articles on vision, conversion, examination, attitude, prayer, discernment, and adaptation. It is meant to be a rich resource book for Ignatian spirituality, and it makes a good com-panion volume to Book 1 6f The Best of the Review, Notes on the Spiritual Exercises of~St. Ignatius of Loyola. The cost is $12.95 plus a $2.00 shipping and handling fee. The book can be ordered only through our editorial offices in St. Louis, Missouri. An order form for the book can be found on the insert page at the back of this 'issue. I fiope that all our readers will enjoy the new look and feel of the new volume in this new year. David L. Fleming SJ JannaD,-Febrlla~7 1996 feature PAUL N. DUCKRO, RANDALL C. FLANERY, AND PHILIP R. MAGALETTA Healthy Eating in a Spiritual Context Of the many gifts given to human beings, experiencing a particular event through our various powers of sensation and then finding a depth of meaning in it besides is one of the richest. Events that on the surface are commonplace and repetitive offer strange and deep collaborations with the Spirit. It is from this perspective that the present arti-cle considers the matter of eating, and particularly healthy eating. Most obviously, of course, eating is a biological event in response to the cue of hunger. Eating sustains life by providing necessary nutrients and bulk. But eating is also behavior, a culturally defined activity and experience. There is in it pleasure, social interaction, and ritual for celebration or mourning. Our Scriptures contain many references to important meals. In Exodus 24:11 the encounter with God is itself an occasion marked by eating and drinking. The Gospels are replete with recollections of Jesus in Which eating or Paul N. Duckro, Randall C. Flanery and Philip R. Magaletta may be addressed at The Program for Psychology and Religion; Saint Louis University Health Sciences Center; 1221 South Grand Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63104. This article sum-marizes the content of a seminar offered at Saint Louis University by Randall C~ Flanery PhD, Joseph Gillespie OP, Rabbi James Goodman, Dismas Bonnet OFM, and Paul N. Duckro PhD. The article incorporates freely the content presented by the speakers. In some cases unique contributions of a particular presenter are noted with initials: Review for Religious refraining from eating serve to illustrate realization of the reign of God among us. A ritual meal serves as the occasion for seeking and being brought close to our God; we hunger for the Feast that desires also to be incarnated in us. The Word becomes flesh. Meals, however, may also be occasions for spiritual discipline. Incredibly, this routine behavior, fraught with peril for excess or deprivation, holds also great promise for growth in mind and spirit. Our personal recollections supply many images of eating. For most of us, early memories of food involve parents, brothers and sisters, and our extended family. Eating together is a way of mark-ing both celebration and grief. Our brains record and continue to respond to aromas of food prepared in "the old neighborhood"-- °bread baking, boiling cabbage, simmering sauce, pie cooling on the window sill. The dinner table might bring sensations of full-ness or barely touched hunger, joyful sharing or painful recrim-ination. In these contexts, food takes on meaning that transcends its biological function. It may also serve as a reward for being good, a reassurance of love, a cheery note amid sfldness. The meal may become the means of.healing brokenness or masking it. Issues of control and dependence may be expressed in feeding and being fed. In many dysfunctional families (or religious communities), dining together is "the last fiction of civility," with the group act-ing out much unspoken pain in the practiced rituals of the meal. Early memories get acted out in the way we eat as adults. In reli-gious communities the great variety of personal histories interacts with the prevalent culture of the congregation and is reflected in the variety of ways meals are handled in local communities. Food may be served family style or in a cafeteria line. All may sit down together or each may eat apart. Meals may be'a time, to interact or a time to eat hurriedly. Information may be shared, or discus-sion may be only an unwelcome interruption~of the functioning of teeth, tongue, and throat, The atmosphere may be warm and quiet or cold and noisy. The particular history of the individual contributes mightily to his or her experience of a meal. Present events, however, also play their role. Eating may bear the weight of stifled needs for social intimacy and nurturance. A spiritual emptiness may also become the occasion for a determined effort to fill oneself with food. There is in all of us an empty place that longs for God and Januat~y-Februa~y 1996 Duckro ¯ Healthy Eating in a Spiritual Context cannot be filled with any ordinary substance. When we forget this, food can become an addictive substance, a pseudosatisfier. We stuff substances into an emptiness that is never satisfied by sub-stances (JG). When self-denial is the guiding paradigm for life, eating and desire to eat may become obsessive in an effort to satisfy the deprivation. Many of us have learned from others an ambivalence toward physical pleasure and nurturance. There is conflict in bal-ancing self-care and care of others, Enjoying the body may be seen as an obstacle to transcending the body. The instability resulting from such conflicts leads to eating too much or too lit-tle or to alternation between the two extremes (PD~. Culture, too, contributes to the experience of food and its consumption. In North American culture, it is widely held that the" shape of the body is an exhibition of the value and character of the person. Implicit in this beliefoare the following thoughts: that the body is a pliable entity that can be made to conform to any expec-tation, given sufficient effort; that one should exert such effort to shape the body according to the current perceptions of beauty; and that failure to do so indicates that one is either lazy or irre-sponsible, lacking in virtue (RF). Such personal, social, cultural, and spiritual elements con-tribute to the eating experiences of individuals and communities. The elements interact to form our habitual approach to eating. How we~handle or manage them is a function largely of our atten-tion to them. Thei'r effects and the responses we make to them, automatically or consciously, may be biological, behavioral, cog-nitive, affective, or social. These effects and various typical responses to them are. detailed in many sources and serve to focus the clinical treatment'of problematic eating patterns. This article focuses on the spiritual dimensions of healthy eating patterns, Every major faith tradition has developed its own laws regard-ing.' food and eating. In many religions, eating is in itself incor-porated into ritual, transforming it from the mundane to the sacred. Eating is also an occasion for discipline, often in the form of fasting. In the Hebrew Scriptures, fasting is prescribed as a symbolic act of humility and prayer, done in remembrance of God and as repentance for sins. Fasting also prepares people for a great new undertaking. Detachment from the physical makes room for the spiritual. The Christian tradition builds on these considera-tions, adding an emphasis on chastening the 'body. Fasting Review for Religiot¢.¢ becomes a means of purifying the mind and body and of pro-moting an openness to God by linking one with the suffering Christ. Refraining from food also means that the money saved can be given to the poor (DB). In our modern world, these ideas continue to influence the meaning of fasting as a discipline. Christians become more truly "bread for the world" as members of the body of Christ when they limit expenditures for their own food and use the money to provide food for the poor, experiencing in hunger a solidarity with the poor and learning to receive the fruits of the earth without taking them for granted. These experiences are particularly important for those who live in the midst of many resources and in relative comfort (DB). Fasting should not become an end in itself. The desire to suffer can be as much a trap as any other desire, distracting from detachment's true goal, which is to clear the pathway toward authentic love (JG). Severe fasts can focus the mind on the body as much as gluttony can, and even more. Fasting is most likely to lead beyond itself when it is done in moderation and tailored ~to the individual. The goal is to foster a balance, a spirit of detachment, and thus to reduce conflict and ambivalence regarding food. Encountering food consciously is a significant aspect of making progress toward this goal. Severe fasts can focus the mind on the body as much as gluttony can. The Inner Way We describe this conscious encounter with food, with the act of eating, and with attendant phenomena as the inner way, This inner way is a facet of the mystical in each of the major faith tra-ditions. Called by many names (mindfulness, remembrance, aware-ness, contemplation), this way essentially demands cultivating the experiente of the presence of God in all things, although the words and images u_.sed to describe such experience vary ainong religions. The emphasis is on the present moment. In this simple awareness of what is, self and object are transformed; essence is revealed. At table, mindfulness blesses and transforms both the food and the act of eating, elevating the common physical act of eating to holi-ness in the mysticism of the everyday. God dwells where one lets God in (JG). When people do their eating contemplatively, they Januaty-Febt'uaty 1996 Duckro ¯ Healthy Eating in a Spiritual Context Food alone, is never "enough"; we eat and are hungry again. find God in their hunger, in the sensations associated with the food, and in those with whom they eat. As Martin Buber says, "One eats in holiness and the table becomes an altar." The inner way also releases us from the repetitive cycles of compulsiveness and addiction. Awareness wakens us from the soporific state from which compulsivity has grown and stands in opposition to the compartmentalization, denial, rationalization, minimization, and automatic behavior that sustain it. In contemplation we are moved by awareness of self and nonself toward conscious choice. ° In a very real sense, most of us have spent much of our waking lives asleep. Many dys-functional patterns of eating originate as if in a dream. They develop gradually, unrecognized by the doer. Hunger of an emotional, social, or spiritual nature is quieted with food, but only temporarily. The hunger must be satisfied more and more fre-quently. When people eat rapidly, the signs of satiation are passed by like highway billboards, seen only in a blur until we are stuffed. Fears of aging, of ugliness, or of sexuality are confused with tak-ing in food and then placated by near starvation. Almost imper-ceptibly the appearance of the body and the regulation of food intake become the primary focus of attention, distracting us from the greater aspects of reality (PD). Applying the inner:'way to the promotion of healthy eating requires developing the habit of awareness with regard to hunger and eating. Htinger becomes a sensation for a person to experience before acting on qt. Desires arising from hunger are to be visual-ized and sorted out in the larger context of health, community, society. Eating is a multifaceted event to be experienced in all its elements, deliberately and slowly. There are the textures, smells, colors, temperatures, tastes of the food itself. The origin of the food might be considered--those who grew it, delivered it, pre-pared it. Buddhist monk and author Thich Nhat Hanh finds "everything in the universe in one tangerine." He recalls that the tangerine began within a tree, on which the fruit appeared and from which someone picked it. "Eating mindfully is a most impor-tant practice in meditation. The purpose of eating is to eat." Those with whom one eats--the congruence or incongruence between sharing this sacred feast and the state of the relation- Review Jbr Religious ships--might be experienced as well. In awareness while eating, we are awake to the food, the self, others, and the Other. A contemplative stance regarding eating is always helpful in bringing this common behavior to fuller experience, experience of life in God. It moves the individual, in itself and in synergy with clinical treatment, toward the goal of moderation in eating. Awareness changes the preconceived notions of how much food one needs to feel satisfied. The concepts of "enough" or "full-ness" are revisited. Food alone is never "enough"; we eat and are hungry again. Food, in the context of the total experience of din-ing, can be part of the experience of "enough," having all that you really need. The practice of full awareness is a discipline. The goal is not fully attainable, and it is the journey rather than the destination that is of importance. Continuing the journey day after day requires the use of behavioral, cognitive, and spiritual tools that facilitate a contemplative attitude vis-?i-vis hunger, food, and eating. Becoming Aware Eating is a richly multidimensional experience touching almost every aspect of life. M.EK. Fisher, quoted at length in the introduction to C.L. Flinders's Enduring Grace, says it well: "It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others . There is commu-nion of more than our bodies when bread is broken and wine drunk." ~ The ideas we have considered--the biological, social, and spiritual dimensions of hunger, food, and eating--need to be applied to everyday life and are, of course, especially relevant to persons who have some dysfunctional habit regarding food or their body image. Sometimes a dysfunctional eating pattern reaches the point of illness, in itself or in the form of an associ-ated affective disorder, and may call for clinical treatment. When eating becomes illness, the consequences may be even life-threat-" ening. In such cases it is prudent to seek medical and psycholog-ical diagnosis and treatment. We focus here on the gains that are possible when the expe-rience of hunger and the act of eating are made more conscious. (We refer to this heightened consciousness either as awareness, JanuaO,-Febr~ta~y 1996 Duckro ¯ Healthy Eating in a Spiritual Context mindfulness, or a contemplative stance with regard to everyday life.) There is much to be gained in developing this contemplative stance, regularly interrupting the automatic habits that have been formed with regard to food and opening up the mysteries of body, mind, and spirit that lie hidden there. In developing awareness, one lays the only foundation for real choice. A contemplative stance in life depends not so much on mov-ing physically away from our usual world as it does on learning and using a fresh perspective on the familiar. It may even be that this learning is best done in the place where the familiar may be found. Awareness is, ~first of all, being present to what is happen-ing now. Eating has behavioral, cognitive, emotional, and social elements that are often ignored when we are caught up in a dys-functional pattern. Persons who to even casual observers appear obsessed with eating may be almost completely unaware of the fact. They wolf down food, violendy avoid it, or alternate between the two. Efforts to suppress the appetite make of it an insistent stranger and even an enemy, causing the house to be at war with itself. Paradoxically, conscious awareness of eating leads, not to preoccupation with food, but to a real integration of food, eating, and body image, to the benefit of the spiritual journey. The indi-vidual becomes more aware of the other hungers sometimes mis-taken for physical hunger, of the other fears that sometimes lie hidden beneath overt fears of being fat or self-indulgent. Approaching the Meal ¯ A primary method for increasing awareness with regard to eating is to get oneself to calm down before meals. The most commonly suggested method is a breathing exercise. This method is easily learned, even by busy persons ,and those who do not take easily to meditation or contemplative prayer. Breathing is in itself a well-rehearsed and automatic act, seldom given consci6us atten-tion in everyday life. It is a rich .experience, however, when given one's full attention, and breathing for relaxation is much more powerful than one might expect such a simple act to be. As the body relaxes, the mind becomes receptive and even the most rigid defenses begin to yield. One sees more clearly and can stop'cling-ing fearfully to illusions of control or predictability. The technique of breathing for relaxation is simple, but not commonly practiced. The goal is effortless deep breathing, breath- Review for Religious ing with the diaphragm, not dramatically expanding the rib cage or elevating the shoulders. Rate and rhythm vary, but the move-ment is toward slow rhythmic breaths, just enough to sustain the body in its current metabolic need. Flexibility is important, allow-ing for adjustments in rate and depth of breathing as needed, avoiding rigid adherence to some "right" way. Taped relaxation exercises may be useful in learning the actual technique so that it can be applied easily and discreetly, even at table. Imagery Breathing for relaxation before eating helps one to be fully present to the meal. Many things are happening at that moment: internal sensations of hunger and reactions to the food and also to the company. You bring with you the context of your day, past or anticipated, with its various emotions, You likewise bring the many habits that you have formed about the process of eating, all ready to be put into motion automatically. Selected use of imagination can enhance the value of the breathing exercise for awareness purposes. The images can vary widely, depending on the need. A few examples may show how this simple adjunct can facilitate relaxed breathing. An image of )qtllness directs attention, to what is alre, ady there. It reminds the body that what is felt as physical hunger may have roots in the psy-chological or spiritual. One is moved to feel more clearly what is already present and satisfying, as well as what is longed for. In turn, food is allowed to be just what it is. As the food is ingested, satiation will be recognized more quickly and accurately, pre-venting the uncomfortable sense of being "stuffed." One knows what is "enough." Thich Nhat Hanh suggests imagining your-self as a mountain lake, deep and still. There is a comfortable sense of fullness as you become this lake in which is contained all of the sky above it. Try this for a moment. As you breathe in, say, "I am a lake," and as you breathe out, "deep and still." In coming to fuller awareness of emotions like frustration, disappointment, or discouragement, an image of flexibility and resilience may be useful. To borrow again from Thich Nhat Hanh, consider a flower along your path, fresh and supple, swaying in the smallest breeze, yet always coming back to face the sun. Imagine yourself as that flower, moved by the smallest breeze, but not broken. See in your reaction to the day a sensitivity that you can Januat.~-Febtvlat~y 1996 Duckro ¯ Healthy Eating in a Spiritual Context turn to good, responding even to the quietest whisper from the mouth of God. As you breathe in, say, "I am a flower," and as you breathe out, "fresh." Images that evoke joy have a place in any setting, but they are also very useful as you prepare to eat. Tony de Mello SJ offered a subtle prayer idea: "BEhold God beholding you., and smiling." It can be used as an image eliciting joy. With each inhalation say, "I see the face of God," and with each exhalation, "smiling at me." Smile back, in your heart and on your lips. In this spirit of joy, remember all those who made the food in front of you pos-sible. Remember those who share your table. Anticipate the tastes of the food and also the fullness you will feel. Areas of Change We have discussed a process for becoming more aware or mindful of the act of eating. Awareness is the foundation for choice, allowing for the possibility of change in what has become repetitive and automatic. As you increase awareness, you will encounter many phenomena. The rest of this article considers some of the behaviors, thoughts, and feelings you may encounter. We will emphasize the forms of these phenomena that best serve a conscious and healthy approach to eating. Each time you choose to practice becoming more aware, select one of these areas for special attention. Behaviors Eating slowly has several advantages. By doing so, you are more likely to recognize feeling full before you have overeaten. The message of fullness takes some time to form in the stomach and be recognized in the brain. If you are very busy taking in food, you are likely to miss the earliest indications, and; by the time you do get the message, a considerable amount of food will already be in the "pipeline." Eating slowly also helps make the meal a sensory experience, permitting some attention to be given to the taste, texture, appearance, and aroma of the food. Particular behavioral practices can help make the slower pace of eating seem more natural, even when you are not fully aware of yourself. Develop the habit of letting go of your utensils between mouthfuls, chewing thoroughly before swallowing, and Review for Religious pausing to converse or think throughout the meal. When eating alone, try making of the meal a purely sensory experience, chew-ing, smelling, and of course savoring various items with deliber-ate attentiveness. You may find much to enjoy in what was previously an automatic and essentially neglected activity. Before any meal, your preparation for it offers an opportunity for choices leading to healthier eating. If it is your lot to shop for food for yourself or your local community, shop from a list and avoid shopping when you are very hungry. If you do, you are like-lier to choose foods that really are appropriate and desirable rather than foods that rely on impulse for their appeal. Planning meals is preferable to throwing something together. If you plan when you are full rather than when you are "starving," the chances are that you will have a balanced meal, both in quality and quantity. However, even taking a little time to plan just. before cooking is not wasted. Cooking can itself be a mindless or a mindful activity. Take time to look, smell, and taste (a little), bringing these sensations to your mind and your mind to the sensations. For those with busy schedules, some com-promises are in order. Carrying a low-calorie snack may forestall a desperate (as opposed to planned) run to the candy machine; planning what to eat and drink before a cocktail hour begins may curtail mindless grazing. The challenges are great for those who travel frequently, but even there planning for your nourishment may keep you from reach-ing a state of agitated exhaustion or a sense of deprivation. Food choices are important; what you eat affects how you feel and how healthy your body will be. Although dietary advice from medical science is sometimes frustrating in its fickle incon-stancy, you can follow some basic guidelines. Most of us in the United States get more fat than we need; choosing low-fat foods, avoiding fried foods, trimming or skimming fat can compensate. Seeking vitamins in their natural forms (foods) rather than in the latest dietary supplement is a reliable strategy; vegetables, fruits,. and grains have proved themselves over many centuries. Physical exercise complements a healthy eating pattern. Regular aerobic exercise is desirable, but even consciously increas-ing the amount of activity required to complete our daily tasks Before any meal, your preparation for it offers an opportunity for choices leading to healthier eating. Janua~y-Feblvtaty 1996 Duckro ¯ Healthy Eating in a Spiritual Context is helpful. Parking farther away rather than circling to get close to the door, taking stairs rather than waiting interminably for the elevator, walking a mile to our nekt appointment rather than driv-ing and hunting fifteen minutes for a place to park are just a few examples. A body with more muscle and a higher metabolism makes more effective use of what we eat. Thoughts and Feelings Consider your attitude toward your body. For many people, the body is experienced almost as "notself." Appetites like hunger may be viewed as "enemy," the body an object to be controlled or modified or concealed because of your feelings of shame about this or that feature of it: A particularly destructive way to expe-rience your body is to see it as a public and decisive measure of your self-worth. Achieving a particular physical appearance or following a specific dietary regimen becomes a testimony to your quality as a human being. It can even become a moral question. My body identifies me as a morally superior being or, conversely, publicly demonstrates my inferiority. From these premises, fail-ure to achieve the desired body image or follow the ideal diet can overshadow many positive qualities and can lead to a pervasive sense of inadequacy, a mood of depression. A healthier alternative is to cultivate proactively a true appre-ciation for your body, valuing it for its varied qualities, seeing in it the image of God. Contemplation of its complexities and the many functions carried out each moment, making your very phys-ical life possible, is a wonderful way to become reacquainted with this aspect of yourself. Be aware of your reaction to each part or function. Ask yourself how you came to feel this way. Review your history with this part or function. Remind yourself of the good it has done you or others. Consider what harm. you may have done or continue to do to it. Think of yourself in ~relationship to each part, imperfect but all yours, and consider how you wish to relate. Self-esteem is possible when we not only see what we might be, but also love what we are. In addition to attitudes toward the body, consider your atti-tudes toward foods and eating itself. We carry decided, but often unconscious, judgments about what we eat, when we eat, and why. At any given time certain foods are labeled "bad" or "good" for us. The judgments may be deeply ingrained and long-standing, or Review Jbr Religious they may change in harmony with the whirling carousel of inedia reports on the latest killer food. Ideally, we begin to develop a continuum in our attitudes toward foods to replace this dichoto-mous thinking. Any food can be more positive or negative depend-ing on many things, including the amount, our physical condition, available exercise, and (not least) our authentic desire for it. Our eating also has a decided pattern or rhythm to it, even if it can only be described as chaotic. Our hunger may be dichotomized or blended with other motives. We may experience ourselves only as "starved" or "stuffed." Such sensations bring with them a sense of urgency, requiring some immediate response. Try these two exercises. When you feel starved, wait five min-utes with the sensations. As you sit with them, transform them from a drive to ingest food immediately to an experience that will enhance the taste of the food you are about to enjoy. If you reg-ularly feel stuffed, stop eating for a few moments halfway through your meal. As you converse with those around you, observe your sensations for a few moments and see how close you are to being full. Hunger may reflect desires other than pleasure and the bio-logical need for sustenance; food may become medicine for lone-liness or a stopper for anger. In this way, eating may become a coping response for emotional distress, tension, or deprivation. The effort to soothe the disquiet with food may bring short-term relief. Long-term, it simply misses the mark and brings with it additional undesired consequences'. In this: dichotomizing or blending of physical hunger with emotion, we lose touch with the ever changing quality of our desire for food itself and increase our chances of eating too.much or too little. Being in communion with our feelings gives us the opportu-nity to perceive more clearly the multifaceted nature of our hungers. In so doing, We are better able to recognize that we are physically full even while we remain hungry emotionally or spir-itually. Each of us has a natural physiological regulatory mecha-nism that directs the sensations of hunger and satiation. (Dysfunction of this system appears to be possible, but is a sub-ject for another time.) We can, however, become deaf to its mes-sage: "Enough." Other hungers can be expressed indirectly in the desire for more food. Slowing down enough to listen, we may yet hear its still, small voice faithfully calling. As with most aspects of the self, the best response to non- Jantmt3,-Febt'uaty 1996 Duckro ¯ Healthy Eating in a Spiritual Context food hungers is not to suppress them, but to become more aware of them. Using a diary,or some other way of becoming alert to our sensations, thoughts, and feelings regularly throughout the day is a reliable way to learn what food we truly need and what hungers of ours reflect emotional drives. A careful review of thoughts and feelings associated with specific eating practices, especially habits that. are extreme (too little or too much), can be revealing. We may learn that consumption beyond basic nutritional needs is routinely preceded by unpleasant interpersonal events such as conflict, or negative internal states such as anger, loneliness, and deprivation. Food can come to be used to alter such unpleasant feelings or as a substitute for an unfilled emotional or spiritual need. A particularly common response to emotional deprivation includes filling oneself with food rather than seeking out emo-tional succor from family and friends. In the extreme, this can develop into a form of compulsive overeating. When recognized, emotional or spiritual needs can be addressed more directly-- loneliness, with a call to a friend; agitation, with a walk; bore-dom, with a purpose; shame, with apology and forgiveness. Social Discussion of the elements of eating must include our imme-diate social environment. Human relationships and eating are closely connected; our word companion derives from the Latin "bread with (someone)." Eating alone may be necessary and can be beneficial, but dining is enhanced by good company. Good com-pany is defined not simply by the goodness of the fellow diner, but als0 by the goodness of the relating that is done over the meal. Opening yourself to the other person interacts synergistically with your efforts to open your senses to the food, your mind to your behaviors, and your heart to constructive thoughts and feelings. In his instructions for making the Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius of Loyola suggests that solitary retreatants imagine Jesus dining at table with his disciples as a model for their own behavior when they are again eating in the company of other people. Conclusion In this article we have discussed various intellectual insights, behavioral practices, and emotional, cognitive, and social factors Review Jbr Religious that promote healthy eating. We have used the development of a contemplative awareness of eating as a unifying theme for the various specific suggestions. Contemplation is not a practice reserved for extended periods of silence or done only during retreats far from the pace of daily life. It is a practice for every day. One of the most beautiful images of the contemplative grasp of things in everyday life is the holding of a bird within cupped hands. Held too tightly, the bird is crushed; too lightly, it flies away. When this image is applied to eating, the need for strict rules or limits falls away. One is called simply to be present to the eating and to choose consciously. Awareness extends even to being pres-ent to our~inattentiveness. When we do find our-selves eating mindlessly or thinking dichotomously, we should, as Tilden Edwards says, not be quick to judge. Rather, we gently smile, notice what we are doing, pray for help and guidance, and "subtly loosen [our] bonds to inattentive appetite." From Jack Kornfield, psychotherapist and Buddhist teacher, comes another image of the gen-tle persistence required to learn mindfulness: train-ing a puppy. When the puppy inevitably wanders away or becomes distracted, it does little good to yell, scare it, and have it wet the floor. It is much better to lift the puppy gen-tly off the floor and bring it back to the task at hand. Made conscious, the mundane act of eating emerges from the mist of the commonplace and takes on new meanings. Four points will serve to summarize what we have been saying in this article. First, eat intentionally rather than automatically. Slow down. Start with breathing. Bring to the experience images of the mental state you desire. Enter the experience in all its dimensions--sensory, emotional, cognitive, social, and spiritual. Practice sometimes being conscious of each step in eating, even a single bite or swal-low. Follow your arm as you lift the fork, your hand as you grasp the glass. Second, be aware of the many people who contributed to the food before you. Feel gratitude for the growing of the grain, its processing and shipping. Remember those who prepared and served the food that day. Take note of the many events interwoven with this single meal as you look about the table or dining room. Eating alone may be necessary and can be beneficial, but dining is enhanced by good company. ~Tamtaty-Februaly 1996 Duckro ¯ Healthy Eating in a Spiritual Context Consider the miracle of your being able to taste and enjoy, to eat until you are satisfied. Resolve to make this satisfaction possible for more people and to become yourself bread for others. Third, bring to consciousness your thoughts and feelings regarding the food, your hunger, your body. Be sure you really want such thoughts,0and address them directly if they are trou-blesome. Unduly harsh self-criticism or self-deprivation only fur-thers any dysfunctional pattern of eating that might be present. If you feel on the brink of starvation, wait a moment and see whether you really are about to faint. If you find yourself despising your body for any reason, breathe, relax your muscles, and feel your spirit permeating your body. Fourth, whatever you do, do it patiently and lovingly. The alJproach to mindfulness itself must be mindful, with tolerance for the very gradual and sometimes erratic awakening to which human beings ~usually seem prone. (Think of the ambivalent desires you may have experienced as you awake early on some winter morning. Persistent movement in the right general direc-tion is all that counts.) In this way we may find that, like other activities of life, eating can in itself be part of the prayer without ceasing. Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection was a cook for his abbey. He had many opportunities to find God in the prepara-tion, cooking, and serving of food. We might recall him and share his desire to "worship God the oftenest I could, keeping my mind on his holy presence and recalling it as often as I found it wan-dered from him." References Edwards, T. Living Simply through the Day, New York: Paulist Press, 1977. Flinders, C.L. Enduring Grace: Living Portraits of Seven Women Mystics. New York: HarperCollins, 1993. Hanh, T.N. The Miracle of Mindfidness. Beacon, Massachusetts: Beacon Press, 1975. Lawrence of the Resurrection, Brother. The Practice of the Presence of God (D. Attwater, trans.). Springfield, Illinois: Templegate, 1962. ReviewforReligious ANDRI~E FRIES Transformative Leadership: Key to Viability "Now on that same day two of the disciples were going to a village called Emmaus . . . talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus him-self came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, "What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?" (Lk 24:13-17). Jesus is our model for viable religious leadership. The Emmaus story gives us insight into his style of leading. He approaches the disciples with questions and leads them to reflect on and retell their experience. Through further questioning, he assists them in realizing how their expe-rience enfleshes what the prophets foretold. Jesus ulti-mately leads them to recognize God in their midst and sends them with burning hearts to share the good news with others. This article seeks to show how we can pattern our leadership after Jesus on the Emmaus journey, focusing on the importance of leadership to an institute's viability. What is our story of leadership? What is happening to us along the way? What questions does our experience raise? How are we being called to respond, as individuals and as conferences? Andr4e Fries CPPS is general superior of the Sisters of the Most Precious Blood (O'Fallon). As president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) she made the presen-tation which is the substance of this article at the August 1995 assembly. Her address is 204 North Main Street; O'Fallon, Missouri 63366. leadership ~anuat~-Febrttaty 1996 Fries * Transformative Leadership We, too, have been on the way these days, listening ponder-ing, talking and discussing transformative leadership for the new millennium. Leadership is especially important for us in these times. As leaders we must address the very question of the future viability of our institutes. Since my years of service at the Tri- Conference Retirement Office, I have been intrigued by the ques-tion of what is necessary for a religious institute to be viable. Clearly, financial resources are not the sole determinant of this viability, but what other elements are needed? My reflections cen-ter on an insight highlighted during a November 1994 "Think Tank on the Viability of Religious Institutes" co-sponsored by Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), National Association of Treasurers of Religious Institutes (NATRI), and the Tri-Conference Retirement Office (TCRO). This "Think Tank" used an interdisciplinary approach to explore the question of viability. An interdisciplinary team reflected with the leaders of institutes that had directly addressed institutional viability. The team discovered that the quality of leadership is the single most impor-tant factor in an institute's viability, whether that was a sense of clear direction for the fitture or an increased corporate depression resulting from still unresolved questions of viability. Five cases were presented; in each we saw that the caliber of the leaders significantly impacted the results. If a high quality of leadership is the indispensable key to ongo-ing viability, is the reverse also true? Is weak leadership a pre-dictor that viability will be lost? These are serious, sobering questions, and the stakes are high for the future of our institutes and of religious life. What is Our Story of Leadership? Each of us has lived through a radical redefinition of leader-ship in our religious institutes. A friend of mine recently said, only partly in jest, "I wish I had been provincial in the days when a sister brought the superior tea in the afternoon and ironed her wimple." Even the terminology superior seems jarring today, since our experience of leadership has shifted from a hierarchical to a relational model. As ambiguous as this relational model may be when we are faced with the daily challenges of leadership, the transformation we have experienced in religious leadership is con-sistent with the model Jesus gives us in the Gospels. In the Review for Religious Emmaus story, Jesus leads the disciples out of confusion, despair, and paralysis to zeal for mission, not by lecturing them on what to do, but by asking questions, making connections, and helping them to discover the way in mutual dialogue. This leadership paradigm shift is not unique to religious life. We do not. live in a vacuum. We are called to leadership in a world radically different from that of our founders. We live in the "information age," and in our post modern world more than ever before "information is power." Everyone has access to an overwhelming amount of information. No longer do only the leaders have the infor-mation essential for decision making. As a result leaders of religious institutes are no longer perceived to have superior informa-tion, thus not retaining the credibility to make decisions in isolation from membership and other collaborators in mission. United States culture seems riddled with suspicion and disdain for our elected leaders, This is the age of the talk show: Everyone has an opinion; everyone is an expert; and, there are no taboo subjects. Distrust of leaders is in the very air we breathe. Religious are not exempt from its influence. The plethora of contemporary writing and research on lead-ership is quite consoling. We can learn much from the new insights on leadership, some coming from unlikely sources. For example, Margaret Wheatley in Leadership the New ScienceI applies findings of science, namely quantum mechanics, chaos, and frac-tal theory, to the ambiguity and the complexity of situations which leaders face. Overwhelming amounts of unrelated information produce chaos; however, the relationship of all this information creates a new synergistic energy out of the chaos. Quantum physics posits that relationships, not things, are the basic build-ing blocks of matter. Physicists have discovered that chaos always conforms to a boundary within which information interacts as the primal, creative force. Systems fall apart by design so they can renew themselves according to an invisible organizing pur-pose. The disequilibrium of chaos creates new possibilities for evolutionary growth. God truly does hover over the chaos! Toffler proposes that the information explosion requires a Transformative leadership calls us, as leaders of religious institutes, to be eager learners, inviting our members to learn with us. Januaty-Febtv~aty 1996 Fries * Transformative Leadership well developed intuition in order to cut through the complexity and discover relationships and connections. A leader must not only understand each piece of information but also be able to make the intuitive leap and connect seemingly unrelated infor- ~nation.2 Peter Block believes that the ability to articulate these con-nections clearly is what gives the leader influence and power. Block claims that the balance of power between the leader and the group is the issue.3 Interdependence means that the leader and the group are connected in a way that balances the power between them. Wheatley claims that the power in organizations is the capacity generat.ed by relationships (note 3, p. 38). The leader's task is to share information in a way that provides clarity, highlights connections, and promotes dialogue. Peter Senge in The FiSh Discipline develops the theory of the learning organization. He believes that the key function of lead-ership is to facilitate vision-driven, value-based learning in the . group. "Leaders are responsible for building organizations where people continually expand their capabilities to understand com-plexity, clarify vision, and improve shared mental models--that is, they (leaders) are responsible for learning.''4 Unfortunately few women have written specifically on lead-ership. However, feminist insights provide a model of leadership in which relationships are paramount. In the feminist model, information and power flow in a circular rather than hierarchical motion. Relationships are dynamic and synergistic, respectful and creative, inclusive and purposeful. As Max Dupree writes, "Leadership is an art, something to be learned over time., more a weaving of relationships than an amassing of information.''5 Transformative leadership calls us, as leaders of religious insti-tutes, to be eager learners,0inviting our members to learn with us. The art of leadership is to engage others in the mysterious chaotic dance of the journey, a dance of interdependence and fidelity to God's ongoing call. What Questions Does Our Experience Raise? On the way to Emmaus, Jesus led by asking 'questions, help-ing the disciples to make connections with the scriptures to dis-cover the true meaning of the events they had experienced. What can we learn by relating our questions to our experience Review for Religious and the information available so we lead in a way that fosters transformation and viability? It seems to me that leadership ques-tions are particularly challenging for us in three areas: (1) mean-ing and mission, (2) community and relationships, and (3) leadership and structures. Meaning and Mission I sense in the members of our institutes a profound search for meaning, a sense of dis-ease coming from the feeling of"drift-ing" in these times of incredible change and challenge. Sandra Schneiders IHM wonders if this experience is akin to the dark night of the soul, a dangerous and purificatory process from the known to a radically new experience of God.6 However, there are no easy answers to the essential identity questions--"Who are we?" and "What are we called to do together?" We struggle with a desire to participate in a clear cor-porate mission, yet our members feel called to meet new needs often beyond our present institutional commitments. This uneasi-ness about our corporate mission is especially poignant in the face of our aging membership and dwindling resources. We have no models for leadership in a time of diminishment. We know that we can no longer define ourselves by what we do, by our works. Yet what is the reality that we can grasp and own together, now, as this religious institute? We yearn for a sense of uniqueness, yet we seem to have more diversity within many insti-tutes than among institutes. Our members embody diversity, even pluralism, in basic val-ues and beliefs. The information age and the availability of mul-tiple opportunities for learning have resulted in different ecclesiologies, theologies, styles of worship, and community liv-ing among our members. This is uncomfortable. How can we get our arms around this in a meaningful way? Leaders hfive a respon-sibility to facilitate each individual's vision so together the group can create a corporate vision which inspires a strong sense of cor-porate mission. We need to lead through this diversity. The ultimate test of leadership lies in the ability to address the question of the institute's own viability. The question "Are we dying?" lurks in the heart of many of our members. The uncer-tainty subtly eats away at enthusiasm for mission, even at the esprit de corps of the group. ~anuaty-Febtwaty 1996 Fries ¯ Tran~Cormative Leadership The question of viability is never answered once and for all. The answer we had yesterday is not the answer for .today, and probably wil.l not be the answer in another twenty-five years. However, we are entrusted with leadership today. How can we raise the viability questions of today, questions that revolve around the availability of a future pool of leaders, of a critical mass of members for mission and of sufficient financial resources to sus-tain our needs, assist our'members' personal growth and support our mission? If there is not reasonable hope of identifying future leaders, of responding to real needs in mission, of providing for the sustenance and enrichment of members, our institute may not be viable. How can we lead if the institute is not viable cur-rently or in the immediate future? On the other hand, how can we lead to enhance our viability into the future? Wheatley writes that the only route out of chaos is for lead-ers to give voice and form to the search for meaning (note 3, p. 13 5). Charlotte Roberts believes that leaders must give voice to an organization's emotional tension, anxiety, fear, and frustration, and then shift the attention to vision and core identity.7 1 believe that unless we assume leadership in addressing these questions of meaning and purpose as well as in gaining greater clarity, focus and ownership of our corporate mission, any attempts to address viability will be superficial. Community and Relationships Community life in apostolic institutes is under incredible pressure. No longer do we have the luxury of predictable, similar schedules and horariums. We serve in partnership with laity as professionals in a culture where professionalism is a demanding endeavor. We serve in a world harried by time pressures and, like many families, we rarely have the luxury of a meal together, much less of quality time for prayer and community. Many of our active members are part of the "sandwich generation" with obligations to elder parents as well as to community and ministry. Time is a very scarce resource! The individualism of our culture also challenges us as leaders. It is probably naive to believe that many of us will ever com-pletely escape the strong influence of individualism. It may be more realistic for us as leaders to build on the strengths our mem-bers have developed as a result of individualism. Theoretically, Review for Religious the good of the individual contributes to the good of the whole, creating synergistic energy for both. The challenge comes in bal-ancing these two sometimes competing goods in specific situa-tions. How can we as leaders assist our members to recognize and deal with the "hot buttons" set off when the rubber of indi-vidualism hits the road of communal good? How do we encourage new models of community that realis-tically address these very real situations and promote practical opportunities for authentic community life? Leaders are respon-sible to foster community structures oriented to accountability for values and mission. We must discover new models and sym-bols of community that capture our imagination and transform our energies. Jesus, our model for leadership, transformed the fatigue and distress of the disciples on the way to Emmaus into new energy and eagerness to share with the others in commu-nity. Jesus' example suggests that leaders must constantly search for what enables individuals and groups to reach their potential. Another challenge comes from the movement to offer oth-ers partnership in our spirit and mission. Associate programs and relationships have been a source of life for many institutes in the midst of dwindling vowed membership. However, the purpose of associate programs is not to assuage our sorrow by compensating for our lack of vocations, but rather to share our spirituality and mission with others as a faith community. In our desire to be collaborative, open, and inclusive, we may be blurring the distinction between vowed members and associ-ates. The boundaries of membership seem diffused, even leaky at times. Without clarity of who we are together as vowed mem-bers, it is difficult to define the identity of the associates. We seem to be clear that associates participate with vowed members in spirituality and mission. Tensions arise, however, when some of us believe that associates should participate in our internal forum, having equal access with vowed members to decision making about our lives together without having the same accountability to live the consequences. How can we reclaim a clear sense of corporate identity, meaning, and mission if the very concept of member-ship is fuzzy and uneven? Clearly there are many unanswered questions about the impact of associate programs as we move into the next millen-nium. Perhaps as Margaret Brennan IHM suggests, our associate members are a sign that we are on the verge of discovery of new ]anualy-FebrttaO, 1996 Fries * Tran~lCormative Leadership forms of religious life.8 If we are moving to a new form, let us not drift into the future, but consciously choose to broaden the meaning of membership. Leaders need to raise these membership questions because their implications impact dramatically on meaning, purpose, and mission, and thus on the future of the institute. As Wheatley writes, "A leader's task is to focus on the overall coherence of the organization, which requires one very important thing: genuine attention to the core identity.''9 Leadership and Structures The predominant form of governance in religious institutes today is one of broad participation. We have labored long and hard to design structures that provide for the participation of each member. In our eagerness to provide opportunities for each member to participate in decision making, we have tried all sorts of structures and group processes. This has produced many bless-ings, significant bonding, and a deeper understanding of.issues, but it also is fraught with the danger of overload for both leaders and members. All too often this participation contributes to our being co-opted into a culture of hectic busyness, a culture in which con-templation, ongoing formation and health suffer, and in which burnout is all too common. Participation is a mixed blessing-- but we are learning from our experience. What are we learning? We are being more selective about which issues or questions are best dealt with by the total mem-bership and which are best left to leadership. The process of dif-ferentiating between these two categories is critical. One of the most important moments for group participation is that of choos-ing which issues are so important for the future that an inclusive group process must be developed. There are very many issues competing for our members' energy and attention. The critical choice is: Shall the whole group participate in many decisions and thus risk dealing only on the surface, or go into depth together on a few issues where the questions connect at a deeper level? If the membership reaches consensus on which issues are key for the group participative processes, leadership is freed to address the many other issues facing the institute, Leaders are empowered to lead, to move forward on other issues. It is essential to trans- Review for Religiotts formation, to viability, that leaders actually lead. There is indeed a time for everything under the sun, a time for participating and a time for empowering, a time for consensus building and a time for risking new frontiers. Another challenge in some institutes is to find a pool of persons willing to serve as leaders. Why is this? Some cite tensions in deal-ing with the church as too de-energizing. Others question if lead-ership can be an effective ministry in today's climate of equality and participation that seems to disempower leadership. Leadership may be seen as para-lyzed, fearful to make decisions because of the expectations of the members to be con-suited, or.the complexity of the issues and ambiguity of this time of transformation. Still others withdraw from a leadership nomina-tion fearing that a long absence from their professional life would make reentry into that ministry difficult if not impossible, especially in our culture of ageism and sexism. If having a pool of available leaders is essential for an institute's future viability, we need to face these serious challenges and find ways to encourage and develop future lead-ers. We must witness that leadership is an attractive life-giving ministry rather than a burden to be endured. If we portray leader-ship as a challenging and rewarding~ ministry, we can make a dif-ference in the willingness of others to serve as lea~ters in the future. Another structural question impacting leadership is the grow-ing preference for a team style of leadership with or without a designated team leader. I cannot imagine being in leadership today without a team. We continue to learn that team leadership is an area of great promise and equally great challenge. But tea,n is an ambiguous, concept, and is interpreted in many ways. During a job interview at a Fortune 500 company, a hotshot project man-ager was asked if he was a "team player." "Yes," he replied, "the team captain." l0 Leadership theorists recognize that collaborative relation-ships-- those marked by mutual learning and shared creation-- are at the core of innovation. A team strticture provides an Leaders need to raise membership questions because their implications impact dramatically on meaning, purpose, and mission, and thus on the future of the institute. .]anttat.'!,-Febrt~aD, 1996 Fries ¯ Tran~Cormative Leadership environment in which this learning and creativity can be fos-tered." Because of the time required to build a team, opting.for team leadership may mean delegating some tasks to other staff. In some cases th~se may include relating with sponsored institutions, col-laborating with others, dealing with administrative tasks and pro-viding services for individual members and local communities. For effective delegation, authority must be commensurate with respon-sibility, and accountability clearly defined. Without these clear boundaries, there may be overlap of "turf," "end runs" bypassing staff and appealing directly to leaders. Ultimately this leads to inef-fective administration. Additional staff necessitates the allocation of both financial and human resources from other institute priorities, such as mis-sion and enrichment of members. It is impossible to have "your cake" (the team) and "eat it too." (conserve the resources), To attempt to do both will totally frustrate team members with impossible expectations and responsibility overload. For most institutes, balancing the value of a team approach with other pri-orities is a challenging issue. Members wonder why it takes so many more persons to administer what fewer did with larger membership. Another issue in the team model is that roles and thus respon-sibility can be unclear. Sometimes we are tempted to posit that all team roles are equal in leadership responsibility and in ultimate accountability. This raises the question if there is value added by having a designated team leader? Surely each team member shares leadership.'It is not an either/or question of either have a team or have a designated leader. In my experience, having both opens the possibility of a more effective creative team leadership. Doris Gottemoeller referencing St. Paul (Ga 3:27-28, 1 Co 12:4-11), calls us "to hold in perennial tension two poles: equal-ity and diversity, or unity and distinctiveness of function or roles."'2 Mary Catherine Bateson writes "the ethical impulse of American culture is toward symmetry., asserting that a given kind of difference (of roles) is, or should be, irrelevant. When we call symmetry equality, it is both our best and our worst.pas, sion." ,3 Richness and newness come from the synergistic interplay of the symmetrical and asymmetrical, from diversity and differ-entiation in gifts and roles, from the leadership exercised by a team with distinct but complementary roles. Review for Religiolts Peter Block concludes that the key issue is how the desig-nated leader chooses to relate to the team (note 5, p. 31). An effective team uses a collaborative style with consensus decision making. The leader does not centralize the power or the point of action. In the feminine image of the circle, the wheel moves around a hub to keep the rim from flying off in all directions. Analogously, I believe the designated leader has an added dimen-sion of responsibility to provide a safe environment for the whole team to "create visions; where inquiry and commitment to truth are the norm and challenging the status quo is expected.''~4 The team leader keeps diverse energies connected, unified, and mov-ing in the same direction. Yet the momentum comes from within the whole team. Another rationale for designating a team leader is that our publics perceive the designated leader as the one who is ulti-mately responsible. "The buck stops here," as we say in Missouri. Given the reality of public accountability for the group's action, must the leader always do the will of the group, be that the con-sensus of the team or of the membership? This is a difficult issue, but one that touches on the integrity of the leader and of the team and the delicate balance of the value of communio with the prophetic. How Are We Being Called To Respond. As Individual Leaders By now, I'm sure that you are quite aware that transformative leadership is an impossible responsibility unless we realize this is not our work, but God's. A leader today must be above all a per-son of spiritual intensity. Jerry Brown's reflections address the qualities and skills as well as the. personal supports needed by spiritual leaders. (see pp. 34-35 in this issue). I can attest from my own experience that leadership is impossible without God's grace. The grace of office still exists, perhaps not in the form we once learned. I experience the grace of office as the spurt of stamina that comes when I feel that I can't take or do one more thing, the courage to act in the face of fear or opposition, the surprising words that come out of my mouth in a complex situa-tion, the strength to persevere in the dying of the paschal mystery with hope for the resurrection, Fries ¯ Transformative Leadership A leader is challenged: 1) to be a learner, a person centered enough to listen, to hear, to read, to ponder, to dream, to make connections, to dialogue, to change, to hold fast; 2) to be a,communicator, clearly conveying a sense of mean-ingfulness, connecting the present with the past and future, and building enthusiasm for ,blazing new trails; 3) to be a unifier, a symphony conductor who artistically draws forth the music of each person, blends the tones, keeps the rhythm and orchestrates the crescendos and diminuendos; 4) to lead, making decisions that courageously balance the purpose of the institute with the good of the individual member, all for the sake of mission; a leader takes risks'and keeps asking the deeper questions; 5) to he enthusiastic about the ministry of leadership dur-ing this time of transformation so as to encourage others to be available for l.eadership; 6) to do as Jesus did on the way to Emmaus, be visible, sup-porting, listening~ questioning, exploring implications, shar-ing information, making~connections and breaking bread with companions on the journey. As Leadership Conferences In addition to what we can do as individual leaders, what can we ask of our conferences? I suggest three Practical directions, and invite you to add your own wisdom.' I challenge our conferences to: 1) create a program and process to mentor leaders, 2) aid leaders in dealing with the issue of viability, 3) assist in developihg a pool of future leaders for religious institutes. Summary and Conclusion I pray that our sharing will continue to "open our eyes," so we may recognize Jesus' continuing presence in us, with us. With our hearts burning within us, let us go forward with enthusiasm to proclaim "Jesus is truly risen and is among us." Notes 1 See Margaret J. Wheatley, Leadership and the New Science: Learning About Organizations from an Orderly Universe, (New York: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 1994), p. xi and Chapter One. Review for Religious ~ Alvin Toffler, Power Shift: Knowledge, Wealth, and Violence at the Edge of the~ 21st Century, (New York: Bantam Doubleday, Dell Publishing Group, 1990), pp. 175, 178, 195. 3 Peter Block, Stewardship: Choosing Service Over Self-Interest, (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishing, Inc., 1993). 4 Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice oft& Learning Organization, (New York: Bantam Doubleday, Dell Publishing Group, Inc., 1990), especially Chapters 1, 9-12. s Max Dupree,.Leadersbip is an Art, (New York: Dell Publishing, 1989), p. 3. 6 Cassian Yuhaus CP, editor, The Challenge for Tomorrow's Religious Life, (New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1994), p. 12. 7 Charlotte Roberts, "Building a Learning Community," a workshop held 23 June 1995 based on The Fifth Discipline Field Book, (New York: Bansta Mm aDrgoaurbelte'd Bayre, nDnealln P IuHbMlis,h "inAg WGrhoiutep ,L Iingch.,t 1a9n9d4 S).till Moving": Religious Life at the Crossroads of the Future" from The Challenge for Tomorrow's Religious Life, p. 103. 9. Margaret J. Wheatley, "Quantum Management," Working Women Magazine, October, 1994. ~0 Michael Schrage, "Manager's Journal," Wall Street Journal, 19 June 1995. ~ Peter Senge, note 6 in Leadership and the New Science. ~2 Doris Gottemoeller RSM, "A Vision for the Church of 2010," Address given at Heronbrook House, England, May, 1995. Available in Origins (USCC, Washington, D.C.), Vol. 25, no. 9, pp. 149-152). ~3 Mary Catherine Bateson, Composing a Life, (New York: Penguin Group, 1990), Chapter 6. 14 Peter Senge, in Stewardship: Choosing Service over Self-hlterest, note 5, p. 172. Plain Speech and Mystic Grammar I tend to small things, through you, with you, in you, and look for small things by and from and of you. The small, small things. Prepositions are my best words, sheer relation. Michele Cruvant Janua~y-FebrnaO, 1996 GERALD L. BROWN The Call To Spiritual Leaders: Beacons of Hope Tcvisionary theologian, Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, hbishop of Milan, recently noted that religious leaders have to face three types of problems, "internal problems, external problems, and transcendent problems or transcendent questions." By internalproblems Cardinal Martini means struggles we face daily within our own organizations, such as attracting vocations, setting priorities, constructing strategic plans or handling con-flicts in community. Religious leaders will find their own way of overcoming or mastering these problems. However, much more important is that, when dealing with these internal problems, we need to "give space to the second and third type of problems." Externalproblems are "the great issues common to all human-ity." Cardinal Martini mentions war and peace, violence among peoples and groups, defense of human life, sickness and hunger, the great immigrations, problems of ecology, and tensions in soci-ety between social or ethnic groups. He urges us to approach pressing external problems as religious leaders, as men and women of faith, "grtunded in God's revelation." We are not called to be politicians, government leaders, lobbyists, or social engineers. However, Martini insists that transcendent problems are "our real and main concern" as religious leaders. He means: the main themes of all religions: God, salvation, prayer, adoration, faith, and hope, forgiveness, life after death, justice, charity., every other question, no matter how Gerald L. Brown SS, provincial of the Society of the Priests of Saint Sulpice, presented the reflections in this article as the president of the Conference of Major Superior of Men (CMSM) at the August 1995 assembly. His address is 5408 Roland Avenue; Baltimore, Maryland 21210. Review for Religious important it might look, depends ultimately on these tran-scendent questions and themes. Inevitably, we must deal with internal issues and confront external problems in secular society. But, above all, we must be concerned with the transcendent questions and themes which "all people need to face." They belong to the essence of being men and women in this world, even if some secular societies place some restraint on publicly discussing them. Last year, my presidential address kicked off a national campaign, the "Shalom Strategy," a project which is part of a larger campaign to promote human rights. I dealt with one of today's most painful and frightening external prob-lems, the violence we all experience in the homes, streets, and institutions of our society. Of course, the problem of vio-lence is also internal. Our own commu-nities have room to grow in mutual respect and tolerance. In calling the Conference to action, I appealed to a survey of our members that showed our desire to network when tack-ling complex and urgent social problems. We cannot operate alone or in a vacuum--the stakes are too high, the issues too complex. This sense of realism matched the sobering message of Nygren and Ukeritis that consecrated life will not survive as a social insti-tution in the church unless we address certain unmet human needs corporately and collectively and learn how to move beyond the necessary maintenance of our communities to the corporate mis-sion of transformation within society. However, if our efforts as a Conference are paying off, (and they are; we are moving, and we are learning), it is because, on the deepest level, we are addressing what Cardinal Martini calls "tran-scendent problems," in this case, the hunger for inner peace and communal harmony, the need for dignity, respect, and a place in building God's reign and, above all, the yearning to know, on every human and institutional level, God's all-embracing love. Indeed, before all else, in our campaign for human rights and for a peaceful world, we are touching the deepest longings of the I want to talk about a spirituality for the religious leader, a way of life that enables us to hold in creative tension the internal, the external, and the transcendent. Jantlat.3,-l:ebt'ttat~y 1996 Brown ¯ The Call to Spiritual Leaders human heart. In countless and measurable ways, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) does the same. Building on Cardinal Martini's provocative insights and on our combined efforts as Conferences, I want to take a step further, to talk about a spirituality for the religious leader, a way of life that enables us to hold in creative tension the internal, the external, and the transcendent, a way that can fuel our corporate and col-lective efforts at social transformation. I will move through two stages: (1) What spiritual qualities and skills are needed in today's religious leaders, and (2) How are these qualities and skills developed and nurtured? Another way.of putting these two questions might be: What kind of person do w~e want to be, and how do we pull it off?. I. Qualities and Skills for Spiritual Leadership There are five signs of an authentically spiritual leader. Such a personis vitally aware, relational in vision and style, honest and principled, able to live comfortably with tensions and obviously in love with God in the Spirit of Christ Jesus. I draw from the Nygre~n/Ukeritis study on outstanding leaders, from books and articles on spirituality, leadership, and spiritual leaders and from my own experience as a :leader who learns from other leaders. Before I begin, let me offer a caution. None of us will do equally well all that I suggest. Listen to my remarks with human, compassionate ears and take what I say as ideals towards which we all must strive. The inspiring leaders I know are persons with heightened awareness. They see and hear more. They notice more keenly than others the needs and motives of the groups they lead and are more open to the graces of people they serve. They read the signs of the times objectively and with empathy, what Wordsworth calls seeing '~into the life of things." Moreover, these leaders tend to see God everywhere, "in the living geometry of a flower, a seashell, an animal . . . in the love and gentleness, the confidence and humility, which give beauty to the relationships between human beings" (Aldous Huxley). They see God in noise and quiet, in light and dark, in the poetic and the mundane, in the giggles of children at play, in the silent stares of Review for Religiom" the homeless begging in the streets or in the dulled eyes of func-tionaries aimlessly on the move. Above all, they sense the God who dwells and speaks within. These leaders are vitally aware persons in touch with "the deep heart's core," to use the words of Yeats. As a result, they influence others more through their being than through their accomplishments. ¼re all know people like this. Relational Vision and Style This fine-tuned awareness helps spiritual leaders see them-selves as connected. On the level of vision, they live in the present, shaped by the past, poised for the future. They know it takes a vil-lage to raise a child and that we are mysteriously one with our brothers and sisters in other religions, cultures, and places respon-sible for our sacred earth and for all living creatures and things. An old Mayan saying hints at the connectedness of all reality: When the people are happy God is happy, and the trees begin to sing. On the level of style, they are compassionate, nonjudgmental, and accepting. They acknowledge their own limitations and give others the benefit of the doubt. They are approachable, yet do not allow the personal crises of individuals to keep them from their primary task as leaders. They are collaborative in manner, working to arouse consensus toward common vision and mission, in the process learning how to lead from those who are led. These leaders are.loyal members of a church they recognize and accept as both holy and flawed, sinful yet redeemed. They seek alliance with those individuals in the church and in broader society who are committed to personal and social transformation. Courageous Integrity Aware and connected, the most effective transformational leaders live their ministry with courageous integrity. I have come to admire immensely those men and women who are forthright and honorable in speech and in action without alienating or los-ing the respect of others. This is not easy in a pluralistic church with competing theologies and spiritualities or in groups that have become too diffuse, needing to be challenged to a renewed sense of corporate mission or to a dignified acceptance of dimin-ishment unto death. Brown ¯ The Call to Spiritual Leaders William Butler Yeats said, "The real leader serves truth, not people." I am not sure we need to set apart people and truth in this way, but I see the point he is making. There is today the ten-dency to keep quiet when we should speak out or to move impul-sively without serious research or thinking through the consequences. Temptations to please the group at all costs or to rush to closure on issues needing more time are clear and present dangers in times of polarization and complexity. Succumbing to either temptation does violence to truth. Courageous leaders with integrity know when to be quiet and to listen and when to share honestly and with love what they believe is best for the good of the whole. They neither lose their souls out of fear, nor fight battles that do not need to be fought. They serve both people and truth. In the language of Paul, they feel called to serve Christ first and Christ living in his people. Living Comfortably with Tensions Aware, connected, and courageous, the transformational leader also knows how to live comfortably in an "age of tensions." The theologian and diocesan priest James Bacik calls for a "dialectical spirituality" that understands the tensions of our age and makes them fruitful. He gives a few examples of dialectical tensions that touch the lives of contemporary religious leaders: Christianity and human developme.nt, the Gospel and culture, the cross and flag, individualism and small group movements, the traditional and the new, fixity and change. We need not collapse the tension between these contrasted pairs. They can all coexist and enrich each other. As Christians who live the dying and the rising of the paschal mystery, we should be more comfortable than most with paradox and complementarity. Madeleine L'Engle wisely and whimsically made the point: "We cannot seem to escape paradox; I do not think I want to." In my judgment, we need, more than ever, leaders who see the both/and dimensions of life and negotiate com.fortably with social, political, and theological dichotomies, leaders who live what Bacik calls the "dialectical virtues." Leaders must be, at the same time, committed and open, reflective and spontaneous, enlightened and simple, hopeful and realistic. Leaders need to hold in creative ten-sion the mystical and the prophetic, the individual and the com-munal, the universal and the particular. Virtue lies not in a balanced middle which does not exist, but in creative interpenetration. Review for Religious Spiritual leaders who live such dialectical virtues hear God speaking in many languages. They experience God in peace and in pain. They learn from negative as well as positive experience. They live with all sides of their personalities, including the dark, and, in it all, know that God protects the world. Love of God in the Spirit of Christ Jesus This brings me to the final mark of the transformational leader. The most effective religious leaders are aware, connected, courageous, and sophisticated. But, even more, they are men and women in love with God and not afraid to show it. They experience God in their ministry, and they can talk about it. In their inner being, they feel called by Christ to leadership and try to lead as he would lead, in justice and in truth, with compassion, humility, and love. With Jesus, they seek holy wisdom and listen for the prompting of the Spirit. In my address at the Synod on Consecrated Life, I ~poke about the need for spiritual intensity, for men and women, especially leaders, who are on fire with God's transforming love, who live dynamically in the spirit of the founding impulse and who communicate an enthusiasm that is contagious. To~vard the end of the Synod, we all listened in respectful awe to brief remarks by one of today's saints, Brother Roger of Taize. He lived what I have described. Speaking with eloquent simplicity about our world's need for reconciliation, his inner self radiated holiness and inspired at least one person to greater efforts for world peace and forgiveness. He spoke with a faith illuminated and a hope empowered by the resurrection of the crucified one. In summary, the transformational leader is aware, relational, courageous, comfortable with inevitable tensions, and on fire with God. This person tends not to neglect the transcendent when deal-ing with internal and external problems and is more likely than the typical leader to work with others for social transformation. The most effective religious leaders are men and women in love with God and not afraid to show it. II. Supports for Spiritual Leadership Now, acknowledging that we are all on the journey, none of Brown ¯ The Call to Spiritual Leaders us perfect, all of us from time to time overwhelmed and exhausted, we explore ways of feeding and supporting such a leader. Nygren and Ukeritis point out that the typical leader can become out-standing. We can help ourselves and be helped by others. A bishop I know says that many diocesan priests are on the verge of great-ness and never make it. They are not alone. What can move us towards greatness? There are six ways of keeping ourselves alert, connected, at peace with ourselves and our world, centered with integrity and alive to God, or at least moving in the right direction. These six ways all take time. We need to make time for reading, for new experience, for friendships, for prayer and contemplation, for spiritual direction and mentoring, and for support from our peers. Reading We need to read. Reading helps us to be more aware of our world, more connected to the sufferings of people, more alert to truth, more alive. As provincial and president of CMSM, I feel obligated to keep abreast of current affairs through newspapers and journals. As a voice for my community and for the wider church, I feel chal-lenged to keep up with recent church teaching and new currents of theological thought. As a pastoral leader, I am attracted to books on church life and ministry, on spirituality and on leader-ship. As a human person, I make time for novels, poetry, and other experiences of human creativity. When I do not have sufficient time to keep up with one or another of these areas through reading, I contact trusted col-leagues and friends who do have time and who are willing to engage in conversation. New Experience From time to time, moreover, we leaders need to risk new experience. We need to create new road maps in order to walk new paths. For example, we know that the best way to learn about incul-turation is to make ourselves fully vulnerable to the gifts and lim-its of another culture. By analogy, we can say the same thing about almost every issue of great importance, such as poverty, mental ill-ness and violence in our streets, or community living and pastoral planning. The best way to learn is to risk being open, to stretch ourselves, to get our hands dirty. To use another example, why not Review for Religious measure our own vision, programs, and methods by entering, touching, and learning from the experience of other communities and leaders? If the unexamined life is not worth living, it is also true to say that the unlived life is not worth examining. Friendships We also need to make room for those who choose to love us. One of the greatest dangers for religious leaders is to lose contact with close friends. Sadly, friends are often the first to be forgot-ten when setting calendars. We need to ink them in, for they are our lifeline, our refuge, our source of love and support. Truly good friends keep us honest. They are willing to lay down their lives for us, and they call forth from us an equal response. Making friends a priority can be a great challenge for many of us even if we do manage to make time. How do we confront close friends in community? How do we initiate new friendships out-side the community without the venue of hands-on ministry? How do we keep connected and in balance the many relation-ships in our lives? Facing these challenges head-on and creatively is worth the effort. Without healthy friendship, we wither and die. Prayer and Contemplation Above all, we need to build in time for prayer. I am most cen-tered and at peace as a leader when I make time every day for personal, private prayer, especially contemplation. When I do, I am generally more effective as a leader, listening in a more relaxed, focused way, keeping my priorities straight, not easily thrown off balance by crisis. I feel more connected to my brothers and sisters throughout the world, all loved by the same God, and see social situations as Christ might see them. In the process, I come to realize what Merton describes: "We can find ourselves engulfed in such happiness that it cannot be explained: the happiness of being at one with everything in that hidden ground of Love for which there can be no explanations." In a wonderful way, everything becomes prayer. At times I cannot pray contemplatively or my prayer fails miserably. No matter. No need for guilt. God is present even in the market-place of my busyness and in my failures. In these inevitable times, I can make my heart available to God as I work privately or inter-act with others or struggle helplessly. As Bernanos's country priest Brown ¯ The Call to Spiritual Leaders wrote in his diary at the end of a conflicted, but fruitful life, "Tout est grfice." Everything is grace. True spiritual guides are a treasure beyond price. We need to search and to find. Spiritual Directions and Mentoring Of course, in all this, it is easy to deceive ourselves as leaders. Frequently, we need spiritual companions who can help keep us honest about our motivations, our ambitions, our fears, and our drives. We need to be clear about the direction of our lives. What do we truly want for our-selves and for our com~nunity? What is God's will for us? How do we discern the difference between God's voice and competing voices? Where is God truly speaking and through whom and what? True spiritual guides are a treasure beyond price. We need to search and to find. We can also be helped in our daunting task of leadership by more experienced mentors who have gained the competencies and skills we ourselves want to develop. Mentors can review with us our personal goals as leaders, our modus operandi, and the systems that support or fail to support our ministry, and they can point us to the right workshop, book, or consultant. In a sense, what Ernest Hemingway had to say about writers can be applied to religious leaders: "We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master." Even the most gifted men-tor would admit there is still much to learn. Support from Peers Finally, there is a related topic which in my opinion has greater significance than ever. I enjoy thoroughly those moments in regional meetings when we leaders sit down to share our sto-ries with each other, to pray with and for each other, and to know that we are understood. However, these sporadic occasions of grace are not grace enough. A few years ago in Baltimore, several religious leaders, both men and women, met twice at my home to set up a support group in the style ofJesu Caritas. For many reasons, mainly schedule con-flicts, we did not follow through. I have always regretted this. We leaders need the spiritual support of each other. Only another leader can counter the narcissistic verse, "Nobody knows the trouble I've seen," and transform it into the spiritual from which it arises. Review for Religious If this presidential address were to stimulate a new campaign, I would push for promoting support groups among religious leaders in every region of our country. We have so much to learn from each other. We can be the face of God to each other. Salt and Light Two metaphors from scripture summarize this article. They are salt and light. Transformational leaders are called to give zest and flavor to the work they do and the people they meet, to improve the quality of human existence and to help preserve it from d~cay, to be active in the world as transforming agents of grace. Therefore, they cannot lose their saltiness. They need to keep alive and help others to keep alive. Leaders are also called to bring light to every dark corner of human living, to be the torch that brightens gloomy hearts, that leads the way out of confusion, that reveals people to each other. And they are called to pass on the flame to another generation. In June, during the meeting of the Bishops' Conference, Eugene Kennedy wrote an eloquent tribute to Cardinal Joseph Bernardin who lay in the hospital recuperating from operations for cancer. With the announcement of his illness, darkness shrouded this city like a noon eclipse. In that moment, however, light, unfiltered by ceremony or great event, came from within Bernardin himself. By it, we can see him, ourselves and what counts in life with the clarity of revelation. Bernardin "has never been afraid of the dark and, in his company, neither are we." What religious leader would not want to be this kind of light, the light of Christ to the world, a beacon of hope in a dark and wounded world? Though we feel inadequate in the face of such a challenge, we need not fear, for Christ has chosen us to be spir-itual leaders for our times. We need only to surrender ourselves to mystery. I will end with one quote from Dorothy Day and another from Teilhard de Chardin, two heroes of the modern age who probed internal, external, and transcendent problems with a vision that provoked social transformation. Dorothy Day's words help us to tie together our struggles for peace, for light, for life: If our cause is a mighty one, and surely peace on earth in these days is the great issue of the day, and if we are oppos- ~anuaty-Febrttat.3, 1996 Brown ¯ The Call to Spiritual Leaders ing the powers of darkness, of nothingness, of destruction, and we are working on the side of lig.ht and life, then surely we must use our greatest weapons--the life forces that are in each one of us. To stand on the side of life we must give up our own lives. Finally, Teilhard de Chardin evokes the ultimate purpose of all leadership: The day will come when, after harnessing space, the tides, and gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, we shall have discovered fire. Resources Conversations with colleagues and friends helped ,most to shape and to clarifi! my thinking. The following books and articles were some of the works which created an environment for reflecting more deeply upon my own experience as a religious leader. Bacik, James J. The Gracious Mystery: Finding God in Ordinary Experience. Cincinnati: St. Anthony Messenger Press, 1987. Beckett, Wendy Mary. "Simple Prayer." The Clergy Review (February, 1978): 1-3. Calonius, Erik. "Take Me to Your Leader." Hemisphere, (April, 1995): 39- 42. Carozzo, Carlo. "Mysticism and the Crisis of Religious Institutions." Concilium, (April, 1994): 17-26. Champlin, Joseph M. with Champlin, Charles D. The Visionary Leader: How Anyone Can Learn to Lead Better. New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1993. Ciorra, Anthony J. Everyday Mysticism: Cherishing the Holy. New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 1995. Conference of Major Superiors of Men. "1993 Survey of Membership: Executive Summary:' November, 1993. Gardner, John W. On Leadership. New York: The Free Press, 1990. Instrumentum Laboris. "The Consecrated Life and its Role in the Church and in the World." Vatican City, 1994. Judson, Sylvia Shaw. The Quiet Eye: A Way of Looking at Pictures. Washington: Regner~ Gateway, renewed, 1982. Kennedy, Eugene. "Bernardin Still a Beacon for Community." Chicago Tribune, Section 4, "Perspective," 18June 1995, pp. 1, 4. Kurtz, Ernest, and Ketcham, Katherine. The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Journey to Wholeness. New York: Bantam Books, 1994, paperback edition. Review for Religious Martini, Cardinal Carlo Maria. "Hope and Religious Leadership in a Secular Society." Chicago Studies, Vol. 33, no. 2 aAugust, 1994): 132-137. McGrory, Brian. "Chicago Cardinal Faces Illness with Serenity." The Boston Globe, 3 July 1995, pp. 1, 5. Nouwen, Henri J.M. Here and Now: Living in the Spirit. New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 1994. Nygren, David J. and Ukeritis, Miriam D. The Future of Religious Orders in the United States: Transformation and Commitment. Westport: Praeger Publishers, 1993. Oliva SJ, Max. Free to Pray/Free to Love: Growing in Prayer and Compassion. Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1994. Sanks, T. Howland. Salt, Leaven, and Light: The Community Called Church. New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 1992. Sofield ST, Loughlan and Kuhn, Donald H. The Collaborative Leader: Listening to the Wisdom of God's People. Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1995. Taylor, Charles. The Ethics of Authenticity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991. Wallis, Jim. The Soul of Politics. New York and Maryknolh The New Press and Orbis Books~ 1994. Wicks, Robert J., editor. Handbook of Spirituality for Ministers.New York: Paulist Press, 1995. A Wreath of Queens Sainted, in sparklets of bright stained glass, Their heads are wreathed in royal jewels: Meek Elizabeth, child Princess Of Hungary; staunch Margaret who rules Britain's unruly Scots; and mother of Constantine, The Empress Helena; jewel-ringed hands Wreathe in sisterhood the Byzantine, Celt, and Slav; their countries turned holy lands Under their godly reigns, God's people fed And clothed, God's earthly kingdom spread In the light that wreathes each queenly head. Nancy G. Westerfield Janualy-FebJwaO, 1996 JAMES H. KROEGER Bridging Interreligious Dialogue and Conversion ecumenism Mission theology today is greatly enriched by the field experiences of dedicated missioners. A personal experi-ence helped shape my views of conversion, mission, and interreligious dialogue. During the Lenten season of 1990 while I was a vis-iting professor in Dhaka, Bangladesh, I had a "graced moment," a "defining experience" in my missionary aware-ness and perspective. It has remained seared in my con-sciousness and has forced me to ask many foundational questions about mission and my own commitment. It involves a Bangladeshi beggar woman. I saw her on the road, in front of the large walled compound of a wealthy family dwelling. I could not clearly see her face because she was several hundred feet ahead of me. Her tattered clothes covered a malnourished body; she was alone, although other beggars were walking ahead of her on the road. I was proceeding along the same .path, leisurely taking a late afternoon walk. Suddenly a luxury car approached with its horn blow-ing. The driver probably wanted the beggars to disperse and also wanted the gate of the compound ope.ned by the servants. The woman appeared startled as the car turned James H. Kroeger MM worked as a field missionary in the Philippines arid Bangladesh for over two decades. Currently, he serves as the Asia-Pacific Area Assistant on the Maryknoll General Council. His most recent book is Living Mission (Orbis Books). He may be addressed at EO. Box 303; Maryknoll, New York 10545-0303. Review for Religious sharply in front of her and the gate swung open. Within seconds two large dogs emerged from the compound and jumped at the woman, knocking her to the ground. She screamed and cried both from fear and the pain caused by the dogs nipping at her. I stood frozen, horrified at the sight. A well dressed woman promptly emerged from the chauffeur-driven car. She ordered the driver to bring the car into the com-pound; the dogs were called to return inside; the servants were commanded to close and lock the gate. And, the beggar woman? She was left alone on the ground--outside the gate (see Heb 13:12). I stood helpless, gazing at this appalling scene. Only the other frightened beggars came to the aid of the woman. Only they showed mercy and compassion. I stood at a distance and wept at this scene of crucifixion. I admitted to being a guilty bystander. My fears and inadequacies had left me para-lyzed. I had not one taka coin in my pocket to give; I could not offer one word of consolation in the Bangla language which I did not speak. I did not approach the woman for fear of misinterpre-tation that a foreign man would touch a Bengali woman in pub-lic in this strictly Islamic culture. I simply wept in solidarity. I wept long and hard. In succeeding years, I have frequently returned to that scene and prayed to God: "Do not let me forget that experience. Allow it to shape my life and mission vision. Permit it to remain a 'defin-ing moment' in understanding my mission vocation. May it enrich my insights into the nature of mission and the place of dialogue and conversion within the church's missionary activity." Embracing a Broken World My experience on the road in Dhaka, Bangladesh with the beg-gar- woman no longer allows me to view people as faceless victims. All Christians, especially missionaries, are called to embrace the world's suffering humanity, to recognize the existence of crucified peoples, and to strive to take them down from the cross. The suffering inherent in human existence necessarily impacts the situation of mission. The traditional dialogue partner of mis-sioners has been the follower of another living faith; while this engagement remains true today, particular attention is focused on humanity's concrete experience and suffering. All human life has a paschal configuration; its pattern con- Janua~y-Febrmny 1996 Kroeger ¯ Bridging Interreligious Dialogue and Conversion Missionaries seek the conversion of people they encounter. tinually moves through death to renewed life. Life's paschal paradigm (universally shared by all people, although varying ter-minology may be used) sees people struggling to move through darkness to light, through captivity to freedom, through suffering and brokenness to wholeness.Paschal dimensions are characteristic of all life situations; contemporary mis-sion and dialogue find their point of insertion in human-ity's experience of life and death realities. Catholic theology asserts that the .Spirit of God is present and aetive within the lives of all peoples. The Second Vatican Council forcefully stated that as Christian believers, "we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partners, in a way known to God, in the paschal mystery" (GS §22). This quote is used three times in the mission encyclical Redemptoris missio (RM §§6,d0, 28). John Paul II uses the phrase repeatedly in his writings; it is probably one of his guiding missiological principles. This text affirms the action of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of all people. The universal work of the Spirit serves to enlighten people's experience of their paschal realities of dying and rising; life itself, including suffering, has the possibility of opening all peoples to experience God's salvation through the paschal mystery. Note that the text declares unambiguously that there is only one way which leads to everlasting salvation, a way which is valid for Christians as well as other believers, and that is association with the paschal mystery. The redemptive grace of Christ is avail-able for all who in thei~ own way and even without knowing it obey the law of the paschal mystery and take it as a guiding norm for their consciences and lives. This astonishing assertion has important consequences for the dialogue and conversion that con-temporary mission pursues. Christian faith is, at heart, a paschal faith. Thus, if all reality has a paschal paradig'~n and if all life is shaped by rhythms of life through death, then Christian mission will continually find ele-ments of this very mystery hidden in the lives, cultures, histories, and religions of peoples of diverse faiths. Missioners repeatedly experience the unique ways that the Holy Spirit brings people into direct encounter with the paschal mystery and with God's salvation in Christ. The cross of Jesu's is the paramount Christian symbol, because Review for Religious it reminds Christians of the centrality of the paschal mystery in their faith lives. All church missionary activity will focus on the paschal nature of life, of faith, of salvation. Mission is always cru-ciform, always signed by the cross. Crux probat omnia. Naming Conversion in a Perspective of Dialogue The literature on diverse elements of the conversion process is extensive. This article, however, focuses primarily on the the-ological dimensions of conversion, viewing conversion as that ongoing transformation of persons by the power of God, specif-ically through the action of the Holy Spirit. Missionaries seek the conversion of people they encounter. Conversion demands a radical shift in a person's apprehensions and values, accompanied by a similar radical change in oneself, in one's relations with other persons, and in one's relations to God. Such a total transformation is nothing less than the work of God's grace and the action 6f the Holy Spirit: At the center o(this con-version and transformation is a personal, loving God; all becomes focused on God's love poured out in the person of Jesus through the paschal mystery. The paschal mystery becomes the integrating focus of all evangelization, dialogue, and conversion. It is foundational because all life has a paschal paradigm. The passion of human experience is to be the ground in which .the. seeds of new life, hope, resurrection, and ultimately salvation germinate and bear fruit. This paschal nature of all life and' experience (poignantly illustrated by my personal experience with the Bangladeshi beg-gar- woman) cofitinually provides openings for a deep :missionary encounter, authentic dialogue and conversion, find fruitful trans-o formation into the mystery of God's love. Levels of Missionary Conversion Mission experience reveals three interacting levels of con-version int6 the paschal myg~ery. The first conversion is centered on the person of the missionary. The second is a call to all persons of faith and good will to embrace a paschal perspective in their lives and consciences. Final!y, the third conversion takes the form of an invitation for people to freely join the paschal community of the Christian church. ffanuaty-Februaty 1996 Kroeger ¯ Bridging Inter'religious Dialogne and Conversion I. Conversion of the Missionary. Christian missionaries begin the conversion process in their own lives and attitudes. They seek to personalize the fact that, in the words of John Paul II, "the church~s vocation and missionary commitment spring from the central mystery of our faith: the paschal mystery" (WYD 1993:2). They embrace the fact: "The paschal mystery of Christ's cross and Resurrection stands at the center of the Good News that the apostles, and the church following them, are to proclaim to the world" (Catechism 1994:571). Evangelizers accept that every missionary begins by entering a personal process of conversion (EN § 15). Before crossing any bor-ders of culture or religion to announce the paschal mystery, mis-sionaries seek their own transformation into the same paschal mindset of Jesus (1 Co 2:16; Ph 2:5). To the extent that any mis-sionary embodies the suffering Messiah's self-transcending way of the cross, that person achieves authentic paschal conversion. Paschality becomes the measuring ~od for all missionary endeavors. H. Conversion to a Paschal VVorldview. From the paschal per-spective operative in their own lives, Christian missionaries and all peoples of faith soon recognize the paschal communalities of their shared existence. All peoples--whether Christian, Buddhist or Muslim--share,the vicissitudes and challenges of existence in a broken world. It is precisely within this shared human existence and mystery that the Christian missionary announces paschal per-spectives of life through death. The missionary is definitely invit-ing his or her dialogue partners to a deeper God-experience. This is a true spiritual conversion, but not necessarily conversion to Christianity. Such a heart-to-heart encounter is a direct effect of the Holy Spirit's action in bringing peoples through their own life situations into a sharing of the paschal mystery. The fundamental act of faith and conversion is within reach of all human beings. They can encounter God in the paschal mystery. For the Christian it will be explicitly Christological. However, the identical experience, although often in an inchoate and unarticulated form, is contin-ually available to all peoples whatever their particular religious affiliation. It is important to note that as Christian missionaries we will often find.our own explicit paschal faith enriched by the implicit paschal faith of our Muslim or Buddhist friend. IlL Conversion to the Cb~istian Faith Community. All persons are called to conversion to God. In the course of this process a free Review Jbr Religious decision may be made to leave one's previous spiritual or reli-gious situation to direct oneself towards another. In this conver-sion process, freedom of conscience is sovereign. Admittedly, mission also has explicit Christian conversion as its goal. Christians nourish in their hearts the clear desire to share their full experience of the paschal mystery and faith in Christ with brothers and sisters of other religions. Missionaries sensitively aim at guiding peo-ple to explicit knowledge of what God has done for all men and women in Jesus Christ and at inviting them to become disciples of Jesus through becoming members of the church. Note the triple dynamic of conversion operative in this missionary process: 1.) the converted missionary centers his or her life on the paschal mystery; 2.) the Christian missionary calls other people of faith to dis-cover the paschal paradigm of life and to adopt paschal values in their lives, con-sciences, and service; 3.) based on a free decision inspired by the Spirit, others are directly invited to join the community of the Christian church, where they can fully practice their .paschal mys-tery- centered faith. The paschal nature of life, faith, and redemption serves to integrate any dialogue and conversion process. Awareness of and participation in the paschal mystery often unfold in the lives of people in an evolutionary and progressive manner. The mission-ary finds the paschal mystery operative and recognizes conversion both outside and within the church. This wide, inclusive view of mission adds further meaning to the reality of the missionary church as the "universal sacrament of salvation" (LG ~48; AG §1). Missionaries sensitively aim at guiding people to explicit knowledge of what God has done for all men and women in Jesus Christ. Additional Mission Corollaries I have strongly affirmed the validity of centering mission, dia-logue, and conversion within the framework of the paschal mys-tery. This approach is a paschal missiology and challenges all missionaries to become paschal evangelizers in their own lives and through their involvement in the church's missionary activ-ity. In the context of today's broken world, the enormous afflic- Janttat3~-Februat."F 1996 Kroeger ¯ Bridging Interreligious Dialogue and Conversion tions and sufferings of humanity, and the need to maintain escha-tological hope, paschal missiology appears particularly insight-ful, necessary, and relevant. The insights flowing from a paschal-mystery-centered missi-ology are numerous; I mention these twenty corollaries only briefly and highlighted their relationship to paschal mission per-spectives. 1. Paschal mission emerges from the unity of all humanity in its sharing of the common paschal experience of rising through dying. Peoples of all faiths face questions of suffering as well as the mystery and meaning of life. 2. Paschal mission uses an inductive approach based on expe-rience to understand the church's call to mission. The church is urged to be active in "reading the signs of the times and of inter-preting them in the light of the Gospel" (GS §4); human suffer-ing and brokenness constitute a missionary challenge today. 3. Paschal mission strongly affirms the active presence of the Holy Spirit in the world, both in and beyond the boundaries of the church. The Spirit is constantly directing people to a God-encounter through their sharing in the paschal mystery. 4. Paschal mission embodies the virtue of Christian hope based on the firm belief in the resurrection. Eschatological hope, not suffering, is the integrating perspective of Christian mis-sionaries; that hope continually breaks into the world through missionary witness, service, and dialogue. 5. Paschal mission clearly allows missioners to be people of ,integrity. Their proclamation begins with their own paschal expe-riences and links them with people who share identical experi-ences~ Mission is not something superimposed upon reality; mission emerges from the commonly shared realities of mission-ers and their dialogue partners of various faiths., 6. Paschal mission demands a radical conversion of the mis-sioner to the values of a crucified and risen Lord; mission begins only when personal transformation has been initiated. Only the converted missioner can authentically call others to conversion. 7. Paschal mission requires the integration of contemplation into missionary praxis. No one can authentically address the pas-sion of humanity without possessing a deep contemplative faith; one must live into the paschal mystery. - 8. Paschal mission emphasizes that the work of the mission-ary involves both listening and speaking. Listening for the Spirit's Review for Religious action within the hearts and lives of people is a prerequisite for speaking of God's paschal love and saving deeds. 9. Paschal mission lays bare the sinfulness of today's world which is often enslaved in materialism, consumerism, individu-alism, greed, and pride. A paschal mentality challenges both per-sonal and social sin; it demands true conversion. 10. Paschal mission respects the free will and personal con-science of everyone; at the same time it is a call to conscience for generous people (Christians and other believers) to be committed to addressing the sufferings of humanity. 11. Paschal mission easily enters into dialogue with the fol-lowers of other religions. All religious traditions face identical human questions and mysteries. Dialogue enables peoples of faith to mutually explore and respond to questions of life and death. 12. Paschal mission connects intimately with today's chal-lenges of peace, justice, development, and ecology. It invites all of us to live in solidarity with our neighbors and to be prepared to suffer and die so that others may live. Again, such a paschal lifestyle demands profound conversion. 13. Paschal mission can be lived in all cultural contexts and sit-uations. As a missionary approach, it easily finds an inculturated home among diverse peoples. Paschal mission is also clearly trans-cultural. .~ 14. Paschal mission aims to be a holistic approach to mission, integrating the personal and social, the human and divine, the material and spiritual. It is an incarnational approach to being in mission. 15. Paschal mission emphasizes humble and self-effacing approaches to missionary activity; it consciously seeks to avoid any pitfalls of paternalism or colonialism. Missioners, believing in the beauty and truth of their message, seek to offer it with gen-erosity, sincerity, and authenticity. 16. Paschal mission is at heart a scripture-based missiology following the teachings and example of Jesus who came "not t? be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mt 20:28) 17. Paschal mission embodies an emphasis on witness and even a willingness to endure suffering, persecution, and martyr-dom. Contemporary missionaries knowingly and willingly embrace vulnerability because in Christ God reveals the divinity precisely in weakness rather than in power. Januaty-Febtvuoy 1996 Kroeger * Bridging Interreligious Dialogue and Conversion 18. Paschal mission is at heart a soteriology. Following the paschal path in mission brings both missioner and people into a direct experience of salvation in Jesus Christ, who "bore our sins in his own body on the cross; . . . through his wounds [we] have been healed" (1 P 2:24). 19. Paschal mission integrates well with the sacramental dimension of the church. All Christians are missionary by virtue of their baptism into Christ's death and resurrection (Rm 6:3-4). The Eucharist is the paschal meal that celebrates the death and resurrection of the Lord until he comes (1 Co 2:23-26); the Eucharist remains the "ongoing sacrament of mission" for Christians. 20. Paschal mission transforms the individual missioner into an attractive and credible witness. Missioners of the calibre of a Mother Teresa manifest the transforming effects of the paschal mystery in their lives, and all people of faith welcome such authen-tic witnesses. I began with a narration of an encounter, between a mission-ary and a Bangladeshi beggar-woman. That defining experience has produced much depth reflection on the .nature of mission, dialogue, and conversion. This missionary remains filled with gratitude for that God-given experience of grace. More reflec-tion needs to be given to the wealth of insights that can still emerge from viewing mission and dialogue through the optic of the paschal mystery. Relying on God's grace, this missionary looks forward to meeting that Muslim Bangladeshi beggar-woman once again in the resurrected life with Christ the Lord in the Kingdom. I am confident she will be there! References Cited Ad gentes (AG); Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994); Evangelii nuntiandi (EN); Gaudium et spes (GS); Lumen gentium, (LG); Redemptoris missio (/O4); World Youth Day Address: John Paul II, November 21, 1993 NOTE: Copies of a lengthy, academic treatment of this subject can be obtained gratis by writing to James H. Kroeger MM. Review for Religious DENN1S J. BILLY A Visit to Taiz Nr~t long ago I made my way through the rolling hills and pened vineyards of southern Burgundy in eastern France to a place recognized both far and wide as one of the world's great spiritual centers, the monastic community of Taiz& Founded in 1940 by Roger Schultz, a young Swiss theologian, the monastery began as a valiant attempt to restore monastic practice to the Protestant faith and soon blossomed into a truly ecumenical ven-ture that has since attracted members from Catholic and Protestant backgrounds alike from over twenty countries. Located atop a small hill in the vicinity of Sfione-et-Loire, not far from the ramshackled ruins of 'Cluny, the great center of Benedictine monasticism that has helped to carve much of the spiritual and temporal landscape of medieval Europe, Taiz~ represents a vital resurgence of the monastic spirit, the likes of which had not been seen in Western society for many, many years. Known for its sim-plicity of life, its calming musical rounds, and its warm hospital-ity to strangers especially the young, the community of Taiz~ has succeeded in blending old and new and the concerns of past and present in a way that has awakened the deep spiritual sensibilities of our anxiety-ridden world. No wonder it has become a verita-ble Mecca for many of those who wish to satisfy the latent pains of humanity's deep spiritual hungers. Hunger and Dust Taiz~ rustic environment does not encourage visits from the weak and feeble of heart. Those who enter its ground must be Dennis J. Billy CSSR published "The Abbey of S~nanque: A Journey of the Heart" in our September-October 1995 issue. His address is Accademia Alfonsiana; C.P. 2458; 00100 Rome, Italy. Billy * A Visit to Taizg prepared to forego many of the comforts of home they normally take for granted. The basic necessities are provided, to be sure, but not much else. The wooden barracks, the earthen trails, the open-air refectory, the simple fare of lentils, bread, juice, and fruit--all remind the weary traveler that one comes to this holy place for one purpose and one purpose only--to search for God. The young, in particular, are attracted by Taiz~'s austere regimen of life. Since 1957 they have flocked there by the thousands for sojourns of various lengths to feed their souls on its simple fare and sound spiritual sustenance. They come, in part, to escape the materialism and confusion of the tension-filled world they have left behind; in part; to understand the meaningoof their difficult and often bewildering journey through life; in part, to fathom the unchartered depths of their inner yearning for God and, more importantly, of God's own intense and deeply compassionate long-ing for them. Two things in particular struck me when I arrived there tired and hungry on that sun-dried autumn day: (1) the dust from the trails that had been kicked up by thousands of visitors (it appar-ently had not rained for some time), and (2)the extremely long lines.at meal time (even simple fare needs time to be distributed to such a large crowd). These two details have come to dominate. my impression of Taiz& Together, they tell of the great success of this extraordinary experiment in monastic living and show how it now stands at the crossroads of Europe's long and rather cir-cuitous spiritual journey. Hungry~pilgrims, covered with dust, wait to be fed lentils and bread, hungry, but happy--and more. than willing to wait their turn. Given its Spartan fare, its cramped quarters., its vulnerability to the elements, and its many other physical restrictions, Taiz~ .seems much like a plain, ordinary, at times even uninviting place. So why, one might ask, does anyone go°'there? Certainly not for the food or the primitive shelter it offers. Certainly not to walk the heavily rutted trails or to inhale the dusty air that envelopes them and sticks to their clothes. Something else has surely drawn them. In Praise of God That something else can be found in the Church of the Reconciliation, the spiritual center of the Taiz~ community, where day after day pilgrims join the small gathering of white-robed Review for Religious monks in raising their hearts and voices to God. The Taizd office combines different styles of liturgical music into a simple but elo-quent offering of praise. Great care is taken not only to train vis-itors in the various rounds and harmonies that form the backbone of the liturgy, but also to utilize the talents (musical or other-wise) of everyone present. The results impress even the most detached of observers--and with good reason. A typical celebration Will find a thousand or so silent pilgrims sitting quietly in prayerful expectation for the monks to process in silent devotion and move to their posi-tions at the prayer stools that line the choir space down the center of the church. At the end of the procession, Brother Roger takes his place at the head of the commu-nity and gathers around him as his special guests any children who have come there for the service: "Let the children come to me . The kingdom of God belongs to such as these" (Mt 19:14). The pregnant silence gives way to antiphonal praise, usu-ally in the form of a simple round that has been carefully rehearsed the day before: "Ubi caritas et amor . " The harmony of voices fills the church and transforms its simply built and purely functional sur-roundings into vibrating and. living move-ment of Spirit. Suddenly the music ends, and silence once more reverberates throughout the interior spaces of the. soul, All eyes are focused on the large flowing red and orange banners in the front of the sanc-tuary that present the participants with simple yet powerful sym-bols of the spiritual Pentecost they have all come to receive. The small voice of a child then calls out in the wilderness of the heart. "Prepare the way of the Lord" On 1:23). A lesson from Scripture follows as the moments continue to brush with eternity, and the community of believers experience their oneness in Christ on a level never known to them before. Another round of chant; more silence; another lesson from Scripture. One's consciousness of time quietly recedes. The hour passes quickly and it is time to conclude. The pas-sage from the life of the Liturgy to the Liturgy of life takes place Given its Spartan fare, its cramped quarters, its vulnerability to the elements, and its many other physical restrictions, Taizd seems much like a

Issue 55.5 of the Review for Religious, September/October 1996. ; for religi ous Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 199-~ * VOLUME 55 ¯ NUMBER 5 Review for Religious is a forum for shared reflection on the lived experience of all who find that the church's rich heritages of spirituality support their ~ersonal and apostolic Christian lives. The articles in the journal are meant to be informative, prhctical, or inspirational, written from a theological or spiritual or sometimes canonical point If view. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) i! published bi-monthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits o,'f the Missouri Province¯ Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St.!Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-977-7363 ¯Fax~: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: FOPPEMA@SLU~ZCI.SLU.EDU Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonoug.~ OP 1150 Cedar Cove R~oad ¯ Hendelson, NC 27536 POSTMASTER ¯ Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.( Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, See inside back cover for information ¯ Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. hnd additional mailing offices. 3n subscription rates. ©1996 Review for Rel ious Permission is herewith granted to copv any material (article]s, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Rehglous for personal or ~nternal use, or for the personal or ~nternal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 anl:l/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear n~tice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. for religious Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming sJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Regina Siegfried ASC Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Jean Read James and Joan Felling Iris Ann Ledden SSND Joel Rippinger OSB Edmundo Rodriguez SJ David Werthmann CSSR Patricia Wittberg SC Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 1996 ¯ VOLUME55 ¯ NUMBER5 contents consecrated life 454 462 Vita Consecrata: A Vocation for the Third Millennium Rose McDermott SSJ summarizes the content of John Paul's apostolic exhortation on consecrated life and highlights a few of its provisions. The Holy Spirit in Church Documents on the Consecrated Life Sally Ann Brickner OSF examines the increasing recognition by church documents of the role of the Holy Spirit in consecrated-life renewal. seeking God 474 Vocations and the Crisis of Communal Life 485 Terrance Wayne Klein identifies three areas of concern for vocational recruitment: contact with ministerial mentors, a growing spiritual freedom in those seeking ministry, and a sense of enhancing community life. Reflections of a Fin de SiOcle Novice Michael Tidd FSC reviews his novitiate experience to clarify elements of formation central to apostolic life. --450 Review for Religious 494 5O6 breaking boundaries Racism and Religious Life Clemente Barr6n CP gives gentle and honest witness to an experience of racism that infects good people in the church and in religious life. Movement from Monocultural to Multicultural Congregations Gary Riebe-Estrella SVD suggests that what racially distinct groups offer is the opportunity to incarnate for our church and world the gospel's "Good Samaritan" model of persons letting their physical proximity turn them into neighbors. 521 527 living spiritually Perseverance: Letting the Goodness Out Melannie Svoboda SND explores factors that facilitate our practice of the virtue of perseverance. Friends through Prayer Eugene M. Rooney SJ reemphasizes the importance of prayer as a way of communication and support in a world of e-mail and fax. departments 452 Prisms 533 Canonical Counsel: The Role of Councils in Religious Governance 540 Book Reviews Septe~nber-October 1996 prisms ~ita consecrata, the papal exhortation which completed the work of the synod of bishops deal-ing with consecrated life in the church, has only just begun to be studied. First public reactions to the document seem to have been quite favorable. Of course, there will be critique--inevitable, and abso-lutely necessary if there is to be continuing development and growth. One observation made immediately upon publication was about the daunting length of the docu-ment. Although there are only three chapters, along with an introduction and a conclusion, the text is substantial and typical of the dense style of writing associated with Pope John Paul. Perhaps a saving factor in a long text is that there seems to be "something in it for everyone." Of course, there is likely something to disconcert everyone too. Some have already expressed dissatisfaction with the English translation "objective superiority" (§18 and §32) applied to consecrated life. Some are disappointed with the inconclusiveness of the equal stance of brothers in relation to priests in what is called a "mixed" institute; further work by a study commission is promised for a deci-sion. While new forms of consecrated life are acknowl-edged and praised, a proposed commission to determine criteria of authenticity and of approval suggests a stance of caution. Although there is a strong positive stance towards the specific contribution of women religious, what is referred to as "new possibilities of presence and action on the part of consecrated women" may need more to be Revlew for Religious acknowledged as already a fact in many parts of the church than a future yet to be realized. But important as the resolution of these practical matters will be for the proper development of consecrated lifeforms, I believe that the approach taken by the pope in the first chapter is hugely significant for a theological understanding and a spiritual appre-ciation of consecrated life. The pope does not take up the tools of philosophy, theology, anthropology, sociology, or behaviorial sci-ences for his primary approach to consecrated life. Instead he proposes the gospel passage of Jesus' transfiguration and suggests that we approach it as if it ycere an icon. This transfiguration icon involves a gazing on the face of Jesus both in a "going up the mountain" and a "coming down the mountain." The pope refers to an ancient spiritual tradition which links the contemplative life to the prayer of Jesus on the moun-tain. But then he adds that the active dimension of consecrated life can be included because the transfiguration event serves as prepa-ration to share with Jesus in the "toil of God's plan" and to be with him "courageously on the way of the cross." In using the sacramentality of the icon, we Christians enter sacred time and space. Through a communion with the mystery signified by an icon, tradition holds that the believer is being made-holy. An icon can be studied for the meanings of its sym-bolism, and so there is an intellectual component. Through reflec-tions on various themes stimulated by the gospel passage, John Paul develops a contemporary understanding of consecrated life. But always the focus remains the icon giving us an experience of a divine world. For our understanding and appreciation of conse-crated life, then, Vita consecrata presents us with a gospel text to suggest cognitive content and an iconic vision of the divine: by gazing upon the face of Jesus, we enter into the mystery of con-secrated life in the church and its centering world of holiness. Review for Religious takes pride in making available the text of Vita consecrata, along with a wealth of other contextual arti-cles, in The Church and Consecrated Life. The book costs $18.95 plus postage; it can be ordered from our St. Louis office. See the order form at the end of this issue. David L. Fleming SJ September-October 1996 consecrated life ROSE McDERMOTT Vita Consecrata: A Vocation for the Third Millennium When Pope Paul VI inaugurated the Synod of Bishops on 15 September 1965, he desired that it examine a selected topic in the light of church teachings and the experience of the particular churches. The synod, repre-senting the universal church, would provide the pope and world's bishops with effective collaboration and helpful insights in their shared concern for the Christian faithful throughout the world. Under date of 25 March 1996, the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, Pope John Paul II promulgated Vita consecrata, the apostolic exhortation for the ninth ordinary session of the Synod of Bishops, held 2 through 29 October 1994. This document marks the completion of the study of the three principal vocations in the church. The priesthood was discussed in the second (1971) and eighth (1990) general sessions and the vocation to the lay state in the seventh (1987) session. Those who have studied the preparatory documents and followed the synod interventions and discussions will find no great surprises in the apostolic exhortation. Rather, it is a fine synthesis of the church's teaching on conse-crated life and its lived reality in the various parts of the world. The document shows the fruits of the consultative process encouraged by the synod's lineamenta document Rose McDermott SSJ, of the Department of Canon Law at Catholic University, last wrote for us in March-April 1995. Her address is Visitation Convent; 1524 35th Street, N.W.; Washington, D.C. 20007. Review for Religions and the contributions of the bishops and other participants gath-ered from around the world for the actual synod assembly. The present article reviews the church's teaching on conse-crated life as reflected in the apostolic exhortation and points to potential developments mentioned in the same document. Since PTta consecrata is hortatory and not legislative, the developments indicated in the document will be the subjects of further theo-logical and canonical study and authoritative deliberations. The Church's Teaching on Consecrated Life The introduction to the apostolic exhortation (§§1-13) describes consecrated life in its gospel beginnings, offers gratitude to God for this gift to the church, and expresses the apostolic exhortation's purpose: to put forth the fruits of this synod session, which has studied this vocation and its contribution to the church's mission. Six forms of consecrated life are presented, with a final paragraph noting the new expressions of the vocation present in the vari-ous churches today. Pope John Paul recognizes that the exhorta-tion is far from the final word on consecrated life. He offers the document to encourage those consecrated by the profession of the counsels to meet the challenges of today's world. Chapter I of the exhortation, Confessio Trinitatis (§§14-40), con-templates the vocation to consecrated life within the gospel icon of the Transfiguration. Persons responding to this vocation have caught a glimpse of the glory of God; he becomes the driving force of their life and activity. Configured to Christ chaste, poor, and obedient, they enjoy an intimacy with the community of the Trinity in their willingness to leave all and follow Christ in an ever deeper response to their baptismal commitment. Consecrated persons are beloved of the Father, who sends them forth--as he did Christ and the Spirit--in dedicated service to the world. This vocation cannot be lived without willing entry into the paschal mystery of suffering. The moment of glory on the mount strengthened the faith of the apostles and prepared them for their own suffering and martyrdom. So, too, the consecrated person embraces a life of labor, suffering, and abandonment to the Father's will. Yet Peter's remark is on the lips of those configured to Christ through this vocation: "Lord, it is good for us to be here." Consecrated life cannot be lived apart from the church; it belongs inextricably to its life and holiness. Through the profes- September-October 1996 McDermott ¯ Vita Consecrata sion of the counsels, consecrated persons offer a vibrant witness to the life and teachings of Christ. They are nourished through liturgical and personal prayer and traditional ascetic practices in the church. Meeting the spiritual combat in their own lives enables consecrated persons to transform the world in humility, detach-ment, and reliance on God. Chapter 2, Signum Fraternitatis (§§41-71). All forms of con-secrated life manifest communion in imitation of Christ's life within the Trinitarian community and in the company of the Twelve. This communion is particularly lived out in religious institutes and societies of apostolic life where the members live in common, supporting one another in the spiritual life and in the apostolate. Members of secular institutes are joined in community with one another through their charism and their embrace of the community in which they live and labor. The church, a mystery of communion (Ac 2:42-47), depends on consecrated persons to give witness to community in an often fragmented and broken world. Within the ecclesial community the bishop looks after the charisms for the good of all the faith-ful. While institutes of consecrated life enjoy a rightful auton-omy of life and governance, they should cooperate with the respective bishops, sharing their goals and apostolates with them. Lay persons recognize the value of communities of conse-crated persons. They seek to attach themselves to them, sharing their spirituality and assisting in their apostolates. These associ-ates and volunteers should be fostered and formed so that they appreciate their lay vocation more deeply and readily lend them-selves to apostolic endeavor in their particular churches. Likewise, formation programs for candidates should reflect human, com-munal, apostolic, cultural, and professional dimensions adapted to the whole person. Chapter 3, Servitium Caritatis (~'§72-103). The mission of those consecrated by profession of the evangelical counsels is one of communicating God's love to the world. One is consecrated and sent (Jn 10:36). The challenges of today's world demand a strong interior life of consecrated persons, a life deeply in tune with the Spirit of God. Through their charisms, members of institutes of consecrated life witness a particu!al~ aspect of the gospel message to those they serve. The universal character of their institutes permits them to join with other ecclesial ministers in carrying out the church's Review for Religious . mission through evangelization, ecumenical and interreligious dialogues, inculturation, the preferential option for the poor, and the promotion of justice. Through their profession of chastity, poverty, and obedience, consecrated persons offer a prophetic witness to the world and address the challenges of a hedonistic culture, materialism, and a distorted use of freedom. The community dimension of conse-crated life teaches the universal call to holiness regardless of differences and human limitations. This prophetic wit-ness is the fruit of a deep spiritual life and an openness to God's word in litur-gical and personal prayer. The apostolic exhortation's Conclusion. The document ends as it began, in grat-itude to God and to those who "waste" their lives in what seems at times an irrelevant commitment, a life poured out in selfless love and service. This vocation as an essential part ofthe church's life and holiness. Consecrated persons contribute with unbounded generosity to the various aspects of the mission of the church. The pope exhorts consecrated persons to live fully the life they have embraced, a life of The document ends as it began, in gratitude to God and to those who "waste" their lives in what seems at times an irrelevant commitment, a life poured out in selfless love and service. continual conversion and dedication to Christ, challenged by the new millennium, but focused on the world to come. A prayer addressed to the Trinity and an invocation to the Virgin of the Visitation for consecrated women and men bring the document to an end. Potential Developments in Consecrated Life New institutes, new forms, new ecclesial movements (§§12 and 62). The Holy Spirit revitalizes the ecclesial community through a variety of new gifts. These charisms can be seen in the embry-onic beginnings of new institutes of consecrated life that meet the present theological and canonical criteria. Other develop-ments seem to be new forms of consecrated life and must await approval from the Apostolic See. Still other "evangelical lifestyles" September-October 1996 McDermott ¯ Vita Gonsecrata that possess some of the characteristics of consecrated life and various other forms of Christian witness would seem to be more accurately categorized as associations of the faithful. Pope John Paul has encouraged these developments in his weekly general audiences during the synod and in the apostolic exhortation. He recognizes them as a true sign of the charismatic nature of the church. This wealth of new gifts is received by the church with grat-itude. These charisms do not substitute fox~ the traditional ones approved by the church throughout its history. Rather, they should complement the older forms and continue in their rich tradition. Bishops have requested more exact criteria in order to discern and distinguish these new developments. A commission has been set up (1) to deal with questions relating to these new forms, (2) to determine criteria to assist church authorities in their dis-cernment and decision making regarding them, and (3) to pre-sent those officially approved as new forms of consecrated life to the faithful. Legislation for cloister (§Yg). The church has always held the contemplative life in highest esteem and has provided norms on cloister to preserve the values inherent in this vocation. While men religious dedicated totally to the contemplative life regulate their cloister (canon 667, §2), women religious totally given to the contemplative life observe cloister in accord with the norms issued by the Apostolic See (c. 667, §3). This difference in the provisions for the cloister of men and women contemplative religious seems contradictory to canon 606, which provides equality in the common law for men and women religious. The cloistral norms seem contrary also to canon 586, which assures all religious institutes a true autonomy to direct their own life and governance in accord with the patrimony of the institute. Women religious institutes dedicated totally to the contemplative life represent a rich variety of monastic and men-dicant traditions. Yet all are obliged to papal cloister without due regard for their varied charisms. Pope John Paul assures us in §59 that careful consideration will be given the concerns addressed by the participants of the synod with regard to this issue. It should be noted that many of the diocesan bishops participating in the synod assembly asked contemplative men and women', to share their prayer life and extend their hospitality to clerics, la~ people, and other religious Review for Religious who seek spiritual renewal. The exhortation assures that more authority will be given major superiors ofsui iuris monasteries to grant dispensations from enclosure for just and sufficient reasons in keeping with conciliar renewal. This provision would be in keeping with the principle of subsidiarity and enable institutes of contemplative life to express their charisms better in their clois-ter regulations. Associates and volunteers joined to institutes of consecrated life (§ Y 6). Before the Second Vatican Council, only religious orders with an apostolic indult were permitted to have third orders secular attached to them. Conciliar teaching placed great emphasis on an ecclesiology of communion that had noteworthy implications for the rela-tionship of the laity With institutes of con-secrated life. Today all religious institutes without distinction can have members of the laity associated with them, sharing their spirituality and joining in their apos-tolic works. This phenomenon was rec-ognized in the preparatory documents of the synod and lauded by the participants in the assembly. Paragraph 56 of the apostolic exhor-tation notes the increasing number of associates and lay volunteers joined to institutes of consecrated life. Vv'hile the exhortation cautions the protection of the identity of these same institutes, it encourages a proper preparation of the lay people joined to them in order that they approach their apostolic com-mitments with supernatural intentions anda strong sense of com-munity. Lay persons in decision-making positions in the apostolates of these institutes should promote the ends of the institute and carry out their labors under its competent superiors. Directives approved by proper authorities need to be provided in such cases. Mixed institutes (§61). Some institutes of men religious, par-ticularly those sharing the Franciscan charism, are neither lay nor clerical from their foundation. In keeping with the intention of their founder, they admit both clerics and laymen to the insti-tute. All are friars or brothers with equal rights and obligations in Today all religious institutes without distinction can have members of the laity associated with them, sharing their spirituality and joining in their apostolic works. September-October 1996 McDermott ¯ Vita Consecrata the institute, prescinding from their lay or clerical status. Conciliar and postconciliar teachings support this fundamental equality of all members and their participation in the life and governance of the institute. The universal law of the church, however, makes no provision for these mixed institutes. It provides only for cler-ical or lay institutes in accord with their foundation, traditions, and end. Likewise, in many of these mixed institutes, some offices require daat the members be ordained. The synod assembly proposed that, when the general chapter of such an institute reque.sted, all offices of governance within these institutes be open to members without distinction. This proposal would be in conformity with the intention of the founders that all members be equal in the life and governance of the institute. Paragraph 61 of the apostolic exhortation recom-mends that such institutes study the original inspiration of their founder. In the meantime a special commission has been estab-lished to examine and resolve the problems concerning this issue. Mutual relations of bishops and consecrated persons (~§48-50). The ecclesiology of communion has led to an intense reflection on the role of consecrated life within the life and apostolate of the particular churches. While institutes of consecrated life are uni-versal by nature, the vocation of their individual members is lived out in a particular church. In 1978 the congregations for bish-ops and for institutes of consecrated life published the document Mutuae relationes, a compilation of directives for effective mutual relations between bishops and religious. These directives exhort bishops and major superiors to collaborate more effectively at the national level through their respective conferences and at the local level through meetings of the diocesan bishops with the major superiors whose members serve the particular church. The synod assembly recommended a revision of this docu-ment which would reflect the developments in this area, particu-larly as reflected in the legislation of the Latin and Eastern churches. In keeping with the synod proposal, the exhortation recommends that delegates from the conferences of bishops par-ticipate in the conferences of major superiors of their nations and that delegates from these latter conferences participate in the meetings of the episcopal conferences. It further proposes that the theology and spirituality of consecrated life be an integral part of the preparation of diocesan priests. Likewise, the study of ecclesiology should be included in the formation program for Review for Religious members of institutes of consecrated life. Pope John Paul con-curs with the members of the synod in hoping that this spirit of communion and cooperation be extended to the entire church. Perhaps a revision and expansion ofMutuae relationes will be pre-sented in the near future. Conclusion As the apostolic exhortation concludes with a reference to Mary, Virgin of the Visitation, it is appropriate that this article end in like manner. Mary, her heart filled with Christ, went forth to serve Elizabeth. Consecrated persons configured to Christ stand ready to meet the needs of people in the third millennium. And with Peter in his ecstasy they cry, "Lord, it is good for us to be here." Abba At the shore where sea and sky and land meet and waves pound the rocks with constant rhythm, I find myself caught up by the stout winds, drawn by the salt air and combative gulls. Here is where I face God in his might yet also encounter him in beauty . Sunsets beckon like fringes of heaven while shorebirds encompass the lilt of hope. I am a mere grain of eternity yet I'm always within God's providence and like the back and forth surge of the tide am drawn into the core of a loving heart. Neil C. Fitzgerald September-October 1996 SALLY ANN BRICKNER The Holy Spirit in Church Documents on the Consecrated Life Twhheen Stheceo cnhdu Vrcaht irceafnl eCcoteudn coinl witsa so twhen encactluersei oalnodg imcails msioonm. eInnt convoking the council Pope John XXIII requested that it be pas-toral in tone and call the entire church to renewal so that its mis-sion, which is none other than Christ's mission of establishing the reign of God, be accomplished through the power of the Holy Spirit. Pope John Paul II, in his recent apostolic exhortation Vita consecrata, says of consecrated life: "Its universal presence and the evangelical nature of its witness are clear evidence., that the consecrated life is not something isolated and marginal, but a reality which affects the whole church. In effect, the consecrated life is at the very heart of the church as a decisive element for her mission since it 'manifests the inner nature of the Christian calling' and the striving of the whole church as bride toward union with her one Spouse" (§3). The appropriate renewal of the con-secrated life, therefore, is essential to renewal in the church.1 Since the close of the council in December 1965, develop-ments in ecclesiology, in the church's thinking about its nature as mystery and as the universal sacrament of salvation, have fre-quently focused on the Holy Spirit. Vita consecrata reflects this: "Like the whole of Christian life, the call to the consecrated life is closely linked to the working of the Holy Spirit" (§ 19). Through Sally Ann Brickner OSF is a faculty member at St. Norbert College. Her address is Sisters of St. Francis of the Holy Cross; 2413 South Webster Avenue; Green Bay, Wisconsin 54301. Review for Religious a study of this and other recent church documents, this essay demonstrates that pneumatology has become important in the ecclesiological understanding of the consecrated life and that this emphasis has implications for its continuing renewal. This study proceeds chronologically through the two concil-iar documents and the eight postconciliar documents that explic-itly treat the consecrated life. A brief explanation of pneumatology provides a backdrop for the analysis. The study concludes with a discussion of the implications of this ecclesiological doctrine for the continuing appropriate renewal of the consecrated life. What Is Pneumatology? The Greek word pneuma means breath, air, wind, soul, spirit. Pneumatology, then, is the branch of systematic theology that studies the Person and work of the I-Ioly Spirit.2 The t-Ioly Spirit has been virtually lost from much of Christian consciousness, some theologians claim. The Spirit of God manifests herself through various actions: vivifying, renewing and empowering, gracing. The Holy Spirit is the mutual rela-tionship of love within the community (koinonia) of the Godhead, freely going forth to renew, to liberate.3 It is the Spirit who makes it possible for us to know and experience Christ. Christ's life in us and our life in Christ is ecclesial in the sense that Christ's Spirit is the principle of communication and communion.4 "The church is the body of Christ, because Christ is a pneumatological being, born and exist-ing in the koinonia of the Spirit.''5 Christ is the head of the church, and the Holy Spirit is the heart of the church. Word and Spirit are the two hands of God at work building God's reign.6 The church has come to understand the Holy Spirit also through the Spirit's free gifts, charisms, "to perform distinct and mutually complementary functions in building up the body of Christ." Charisma must be understood in relation to charis, "grace" that God gives for the common good and the renewal of the church in all eras.7 Charisms are not extraordinary, ecstatic gifts reserved to a few persons. Rather, they are the obvious ways "through which the Spirit structures the church by rousing from Christ is the head of the church, and the Holy Spirit is the heart of the church. September-October 1996 Brickner ¯ The Hol~ Spirit in Church Documents within the services and functions of the community according to the diversity and qualities of each member. In this perspective there is no opposition between charism and institution. A ministry is normally the expression of a charism, and a permanent charism takes the form of a ministry or a service." Charism also refers to the gifts which inspire the choice of a particular state of life such as marriage or celibacy. But in the end neither charism nor insti-tution will exist. Charity alone endures and is the true measure and strength of any charism,s Against this backdrop about pneumatology and its relationship to ecclesiology, we can now examine pneumatology in documents pertaining to the consecrated life. What pneumatology is evi-dent? Does development occur in pneumatology? Conciliar Documents Before examining the two conciliar texts, it will be beneficial to consider briefly whether and how pneumatology was approached by the council fathers. It has been said that the eccle-siology of Vatican Council II is pneumatological as well as Christocentric, and ultimately theocentric.9 Yves Congar, the renowned theologian of this century and peritus of the council, claims that its ecclesiology is pneumatological though not pneu-matocentric. 1° It stresses, first and foremost, that the Spirit is the Spirit of Christ, building up the Body of Christ. The documents depict both a visible and a spiritual manifestation of the Spirit who animates the church here and now. The council fathers rec-ognize multiple charisms, the infinite variety of gifts which the -Holy Spirit gives for the common good and the renewal of the church. The council also affirms that the Holy Spirit calls and gathers the people of God into communion, both within partic-ular churches as well as within the universal church.11 Whether these pneumatological perspectives appear in the two council texts specifically dealing with the consecrated life is the issue to which we now turn. Lumen Gentium (1964) In this primordial document, chapters 5, "Call of the Whole Church to Holiness," and 6, "Religious," speak of the Holy Spirit several times. The holiness of the church is unceasingly mani-fested through the fruits of the Holy Spirit in all the faithful. The Review for Relig4ous Holy Spirit also influences the practice of the evangelical coun-sels as a shining witness and model of holiness (§39). Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, church authority has the duty of interpreting the evangelical counsels, regulating their practice, and establishing stable forms of living in accordance with them (§43). The council fathers affirm that the religious state, though not belonging to the hierarchical structure of the church, belongs inseparably to her life and holiness. It manifests the surpassing greatness of Christ the King and the boundless power of the Holy Spirit (§44) in .the church. Perfectae Caritatis (1965) Few direct references to the Holy Spirit appear in Perfectae caritatis.12 Through God's love which is poured into their hearts by the Holy Spirit, some Christians are impelled to practice the evangelical counsels in a true family gathered together in the Lord's name. Their "brotherly" unity shows that Christ has come and results in great apostolic effectiveness (§§ 1 and 15). The pro-cesses of appropriate renewal of religious life include (1) a return to the sources of Christian life and to the original inspiration of the founder and (2) adjustment of the community to the changed conditions of the times. These processes are to go forward under the influence of the Holy Spirit and with the guidance of the church (§2). Through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the church is enriched with a variety of communities having a diver-sity of apostolic works (§8). Postconciliar Documents Evangelica Testificatio (1971) In this apostolic exhortation "On the Renewal of Religious Life," written six years after the close of the council, Pope Paul VI emphasizes the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit gifts the church with martyrs and with various forms of religious life (§3). Pope Paul speaks of the "charisms of the founders" and the "charism of religious life," which are the fruit of the Holy Spirit always at work within the church (§11). The Spirit guides the church in its interpretation and regulation of the evangelical coun-sels (§7). The Spirit inspires communities of consecrated life not only in their origins but also in their renewal, which requires dis-cernment (§§6 and 51). By placing greater emphasis on the ¯ September-October 1996 Brickner ¯ The Holy Spirit in Church Documents charismatic nature of the consecrated life, church teaching becomes less iuridic and more pneumatic.13 Mutuae Relationes (1978) This document, based on a consultation of bishops and reli-gious in 1975, portrays vividly the pneumatic ecclesiological insights of Vatican Council II, continues to use the term "charism," and provides criteria for evaluating the authenticity of charisms. Profound reflections on the pneumatic origin and sacramental nature of the church permeate the first chapter. "The soul of the ecclesial body is the Holy Spirit" (§9). Ever since the day of Pentecost there has existed in the world a new people which draws its life from the Holy Spirit and is united in Christ so as to have access to the Father. ¯ . This unique nature of the church is due to the presence of the Holy Spirit himself. He is the life and strength of the people of God, the cohesive power in its communion, the energy for its mission, the source of its various gifts, the bond of its marvelous unity, the light and beauty in its creative power, the fire of its love . The life-giving pres-ence of the Holy Spirit creates an organic cohesion in Christ,. for the Spirit "makes [the church] one in its com-munion and ministry, provides it with various hierarchical and charismatic gifts, directing it through them, and adorns it with his fruits." (§§1 and 2) Both founders of consecrated life and bishops are "enriched with suitable charisms" such as the "special charism of organizing" pastoral ministries and of discerning local cultural values (§§6 and 9). Remaining faithful to the charism of their founders, reli-gious institutes should make use of the charism for inventiveness, for bold and ingenious new ecclesial experiments under the impulse of the Holy Spirit (§§14 and 19). Bishops have the respon-sibility of discerning whether a charism is authentic: it must (1) take its origin from the Spirit as something distinct though not separate from innate or acquired gifts, (2) show a desire to become like Christ in order to witness to some aspect.of his mystery, and (3) show a fruitful love for the church that avoids discord (§51). The document acknowledges tensions between the hierarchic structure and consecrated life, encouraging collaboration between bishops and religious for the good of the church. Religious Life and Human Promotion (1980) Because of its focus on human promotion as the mission of the Review for Religious church and therefore of religious as well, one would think that the Sacred Congregation for Religious and Secular Institutes would emphasize pneumatology. However, only a few references to the work of the Holy Spirit appear. Religious are encouraged to be enterprising in undertakings and initiatives in keeping with the charismatic and prophetic nature of their life (§2 7). Renewal in the consecrated life is important for the church and for ~he world because the works of religious, marked by a diversity of charisms, are one of the most important means by which the church carries out its evangelization (§5). The Holy Spirit constantly inspires new forms of consecrated life and animates existing communi-ties, which are called to remain faithful to the purposes for which they were founded (§§6 and 8). Contemplative Dimension of Religious Life (1981) This document results from a plenary meeting of the Sacred Congregation for Religious and Secular Institutes in 1980 and stresses the absolute primacy of life in the Holy Spirit (§17). Contemplation is an infused gift of the Holy Spirit by which the believer opens up to the revelation and communication of the liv-ing God. As the highest and fullest activity of the spirit, contem-plation is the real secret of renewal for religious life (§1). Action and contemplation must be fused. Only apostolic and charitable activity which is inspired and motivated by the Holy Spirit is of the very nature of refigious life (§4). The Sacred Congregation urges "renewed attention tolife in the Holy Spirit" through daily meditation on Sacred Scripture (§8), celebration of the Eucharist (§9) and the sacrament of reconciliation (§ 10), spiritual direction (§11), the praying of the Liturgy of the Hours (§12), the prac-tice of asceticism (§14), and devotion to the Virgin May (§13). Redemption# Donum (1983) The few pneumatological references in this apostolic exhor-tation of Pope John Paul (on religious consecration in the light of the mystery of redemption) parallel those of other documents on the consecrated life. Religious profession is described as a fuller expression of baptismal "consecration to God in Jesus Christ" in a covenant of spousal love (§§7 and 8). The Holy Spirit calls peo-ple to follow Christ and recalls to mind all that Christ has said. The entire economy of redemption is realized precisely through the mysterious action of the Holy Spirit, who is the author of all September-October 1996 Brickner ¯ The Holy Spirit in Church Documents holiness (§§6 and 9). The vow of celibacy is a charismatic choice which brings the eschatological kingdom of God close to the life of all people, while the vow of obedience engenders total avail-ability to the Holy.Spirit (§§11 and 13). The particular gift of the founder, from which the apostolate must come, endures as a charism for the whole community (§15). Essential Elements in the Church's Teaching on Religious Life (1983) The document summarizes the church's traditional teachings and norms pertaining to the consecrated life. Its few references to the Holy Spirit offer no new insights. The church has approved and encourages renewal in its numerous religious families, whose distinctiveness derives from the founding charism (§§11, 41, and 42). The witness of religious can be a clear echo of the gospel "to the extent that it manifests publicly the transforming power of Christ in the church and the vitality of the institute's charism to the people of our time" (§§11 and 37). Hence, renewal must focus on fidelity to the founding gift.14 Fraternal Life in Community (1994) In this document the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (CICLSAL) lucidly and directly expresses the pneumatic character of the church and of the consecrated life. Like the mystery of the church itself, the consecrated life expresses the great Trinitarian com-munion in which the Father has willed that women and men have part in the Holy Spirit (§§2, 9, and 71). Religious community is an expression of ecclesial communion. "Before being a human construction, religious community is a gift of the Spirit. It is the love of God poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, from which religious community takes its origin and is formed as a true fam-ily gathered together in the Lord's name" (§8). The fruit of this communion is the gift of fraternal life. Religious community is not simply a collection of Christians seek-ing personal perfection. Rather, it is to be a living organism of intense fraternal communion animated by the foundational charism (§2). United in the Holy Spirit, religious are to become brothers and sisters in their daily experience of communion of life, prayer and apostolate (§§44, 10, 11). Communion originates precisely in sharing the Spirit's gifts. The more religious share ¯ the things that are central and vital, the more the fraternal bond Review for Religious grows in strength (§32). Thus, religious should live alone only in exceptional cases and should value diversity within the com-munity (§65). "Optional homogeneity, besides weakening apostolic mobility, weakens the Pneumatic strength of a community and robs the spiritual reality which rules the community of its power as witness" (§41). "Just as the Holy Spirit anointed the church in the upper room to send her out to evangelize the world, so every reli-gious community, as an authentic pneumatic community of the Risen One, is also, and according to its own nature, apostolic" (§58). Fraternal communities become missionaries of that love "taught and lived by Christ and communicated to us through his Spirit" (§56). This missionary activ-ity is lived out in a particular church to which the religious community brings the richness of its consecration, its fraternal life, and its charism (§60). Religious must seek a just balance between per-sonal charisms and the community's apostolate without the dis-integrating forms of individualism or the leveling aspects of communitarianism (§39). Fraternal communion is already an apos-tolate, and contributes directly to the work of evangelization (§54). "The effectiveness of religious life depends on the quality of the fraternal life in common," which serves as a sign and stim-ulus for all the baptized (§§54 and 2). Fraternal communion is already an apostolate, and contributes directly to the work of evangelization. Vita Consecrata (1996) While the conciliar documents laid the firm foundation for future developments in pneumatology in church documents on the consecrated life, this apostolic exhortation gives shape to its mag-nificent mansion. Dare it be said that in thid document pneuma-tology moves to the front and center?~s Pneumatology as depicted in the document manifests deeper ecclesiological understandings of the consecrated life in three areas: consecration, communion, and mission. After providing brief citations of pneumatology from the document for each of these areas, we reflect on the Holy Father's repeated emphasis on founding charisms. Considered a deepening of baptismal consecration, religious profession includes a special call and gift of the Holy Spirit to September-October 1996 Brickner * The Holy Spirit in Church Documents live the evangelical councils in religious community (§30). "Consecrated persons, who embrace the evangelical counsels, receive a new and special consecration which, without being sacra-mental, commits them to making their own--in chastity, poverty and obedience--the way of life practiced personally by Jesus and proposed by him to his disciples" (§31). The consecrated life is a way of showing forth the church's holiness, an especially rich man-ifestation of gospel values and a more complete expression of the church's purpose, which is the sanctification of humanity (§32). The consecrated life is also a sign of communion in the church. "The church is essentially a mystery of communion, 'a people made one with the unity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit'" (§41). "It is the Spirit himself who leads the soul to the experience of communion with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ, a communion which is the source of fraternal life" and of the inte-rior call to share everything in common (§42). "In community life, the power of the Holy Spirit at work in one individual passes at the same time to all" (§42). Filled with joy and the Holy Spirit, consecrated persons are to be true experts of communion and to practice the spirituality of communion (§~45 and 46). Communion leads to mission and becomes mission. "By their charisms, consecrated persons become signs of the Spirit point-ing to a new future enlightened by faith and by Christian hope. Eschatological expectation becomes mission, so that the kingdom may become ever more fully established here and now" (§27). "If the church is to reveal her true face to today's world, she urgently needs such fraternal communities, which by their very existence contribute to the new evangelization inasmuch as they disclose in a concrete way the fruitfulness of the 'new commandment'" (§45). Through a special gift of the Holy Spirit, some persons in the consecrated life have carried out a genuinely prophetic min-istry, speaking the name of God to all, even to the pastors of the church (§84). Pope John Paul emphasizes pneumatology also through his focus on the charismatic aspect of the consecrated life. "The Spirit, who at different times has inspired numerous forms of consecrated life, does not cease to assist the church, whether by fostering in already existing institutes a commitment to renewed faithfulness to the founding charism or by giving new charisms to men and women of our own day so that they can start institu-tions responding to the challeng&s of our times" (§62). Review for Religqous Appropriate renewal of the consecrated life includes a return to the sources (as noted in Perfectae caritatis), one of which is fidelity to the founding charism. The founding charism orients consecrated persons to a special relationship with the Trinity (§36). The church assists in discernment regarding the founding charisms, which contribute to building up charity in the particu-lar churches and in the universal church (§§62 and 48). Contemporary Pneumatology's Significance for the Consecrated Life Church documents on the consecrated life are generally rich in pneumatological references, as we have seen. This shift from the juridic to the pneumatic enriches and expands the ecclesio-logical understanding of the consecrated life in the areas of con-secration, communion, and mission. What implications does this finding have for the continuous renewal of the consecrated life? At least two suggestions come to mind: (1) coming to know and love the Holy Spirit, who is the source of unity with God and with others, and (2) both individually and communally respond-ing with greater alacrity to the Spirit's impulses. A common human experience is the longing for communion, for unity which respects a plurality of differences, for love freely given. Within the Holy Trinity there exists this mutuality of rela-tionships in a community of equals. Through the Holy Spirit, God's love is poured into our hearts (Rm 5:5). It is the Spirit who teaches those in the consecrated life how to relate, to respect the diversity of God's gifts, to love. The Holy Spirit must no longer be "shadowy," "vague," "half-known," or "forgotten" by the peo-ple of God, including those in the consecrated life.16 Without a deeper knowledge and appreciation of the Holy Spirit, conse-crated women and men will be unable to understand their charisms and respond to the Spirit who renews and revitalizes the consecrated life. Virtually every one of the documents on the consecrated life urges communities to have strong initial and continuing forma-tion programs, especially in theology. Intellectual development, however, though necessary, is not sufficient. Consecrated persons must also become more responsive to the impulses of the Holy Spirit. Their life is a "kind of shock therapy instituted by the Holy Spirit for the church as a whole.''17 They are called to be the Septent her- October 1996 Brickner ¯ The Holy Spirit in Church Documents presence of God's Spirit in the world: prophets, who speak and boldly exemplify the possibility of real communion; truth tellers, who proclaim what is liberating in feminism; empty vessels that willingly receive the richness of diversity through inculturation; and builders of the reign of God through ecumenical activity.18 The Holy Spirit will not allow the church to domesticate its insti-tutes of consecrated life. Salt must retain its savor! Leaven must retain its power! Renewal, not only of consecrated life but also of the church, depends upon it. Notes ' See Perfectae caritatis §1 and Vim consecrata §§13 and 35. On the relationship between renewal in religious congregations and renewal in the church, see Gerald A. Arbuclde, Refounding the Church (New York: Orbis Books, 1993). 2 HarperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism, 1995, s.v. "Pneumatology." These brief remarks about pneumatology can only skim the surface of what many authors have eloquently written about the Holy Spirit. See, for example, Yves Congar's three-volume work I Believe in the Holy Spirit. 3 See Elizabeth A. Johnson, She Who Is (New York: Crossroad, 1994), pp. 128-131 and 133-145. In her study of the Holy Trinity, Johnson begins with Spirit-Sophia, to whom feminine characteristics are often attributed. 4 Yves Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit (New York: Seabury Press, 1983), vol. 1, pp. 37 and 31-32. s John Zizioulas, "The Church as Communion," St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 38, no. 1 (1994): 6. 6 Yves Congar, The I, Vord and the Spirit (San Francisco: Harper and Row Publishers, 1986), pp. 61-62. St. Bonaventure speaks of Christ as the head of the church, and St. Thomas Aquinas speaks of the Holy Spirit as the heart of the church. The Spirit is the Spirit of the Word; the Word is also of the Spirit. St. Thomas's Christology is pneumatological, accord-ing to Congar. 7 Avery Dulles, A Church to Believe In (New York: Crossroad, 1982), p. 20; Congar, 1 Believe in the Holy Spirit, vol. 2, pp. 161-162. 8 Ren~ Laurentin, "Charisms: Terminological Precision," in Cbarisms in the Church, ed. Christian Duquoc and Casiano Floristan (New York: Seabury Press, 1978), p. 10. Thomas O'Meara writes that charism and institution must not be set in false opposition; he speaks--in his Theology of Ministry (New York: Paulist Press, 1983), p. 68--of the relationship between charism and ministry: "Far from charism being opposed to min-istry, ministry is mediated from the Spirit to personality by charism: dia-conal charisms." When Paul VI refers to religious life as a charism, he uses charism as "a particular state of life." Review for Religious 9 Herbert Vorgrimler, ed., Commentary on the Documents of Vatican H (New York: Herder and Herder, 1967), vol. 1, p. 142. Some critics per-ceive pneumatology to be underdeveloped in conciliar texts. See, for example, Jean-Marie Tillard, "A Point of Departure," Review for Religious 26, no. 3 (March-April 1967): 435-437. Catherine Lacugna, speaking at the University of Notre Dame during the recent conference on the "Reception of Vatican II," suggested that pneumatology was lim-ited if not lackingin conciliar texts. In private conversation she com-mented that the Holy Spirit is too often subordinated to the other Persons of the Trinity. ,0 Congar, IBelieve in the Holy Spirit, vol. 1, pp. 167-172. I I Jean-Marie Tillard, Church of Churches: The Ecclesiology of Communion (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1992). 12 See Vorgrimler, pp. 301-332. The "Decree on the Appropriate Renewal of Religious Life" went through five redactions and required much compromise among the council fathers. It is short (25 articles) and focuses mainly on principles of appropriate renewal. Its brevity neces-sarily restricted the breadth of theological foundations it could provide regarding the consecrated life. 13 Patricia Walter, "Religious Life in Church Documents," Review for Religious 51, no. 4 0uly-August 1992): 555. 14 This document approaches religious life in a juridical manner and had a mixed reception among religious congregations. is In Vita consecrata sixteen of the 112 articles refer to the Trinity in various ways: as source, as model, in prayer. Half of the articles include a reference to the Holy Spirit, often without subordinating the Spirit's action to that of the Creator and the Redeemer. In addition, the charis-matic element of the consecrated life, attributed to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, appears in 44 percent of the articles. Indeed, recalling Congar's reflections about the pneumatology of Vatican II, one might consider the document notably pneumatocentric compared with concil-iar texts. ,6 See Elizabeth Johnson, She Who Is, p. 130. ,7 Johannes B. Metz, Followers of Christ (New York: Paulist Press, 1978), p. 12. 18 Authors who exemplify these perspectives include Joan Chittister, The Fire in These Ashes (Kansas City: Sheed and Ward, 1995); Diarmuid O'Murchu, Religious Life: A Prophetic Vision (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1991); Paul J. Philibert, ed., Living in the Meantime (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1994); Gerald A. Arbuckle, Out of Chaos: Refounding Religious Congregations (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1988). September-October 1996 seeking God TERRANCE WAYNE KLEIN Vocations and the Crisis of Communal Life In his postsynodal apostolic exhortation Pastores Dabo Vobis: On the Formation of Priests in the Circumstances of the Present Day, Pope John Paul raises an issue I consider essential to vocational recruitment, namely, the formation of can-didates ready to be recruited. Making reference to Andrew bringing his brother Peter to Christ, the Holy Father writes: "He brought him to Jesus." In a way, this is the heart of all the church's pastoral work on behalf of vocations, in which she cares for the birth and growth of vocations, making use of the gifts and responsibilities, of the charisms and ministry she has received from Christ and his Spirit. The church, as a priestly, prophetic, and kingly people, is committed to foster and to serve the birth and maturing of priestly vocations through her prayer and sacramental life, by her proclamation of the word and by education in th~ faith, by her example and witness of ~harity. (PDV§38) I think a significant insight of this text is that finding men and women ready and willing to respond to calls to special ministry in the church should not be left to mer-curial chance: "The church., is committed to foster and serve the birth and maturing of priestly vocations." I also think the text.dispels the theological assertion that this is Terrance Wayne Klein is a former director of vocations and was director of spiritual formation in two seminaries. He is now an associate pastor at St. Brigid of Kildare Church; P.O. Box 1131; Dublin, Ohio 43017. Review for Religious a work of the Holy Spirit alone, and not of human effort. To sup-pose that the Holy Spirit creates the candidates and all the church need do is find them would be to slight the role of human coop-eration in the divine plan of salvation. The church has always realized that religious and priestly vocations are not simply from out of the blue. They arise out of her stock of maturing, committed Christians who, when presented with an actual invitation to a ministry in the church, find them-selves able and willing to respond freely and generously. The cul-tivation of that stock has always been the task of every catechetical and Christian-formation movement in the church's history. Catholic schools, CCD programs, retreat experiences, and youth movements exist to form what can only be called, most basically, disciples of Christ. The cultivation of such a stock has previously not been the task of those charged with vocational recruitment. Yet the flour-ishing of vocations may very well depend upon vocation direc-tors taking up the work of actually forming communities of discipleship. In this article I present three matters that I think need attention if vocational recruitment is to flourish. They are the necessity of bringing youth into contact with ministerial fig-ures; the need of progressive liberation, greater spiritual free-dom, in the lives of those seeking ministry in the church; and a fundamental characteristic desirable in all who work to promote vocations. Letting Sparks Fly According to data presented in the United States Catholic Conference study Research on Men's Vocations to the Priesthood and the Religious Life, most young people decide the basic direction of their lives between the ages of thirteen and seventeen. They do not necessarily choose a career path at this time; given the pro-traction of American adolescence, this would be unlikely. During these years, however, young people choose the values that chart the course their life will take. During these years they decide how important to them are values such as altruism, service, intimacy, material goods, public esteem, and education. That developmental fact belongs with other data presented in the same source (and subsequently confirmed in other stud-ies) and showing that most vocations to special consecration come September-Oaober 1996 Most vocations to special consecration come from direct contact with an inspiring person actually doing ministerial work in the church. from direct contact with an inspiring person actually doing min-isterial work in the church. This statistical evidence is borne out by my own experien, ce in working as a spiritual director to sem-inarians. They all have a story to tell, and it usually involves some ministerial figure who inspired them. Vocations are not cajoled; they are caught by contact. They do not come from media resources; they come out of personal interaction. When I put these two sets of data .together and consider that young people today are no less generous and no less motivated than previous generations, I come to the conclusion that, in the Catholic Church and among Christians in general, there is a sociological gap between youth and the institutional church's ministerial structures. Many young people growing up today have never personally encountered vibrant Christian ministry. Put simply, they do not view the ministry, in any of its forms, as having significance for the world in which they live. It has nei-ther formed nor informed their lives. The Holy Spirit is going to continue to create and nourish souls that are generous, but the church must present its ministe-rial life as an opportunity for that generosity to be expressed. This implies living contact between youth and committed minis-ters of the gospel. To the extent that religious communities and diocesan personnel move away from youth, they move away from the future and sever the lines of support that the institutions are there to provide. It is not enough for a vocation director to enter a high school or a college for the purpose of giving yet another career-day presentation. One must enter a college or high school to stay and to witness. As St. Francis of Assisi once told his fol-lowers, "Preach the gospel. Use words if necessary." I served the Dodge City diocese for two years as director of vocations, a short tenure that corresponds to the national average. There are no Catholic high schools in this very rural diocese. Many young people growing up there have never met a religious sister. Parish communities tend to be solid and wholesome, but pastoring tends to be short in tenure. As in many places in the Review for Religious country, beleaguered pastors are only too happy to turn over youth work to lay volunteers. Is it any surprise that young people choose to remain among the laity when they have been led and inspired by lay leaders? I am in no way indicting the collaboration of the laity in this and other ministerial venues. The question is one of collaboration and presence. Ordained priests and deacons and religious women and men bring with them a symbol-laden presence of Christ. When they disappear from the scene, much more is lost than another set of hands. After almost a year of consultation with the religious con-gregations of women at work in the diocese, we began a project that was seen as preliminary discipleship formation. We brought young men and women together to live for a weekend with priests -and religious. The students prayed with them and received from them basic instruction in prayer techniques and discernment. The key, as we saw it, was simply that they encountered priests and religious. We tried to create opportunities for sparks to fly. I am currently involved in a similar project with the diocese of Columbus. Essential to the success of such a program, however, is the ability to identify those who are already leaders and who dis-play the requisite vocational qualities as well. (I have written about this in "Discerning Vocations," in the 1 May 1993 issue of America.) Liberating Youth There is yet another theol.ogical supposition behind the methodology of these weekend experiences. For anyone to respond to the call of God in vocation, freedom is required. Sin, in all its varieties and ramifications, keeps us from being free and thus impedes our response to God's initiative. The Holy Father again offers a worthy perspective: Freedom. is essential to vocation, a freedom which when it gives a positive response appears as a deep personal adher-ence, as a loving gift or rather as a gift given back to the giver who is God who calls, an oblation: "The call," Paul VI once said, "is as extensive as the response. There cannot be vocations unless they be free, that is, unless they be spon-taneous offerings of oneself, Conscious, generous, total . Oblations, we call them: here lies in practice the heart of the matter . It is the humble and penetrating voice of Christ, who says, today, as yesterday, and even more than Septentber-October 1996 Klein ¯ Vocations and the Crisis of Communal Life yesterday: Come. Freedom reaches its supreme foundation: precisely that of oblation, of generosity, of sacrifice." (PDV §36) The methodological presupposition of those working with potential candidates for vocations of special consecration should be that they are not yet free. They are restrained by forces per-sonal, spiritual, sociological, cultural, and even biological. All of these taken together are what St. Paul refers to as the flesh which is at war with the spirit. The categories are worth some explana-. tion, even though space admits of only a few examples. On the level of the personal, candidates may present them-selves for ministry because their poor self-image demands a role in life which creates a seemingly instant image of respect. Or, conversely, potential candidates may be unable even to consider a ministerial vocation because their self-image is entirely too neg-ative. They may want to consider priesthood or religious life, but only after they have put themselves together spiritually. Their idea would be, "When I have overcome sin, I will consider such a life." What is lacking here is the comprehension that a life of apostolic charity may be the very instrument that the Holy Spirit desires to use for the person's redemption. All programs of formation have as their agenda the progres-sive liberation of candidates from all of the forces that would keep their choice for or against vocation from being truly free. I now work part-time in a college seminary, and I would say that our raison d'etre is exactly this, to free young men and make them ready to respond. Hence, the necessity for directors of vocations to create or support structures that teach young people the fun-damentals of Christian life and at least a basic knowledge of how to discern the work of the Holy Spirit in their life. Of course, any adequate Christian anthropology would insist that, ultimately, humanity is freed, or healed, only by the inter-venient action of God. Wholeness was an attribute of God long before it became a goal of the recovery movement. That being true, only prayer, which represents an actual encounter with God, can effect freedom, or healing, or wholeness. Only the intimacy bf prayer creates disciples, and only disciples, even if they be merely nascent ones, can respond to God's call to a lifetime of. consecrated service. So the discipleship programs sponsored by recruiters must have three elements: direct personal contact with hero-mentors, pedagogical formation in the fundamentals of Review for Religious Christian belief and practice, and an opportunity for growth in prayer. My past experience as the director of spiritual formation in a college seminary program reinforces this triad. I am personally convinced that many people move towards and away from voca-tions to the priesthood and religious life without developing even a modicum of spiritual intimacy. I doubt that this phe-nomenon is new. I suspect it has been a continual struggle and task in every house where formation occurs. I am certainly not presenting my own limited experience as the answer to the vocation crisis. What I am arguing is that success in the future willprobably demand that vocation personnel actually do some of the work of initial formation in disci-pleship. I think it would be fair to say that what I am really suggesting is that those charged with the recruitment and guid-ance of ministerial vocations see them-selves as being, after the family, among the first of young people's mentors of forma-tion. A certain amount of formation, or growth in Christian discipleship, is needed before potential candidates are ready for entry into formalized preparatory pro- What I am really suggesting is that those charged with the recruitment and guidance of ministerial vocations see themselves as being, after the family, among the first of young people's mentors of formation. grams. Previously this formation was the work of other Catholic institutions, but the presumption that others have already pre-pared such candidates is no longer tenable, and ignoring the shift that has occurred will leave recruiters wondering what happened to all the vocations. The Formation of the Formers In January 1994 the Roman Congregation for Catholic Education (of Seminaries and Institutes of Study), under the lead-ership of Cardinal Pio Laghi, released Directives Concerning the Preparation of Seminary Educators. The work considers the for-mation of those charged with formation. It notes that a unique combination of talent, charism, experience, and education must Septentber-October 1996 Klein ¯ Vocations and the Crisis of Communal Life exist if a person doing formation work is to find the experience productive and personally rewarding: The vocation of the educator.implies, on the one hand, a certain "charism," which is expressed in gifts of nature and of grace, and, on the other, certain capacities and attitudes that must be acquired. In every consideration regarding the personality of the educator, this double aspect must be kept in mind; each of the characteristics desirable in a seminary educator presents elements which are, in a manner of speak-ing, innate, and others which must be progressively devel-oped by means of study and experience. (Directives §25) The formati'on of vocation directors can be considered along these same lines of thought. To begin with, though, readers may be wondering whether any such formation actually exists. It does. To their credit, national organizations have done much to provide neophytes in the field with at least that quintessential American pedagogical experience called the workshop conference. Actually a great deal of formal information is imparted at such gatherings, and the opportunity for informal guidance by those more expe-rienced in the work is incalculable. Also, it seems safe to assume that the formation which voca-tion directors receive for their own religious life or priesthood is itself a real and efficacious, albeit remote, preparation for the specific ministries of vocational recruitment, discernment, and guidance. By means of a broad education, formation programs are supposed to equip their students to enter diverse ministries without particular, prolonged preparation. The liberal arts should prepare us for a future that will always be ambiguous. The Directives do the church a real service in publicly dis-cussing the'criteria for evaluating persons being considered for seminary formation work. Rectors and bishops have, of course, always used some sort of criteria, but the document makes it pos-sible for those unnamed and perhaps unexamined criteria to be discussed and evaluated in an open forum. This is good: open collaboration tends to expose the weaknesses any individual's approach may have. It also reinforces and propagates strengths. I would like to conclude my observations by offering a crite-rion for identifying which candidates, among the many doing ministry in the church, are likely to do best at the ministry of vocational recruitment. The evaluative question I would pose is this: Are they community builders? Review for Relig%us Ecclesia: Community of the Summoned Consider what vocations to the priesthood or religious life really are. They are calls from God the Father to serve Christ by serving the community which is the church. Vocations have their ¯genesis and scope in community life. They are instruments of God in bringing together the "community of the summoned": the ecclesia (in New Testament Greek), the "church." They exist to Order to nourish, to enliven, and to augment the church. "In the church's very name, ecclesia, we find its deep vocational aspect, for the church is a 'convocation,' an assembly of those who have been called" (PDV §34). Referring to priestly vocations, the Holy.Father has noted, "In this context the ecclesi-ology of communion becomes decisive for understanding the identity of the priest, his essential dignity and his voca-tion and mission among the people of. God and in the world" (PDV§12). Certainly the many theological, pas-toral, and liturgical changes that occurred with the Second Vatican Council have had, among their effects, a disturbing of the relative tranquillity that should normally characterize a healthy institution. Most Catholics are willing to admit, however, that the disturbance has been outweighed by the renewal of evan-gelical life that the council has inaugurated in the church. I do not think vocations dropped because of the conciliar reforms (although their implementation may have occasioned a number of new problems). Rather, I believe that communal val-ues and communities themselves are being undermined by con-temporary life. The disintegration of vibrant communities into increasingly isolated individuals and solipsistic agendas is a prob-lem not only for the church, but also for modern technological society as a whole. Consider the changes that have occurred in the latter half of this century. The superhighways that now connect huge metropolises across vast stretches of land have rendered superfluous many small communities that once prospered between those cities. They have The disintegration of vibrant communities into increasingly isolated individuals and solipsistic agendas is a problem not only for the church, but also for modern technological society as a whole. Septe~nber-October 1996 Klein * Vocations and the Crisis of Communal Life. also restructured urban life itself. Distinct intra-urban neighbor-hoods once flourished because it took time to move from one side of the city to another. Today mass merchandising has sup-pressed small, community-enhancing workshops and businesses. With the disappearance of the family farm went the collapse Of the small town and the small rural parish. The knowledge explosion made possible by the computer age has created a world of spe-cialization that renders small hospitals, small colleges, and other small institutions seemingly superfluous. Endangered by the collapse of these communities are the communal values upon which cultural life depends. Increasingly undifferentiated national media now serve a country such as the United States, but, instead of promoting communal values, they seem only to be forums where increasingly strident and diverse views make themselves heard. One can now ask at the end of the 20th century: Who are we? Is there any we left among us? The collapse of a communal identity is certainly a formative influence on those presenting themselves as candidates for min-istry. Many of the candidates with whom I have worked came to the seminary out of a faith experience which is highly individu-alistic, often with little or no contact with the institutional church. This can be viewed as a sign of the Holy Spirit raising up leaders even beyond the reaches of contemporary church ministry--it is, after all, how the church received the gift of St. Paul's vocation. But it also raises the challenge of how to link the individual's own experience with that of the larger Christian community. Remember that Paul spent three years undergoing a process of communal immersion before beginning his ministerial life (see Ga 1:18). If the basic presuppositions of New Age spirituality were to be catalogued, certainly a useful project given their pervasive influ-ence, a foundational tenet would undoubtedly be the absolute, almost solipsistic, supremacy of the individual. Spirituality itself is seen not as a relational mystery which envelopes and possesses the human person, but as yet another object to be acquired by an individual whose weltanschauung is essentially that of the con-sumer. Pastores dabo vobis is trenchant in this regard: In the present context there is also a certain tendency to view the bond between human beings and God in an indi-vidualistic and self-centered way, as if God's call reached the individual by a direct route without in any way passing Review for Religious through the community. Its purpose is held to be the ben-efit, or the very salvation, of the individual called and not a total dedication to God in the service of the community. We thus find another very deep and at the same time sub-de threat which makes it impossible to recognize and accept joyfully the ecclesial dimension which naturally marks every Christian vocation, and the priestly vocation in particular: as the council reminds us, priestly ministry acquires its gen-uine meaning and attains to its fullest truth in serving and in fostering the growth of the Christian community and the common priesthood of the faithful. (PDV§37) Community Belonging Vocations are needed for communities, and they come out of communities. Their entire genesis and purpose are involved in communal life. Vocations are on the decline in the church today because communal life is waning. One simply does not offer one-self for ministry to a community if one has never felt oneself to be a part of a community. I suspect that, if Catholicism persists in declining as a communal way of life, vocations will continue to evaporate. Lives are to be offered to other people and to the God whom we encounter in others. If postghetto Catholicism is not a place of meaningful and life-giving encounter with others, if it becomes iust another competing intellectual system or a political agenda, then it will cease being a living organism that inspires men and women to sacrifice their futures for its continuance. One does not bring oneself to Pope Paul VI's notion of personal obla-tion without being able to envision the faces of real men and women for whom. the offering is made. How can anyone expect vocations to be fostered unless it be through community building and sustenance? Other sociological structures once existed to create the communities upon which vocational recruiters could depend. Those structures have either disappeared or found themselves transformed into priestless and sisterless entities. I suspect, however, that community building still will show itself to be the single most important quality that postghetto Catholic education offers the American church. How poignant, then, is this quality of community building which the Directives insist should characterize formational ministry: It can be said that the educator is authentic in his service and responds to the demands of his priestly ideal only in the measure to which he knows how to commit himself and Septe~nber-October 1996 Klein * Vocations and the Crisis of Communal Life sacrifice himself for the unity of the community and when in his thoughts, in his attitudes, and in his prayer he reflects concern for the union and the cohesion of the community entrusted to him. (Directives §29) Who needs to be in vocation work today? Who has the apti-tude? Those who can build communities. People who have shown an ability to unite other people around them. Those who can effectively enunciate the common values and longings of a human-ity destined for Trinitarian communion. If recruiting were the only task facing vocation personnel today, a good-looking face, a fast car, and call-forwarding would suffice. Recruiters today need to examine their venues and identify vibrant Christian communities. This is where they need to be. Sadly enough, in many situations they will need to help create such communities from scratch. I do not think that I am offering merely another theological or pastoral perspective. On the con-trary, I am begging recognition of a sociological certainty that creates both a pastoral imperative and an ecclesial opportunity. JUST PUBLISHED-- The Best of the Review - 5 The Church and Consecrated Life (see insert at back of book for ordering) "At a time when hope for religious life and its future is once again on the rise, the articles in this book offer an exceptional and much needed panorama of the critical issues of renewal faced by contemporary men and women religious. Elizabeth McDonough and David Fleming have done us an enormous favor in bringing together the Best of the Review in this area. I recommend this book enthusiastically; its authors take us another step along the journey to that future for religious life for which we all long." --Se~nSammon FMS Vicar General Marist Brothers, Rome ¯ Review for Religious MICHAEL TIDD Reflections of a Fin de Si cle Novice During their novitiate experiences, all religious, in one way or another, examine the identity and purpose of their respective congregations. In this era of religious life--in the wake of Vatican Council II and at the end of the 20th century--this essay is a personal reflection on the mysterious and profound experience of the novitiate of the Brothers of the Christian Schools in the United States today. Two questions frame this reflection: How am I being formed? and what am I being formed for? I hope that my responses bring a helpful perspective to pres-ent- day views of American religious life. Five years of community experience have vividly demonstrated that words like formation and novitiate carry many meanings. Often brothers' memories of formation are bittersweet. For readers of this article, the words probably conjure up all sorts of images. Most of these readers are likely to be religious whose formation occurred before or during Vatican Council II. For me Vatican II is as immediate as Trent and even Nicea, for I was not born until 1970. I am wholly a product of the post-Nicene, post-Tridentine, post-Vatican church. My formation is radically different from that of my brothers of the pre-Vatican era, both in theory and external practice. My novitiate time comes after five years of experience in community and the apostolate. Thus, it is less an initiation than a time for analysis and integration of my experiences as a Christian Brother. Michael Tidd FSC lives at Christian Brothers' Novitiate; Roosevelt Hall; One Tallcot Lane; Skaneateles, New York 13152. September-October 1996 Tidd * Reflections of a Fin de Si~cle Novice This integration occurs in the context of prayer and study: of the gospel, the church, the charism of our founder (John Baptist de La Salle), our Rule, our vows, our efforts at renewal since Vatican II, and issues of personal development and self-awareness. Compared with the intense schedule of yore, ours is decep-tively simple. Large blocks of time are discretionary. The indi-vidual is responsible for developing his life of prayer and study without the framework of an all-embracing fixed schedule of reli-gious exercises and study times. Our schedule for common prayer (morning and evening prayer, daily Mass both at home and in the local parish) is scant compared with the novitiate timetable of our former Rule.l Indeed, the Rule itself, revised after thirty years of experi-mentation beginning in 1956, is no longer oriented toward ful-fillment of obligations. It is couched largely in inspirational language, more exhortative than legal. Evaluation of the novice's suitability for the brother's vocation is based less on observance of the Rule's prescriptions than on his total aptitude (spiritual, intel-lectual, emotional, psychosexual) for our way of life. The devel-opment of the individual as a human being is weighed equally with his spiritual and intellectual progress. The crux of the difference between the modern novitiate and the earlier one lies in the time to oneself in the novitiate. This involves both theoretical and practical discontinuities. Formerly, the theoretical aim was to be "formed," shaped according to an abstract model of the ideal Christian Brother. The dual instru-ments of the Rule and the director of novices molded the novice into a brother. The novice was exhorted, and ideally strove, to let himself be recast in this form, leaving his past (and self) behind. The practical discontinuities were many. Life was lived by the schedule, with few if any choices about how time was spent. Influences on one's development were carefully regulated by Rule and director. Exact observance of the Rule was the primary virtue: inasmuch as one did so, one incarnated the community's charism and was making progress in this way of life. In the present novitiate, formation might not be the appro-priate term anymore. Present-day novices "form themselves" rather than "are formed by external agents." They do this by eval-uating prior and present choices in the light of the gospel and of the community's charism and life. Daily I confront issues such as personal prayer, interpersonal relationships, study, participation in Review for Religious the-lectures and conferences, the common labor needed to main-tain the house. I learn about religious life, the community's charism, and human development from religious, secular, lay, and clerical sources. The director of novices still plays a crucial role: he is the agent of accountability, calling me to reconcile my lived choices with the norms of our life. He is the one who helps the novice avoid the trap of self-delusion and evaluates the quality of one's self-formation. The modern novice, then, is like a sculptor who, in his choices of daily living, chips away at his raw material to shape something new: himself. The novice sculpts in the light of guidance from the Holy Spirit, the gospel, the charism and life of De La Salle, and the insti-tute's tradition being lived by his brothers and himself. Without a normal job and in relative separation from one's familiars, one lacks all the usual props. Daily I encounter three basic realities: God, my brothers, and myself. All of this can be harrowing, as questions of identity and ontology emerge. Two options appear: growth, however painful, or escape and denial. Even here it is possible to fill the. day with trivialities, ducking the hard questions. I could "make the novitiate" without any real change, but that would be a colossal waste of time. Ultimately, the choice is in my hands. There will be nothing to hide behind down the line if real conversion does not happen here, a conversion for which I must take responsibili.ty before God. The vows are less the end of the novitiate, then, than a beginning. They are the public beginning of a life already being defined by the consequences of my present choices, choices made in response to the call of God as perceived in the daily events of existence: "For this command which I enjoin on you today is not too mysterious and remote for you . No, it is something very near to you, already in your mouths, and in your hearts; you have only to carry it out" (Deuteronomy 30:11 and 14, NAB). In her book The Fire in These Ashes: A Spirituality of Contemporary Religious Life, Joan Chittister OSB aptly describes the dilemma of modern religious: "They want to know if there is anything going on now [emphasis mine] to prove that religious life remains worth the sacrifice of their own lives. Is there anything The crux of the difference between the modern novitiate and the earlier one lies in the time to oneself in the novitiate. Septonber-October 1996 Tidd¯ Reflections of a Fin de Si~cle Novice still life-giving here? Is there anything yet valuable enough to go on doing here? New members want to know if there is anything here that merits their coming to do, their coming to be.''2 In the novitiate I have understood her questions thus: For what am I being formed? In 1996 in the United States~ what is the life of the Brother of the Christian Schools for which I am preparing? The question is very specific because I am convinced that this process is not designed to create an abstract "religious," but a member of a specific community guided by a unique charism. Much contemporary literature on religious life leaves me vaguely disappointed. I do not see much written by those who will be around when the future of religious life will have become the present. More fundamentally, the discussion is so future oriented and spec-ulative that it leaves me wondering what we are to do here and now. I am not left rudderless, fortunately. God's command is not far away; it is close at hand. Since I see the novitiate's meaning as preparation for living as a Brother of the Christian Schools in 1996 and in 2006 and 2016 as well, I look to the community's intellectual and spiritual patrimony for a definition of that broth-erhood right now. The inspired work of many brothers has pro-duced two texts that address the threefold challenge of Perfectae caritatis: recommitment to the gospel, recovery of the founder's charism, and adapted renewal in the light of the signs of the times (see §2). These documents are The Brother of the Christian Schools in the World Today: A Declaration and our Rule of 1986. In thefin de si~cle, these texts provide clear, powerful, and dynamic state-ments of our identity and purpose. They are lights amidst the darkness of the waning millennium. The Declaration is a charismatic statement issued by our 39th General Chapter in 1967. It was prompted in part by its response to the question of introducing the priesthood into the community. The chapter rejected that innovation, saying what we are not and then issuing a positive proclamation of what we are. The modern Brother of the Christian Schools is a layman who, in response to a call from God, totally consecrates himself to the glory of the Trinity by public profession of vows. His total consecration of himself has its roots in his baptismal consecration.3 In an entirely lay institute, the brother places himself at the service of others in the context of a community "totally dedicated to the kingdom of God." Consecrated in community, he specifies his life of ser- Review for Religious vice to others in an educational mission "with special preference for the poor." Regardless of the social class of those he immedi-ately deals with, the brother totally orients his work towards the promotion of justice and those "whose poverty hinders their devel-opment as persons or their aptitude to receive the message of sal-vation revealed in Jesus Christ." The brother integrates his proclamation of the gospel with the total human development of his students and sees the school as "the pre-ferred but not the only means" of achieving the institute's mission.4 The Declaration stresses the fundamental aspects of our vocation as Brothers of the Christian Schools (neatly summarized twenty years later in the Rule): "consecration to God as a lay religious, apostolic ministry of edu-cation, especially of the poor, and community life.''5 The Declaration was for us the great clarion call to conversion in the wake of Vatican II. Indeed, in 1967 Brother Charles Henry Buttimer, then superior general, wrote: "It is. in light of the Declaration that we must read and under-stand the other texts of our General Chapter, including the [pro-visional] Rule and Constitutions. It is the basis of the doctrine you will find in each of them.''6 Making the bold ideals of the Declaration reality was the task of the institute in the years fol-lowing 1967, as the great revision of the Rule began. The Declaration's synthetic idea of our vocation is rooted deeply in the charism of John Baptist de La Salle. In response to a double contemplation of the needs of the poor and God's plan of salvation for all, he founded a community of brothers on the following basis. "The spirit of this Institute is a spirit of faith, which should induce those .who compose it not to look upon any-thing but with the eyes of faith, not to ~1o anything but in view of God, and to attribute all to God, [with the result that there is] an ardent zeal for the instruction of children [and] to procure the salvation of the children confided to their care." Internalizing this spirit is "of the utmost importance . The novices [should] apply themselves to acquire it; and those that are already members [should] make it their first care to preserve and increase it in themselves . "Those who failed to do so were to be considered "dead members.''7 These texts of the recent and distant past speak Much contemporary literature on religious life leaves me vaguely disappointed. Septentber-October 1996 Tidd ¯ Reflections o[a Fin de Si~cle Novice to the present as much as to the times which occasioned them. They address the essence of questions of identity and sustaining vision, questions which seem to bedevil many religious commu-nities today. The Rule coexists with the Declaration as a statement of iden-tity and purpose inasmuch as it is the fruit of over thirty years of experimentation and of applying the visionary statements of the Declaration. In addition (moreso than the Declaration) it bene-fits from the recovery of the real person of De La Salle through modern critical scholarship, a man long obscured by a profile more hagiographical than historical. The Rule, then, makes the call of the council real: it renews and adapts our understanding of our vocation as Brothers of the Christian Schools by pointing out a dynamic relationship between the challenges of modernity and our founding charism. As in the first 'rules of the community, pro-duced by De La Salle in collaboration with the brothers them-selves, the Rule is the work of the entire congregation, through successive general chapters and consultation with thousands of brothers around the world. It is a coherent and convincing description of this way of life and its raison d'etre. Both documents elaborate a fundamental principle: The brother's vocation is an all-encompassing way of life in unhesi-tatin~ response to the call of God in the depths of the brother's heart. Seeing in the life of the brother far more than the aposto-late or the vows alone is the key to the coherence and intelligibility of our identity, today and in the future. For several decades the brothers' mission of education has been shared with other religious, priests, and lay people. This reality. has been examined and embraced bysuccessive general chapters as a manifestation of the Holy Spirit in its life today. We have much to share with those who seek to define their profession as an apos-tolic mission in the spirit and tradition of John Baptist de La Salle. Such sharing and dialogue is ongoing all over the world.8 This recognition, however, forces the brothers to refine their identity even more sharply. The common apostolate alone simply will no longer suffice as an answer to the question of identity, given the signs of the times. Our identity as Brothers of the Christian Schools must transcend mission and reach to the very depths of our being. The chapter of 1966-67 articulated an initial, charismatic vision of the Brother of the Christian Schools today, and the Rule Review for Religious of 1986 specifies and refines that identity even further, in the light of ongoing renewal and lived experience since 1967. What makes us brothers is not solely our work, but the living integra-tion of the constitutive elements: consecration, community, mis-sion. Each must be related in dynamic harmony to the others. No single element should obscure the others. The importance of consecration as witness, lived in commu-nity and expressed by public vows, is evidenced by the Rule's claim that it is our "first apostolate." This mode of living indicates the transcendent action of God in our world, and points towards the covenant between God and human beings. The common life is essential to our identity for two reasons. First, the brothers need the mutuality and sharing of community life for their spiritual and human develop-ment. Second, our brotherhood in com-munity and our "selfless presence among those [the brothers] serve" is to "witness to the possibility of creating true broth-erhood among nations.''9 Our mission of teaching is rooted in our very foundation as a community. De La Salle brought his first schoolmasters into community and gave them a profound spirituality--the Christian teacher as an ambassador of Jesus Christ--in order to make the mission of Christian education possible and fruitful. We do the same today, for the same reason. "The Brothers, in fidelity to the call of the Spirit and the charism of their Founder, consecrate themselves to God in order to exercise, by association, their apostolic ministry of education" (emphasis mine).~° What does all this mean in terms of the purpose of the novi-tiate? Our statements of identity tell me that it is my consecrated life in community which I bring to the mission and which sus-tain me in it. Since this integrated totality is what makes a brother's life different from that of other persons who share in the apostolate of Christian education, the interiorization of con-secrated life in community and for the mission is what I must be about this year. What must concern me this year and during my entire life as a brother is not simply what I am to do, but how I am to live. I should be about the living of a life of ongoing con- The brother's vocation is an all-encompassing way of life in unhesitating response to the call of God in the depths of the brother's heart. Septentber-October 1996 Tidd¯ R~flections o~a Fin de Si~cle Novice version--to the Jesus of the Gospels and to the poor--the same evangelical journey that inspired John Baptist de La Salle to leave behind his former vocation as a canon of Reims and begin anew.n The very elements that seem so out of proportion here in the novitiate (prayer/consecration and community life) are precisely those habits of the mind and heart I must take with me back into the apostolate. Those realities are the soil from which the brother can hope to draw nourishment for the demands of the aposto-late. If he fails to. attend to the soil, the flower of his apostolic work will soon wither and die. If consecration and community become mere slogans or, even worse, contradictions to my daily life, my life as a brother will be in vain. Insofar as I embody the spirit of faith and zeal and express it in a community life that is lived fully, then my work will be Lasallian and my novitiate and my brotherhood will have meaning, both in the fin de si~cle and beyond. "I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, that you and your descendants may live" (Deuteronomy 3 0:19). Notes ~ Thirty-seventh General Chapter, Rule of Government of the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools (Rome, 1947), pp. 192-193. This document was abrogated by the 39th General Chapter of 1966-1967;.all subsequent references to the Rule are to the text promulgated in 1987 after the 41st General Chapter of 1986. 2 Joan Chittister OSB, The Fire in These Ashes: A Spirituality of Contemporary Religious Life (Kansas City: Sheed and Ward, 1995), p. viii. 3 Thirty-ninth General Chapter, The Brothers of the Christian Schools in the World Today: A Declaration (Winona: St. Mary's College Press, 1968), article 13:1,2, p. 12. The author is indebted and grateful to Brothers Gerard Rummery FSC, Michael McKenery FSC, and Luke Salm FSC, whose novitiate lectures and informally shared insights were invaluable in this essay's preparation. The Declaration's genesis and enduring signifi-cance is well presented in Brother Luke's Religious Institute in Transition: The Story of Three General Chapters (Romeoville, Illinois: Christian Brothers Publications, 1992). 4 Declaration, articles 13:3, 4, 5, and 6. s Forty-first General Chapter, The Rule of the Brothers of the Christian Schools (Rome: Tipografia S.G.S., 1987), p. 27. 6 Foreword to the Declaration, p. iv. 7. John Baptist de La Salle. "De l'esprit de cet Institut," ROgles Communes (1718 ed.), in Rule, pp. 15-17; Rule, p. 15. s Rule, articles 17-17d and 146. Review for Religious 9 Rule, articles 24 and 9. lO Rule, art. 2. ~ This concept of De La Salle's life as an evangelical journey is superbly treated in St. John Baptist de La Salle: Announcing the Gospel to the Poor, by Brothers Michel Sauvage FSC and Miguel Campos FSC (Romeoville: Christian Brothers Conference, 1981). Presence Silence and stillness of night. How so? My eyes, my ears cry: False! Clouds scud cross a moon face; branches stretch and bend, flip, whip, and bow; leaves shiver, quiver, quake; whispers, trills, chirps, and whistles perforate the air. Stillness and silence? Not true. Yet there is a sense that knows it is so. But what? A minus of mortal motion ? A vacuum of virile voice? Perhaps, yet, more, I think. The airs of skin tingle and respond to it; an inward ear is pricked; a sacred presence permeates the space; a sacred voicelessness resounds within my soul around my self where I am held all stilled to wait to thirst to hunger a-lone. all one. Doris Bissonnette RJM September-October 1996 breaking boundaries 494 CLEMENTE BARRON Racism and Religious Life I did not learn about racism by taking sociological courses in school. I learned about racism by being born a Mexican- American in Texas in these United States. In the 1940s and 1950s, the decades in which I was born and raised, racism was an acceptable way of life. It was woven into the very fabric of our social and political life, our educa-tional and economic systems, and even into the way we practiced our Catholic faith. I did not have a choice in this matter, nor did my family or any of the other people who made up my world at that time. The existence of racism does not depend upon an indi-vidual's say-so, or even upon many people saying that it does or does not exist. I am sure that many of the public-opinion polls taken during the '50s and '60s were saying that racism existed only in isolated sections of the United States. Yet we now look back at that era of American his-tory and find many examples of racism in every segment of our society. Racism exists because it has been with us from the very beginning of our history. It continues to assert itself everywhere until someone or some movement challenges it. It will not disappear on its own. The gains the United States has made in regard to racism are mea-sured by wars, lives, and the heroic witness of courageous people, regardless of their position in society. Most of the Clemente Barr6n CP has worked with Hispanics during the twenty-five years of his priestly ministry. He lives at Casa Pasionista Guadalupe; 700 Waverly; San Antonio, Texas 78201. Review for Religious time these people had no special awareness of making any sig-nificant contributions to the eradication of racism. They just wanted a more just society for themselves and their children. It is not easy to write about racism. It is especially not easy when one is writing for a readership that shares the same faith or even the same vows and way of life or the same commitment to a social-justice agenda. It becomes still more difficult when all three of these factors are present. Yet it is the same sense of God, the same shared values, and the same commitment to justice that give me confidence to express these experiences and considerations of racism. There are many misunderstandings when it comes to racism. People do not know how to converse about racism as brothers and sisters in an open and free exchange of thoughts, opinions, and ideas. Many other issues get in the way of a good conversation on this subject. People of color tend to get angry and vitriolic and people of the dominant society tend to feel hurt or guilty when they talk about the subject. People of color often assume a victim's stance. People of the dominant society often separate themselves personally from racism: "Why are we making a fuss about this now since we are not racists?" Frequently people of color offer cosmetic solutions to this deeply complex, multilayered issue, while people of the dominant society offer solutions that address their own needs but not those of the people of color. The result is that we talk at each other, preach to each other, and instruct each other, but rarely have a good conversation with each other. Complexities of Racism This whole issue becomes even more complicated when we place this conversation within the context of religion and reli-gious life. Church teaching looks upon racism as evil and has rightly condemned it. In this context, racism is talked about in terms of sin, even as one of the most serious sins of our time. When we enter into a conversation about racism at this level, we highly personalize the issue. No one wants to begin a discussion with the feeling that she or he is being iudged a public sinner. Yet many religious feel that way when ~he discussion is about racism. Such a starting point makes for a poor conversation. On the other hand, many of us may not be aware of our racism just because we do not think of ourselves as racist; in fact, Septentber-October 1996 Barr6n * Racism and Religious Life we can identify many instances that demonstrate to us that we .are not racist. We do not want to be racist, and we believe that we are not, just on the basis of sheer willpower. Yet those of us who have tried to overcome addictive habits by sheer Willpower know that it takes more than goodwill to overpower a deeply ingrained habit or way of life. Defining Racism Racism is not easy to define. People of color tend to have a different definition and understanding of it than those of the dominant culture. People of color usually define racism as insti-tutionalized prejudice; since they do not control our society's insti-tutions, they do not consider themselves racists in the strict sense. People of the dominant culture have a difficulty with this concept because to them it says that people of color cannot be prejudiced--which is not true at all. People of color are just as prejudiced as other people. When it comes to racism, the issue is not prejudice; it is institutionalized prejudice. This is a classic case of one group wanting to focus on what is common (prejudice) and the other wanting to focus on what is not (control of insti-tutions). Progress is made when both sides accept each other's insights. Learning Racism I was not aware that I was living in a racist society when I was growing up in rural Texas. Life in the late '40s and '50s was hard, and in many ways society was pretty well defined. I was aware of the dos and don'ts of such a society. I knew that we lived in a part of town where most of the "mesicans" lived and that another part of town was "nigger town." I knew that our city offi-cials would always be "anglos" and the other leaders of our county and state would be, too. I could not conceive of a pastor or bishop being other than anglo. I knew that mesicans and niggers were not allowed to use the public facilities and fountains that anglos used. I also knew that we could not go into certain stores, like the bar-ber shop. It all seemed so normal. As time went by, other things became clearer. You just knew that you were not to do much socializing with those who were not of your ethnic grouping or race. At school the teachers were Review for Religious always careful to line us up so that we would be paired with our own kind. This was especially true in the lower grades, when we had to hold hands while standing in line. Somewhere along the weeks and years, you began to realize that socially it was not acceptable for you to date, much less think of marrying, anyone outside your ethnic or racial group. There were some exceptions, but the people involved in them were usually not socially acceptable in the first place. That was the way things were, and that was it. I do not remember my parents taking me aside to teach me the socialization rules of rural Texas. The time came when you just knew. You could have casual relationships with persons of another eth-nic or racial group. You could work for them and even beside them, but you just did not socialize with them on an equal basis. You just knew that, if push came to shove, you could not count on them. That is the way life was lived. Moreover, if you were a person of color, you felt you must project a friendly attitude at all times if you were going to be accepted by the dominant society. Someone who did not do that was seen as "not fitting in." Those who dared to demand rights and equality were considered troublemakers. This was brought home to us time and time again. In the early '60s, for example, when the civil-rights movement was begin-ning to peak, some of my friends went off to a Catholic college in San Antonio to continue their education. Home for the summer, a couple of them went to get a haircut at a barbershop owned by a member of the Knights of Columbus. They were refused service. They refused to leave. This caused a big scene. Eventually they left, but the incident produced a lot of ill feelings. These nice "Mexican" youths, accepted byall as hardworking and ambitious young men, had now become troublemakers. After a couple of years that barbershop was integrated, but I am sure that, in the eyes of many, these young men were marked for life as trouble-makers. We do not want to be racist, and we believe that we are not, just on the basis of sheer willpower. New Place, Old Ways I grew up in the era when the high-school seminary was a normal first step toward the priesthood and religious life. When L49 Septentber-Oaober 1996 Barrdn ¯ Racirm and Religious Life I expressed a desire to become a priest and religious, I was not sur-prised at all to be given the chance to attend a seminary prepara-tory high school. The school was in St. Louis, Missouri. Finding out if I had a vocation took me outside Texas for the first time, far away from my family and all familiar surroundings. It was only later on that I realized that the seminary prep school that I attended and the province I entered as a religious were, for me, extensions of the social realities of my youth in rural Texas. For me nothing had changed. The vast major.ity of my schoolmates were still anglos. All my superiors were anglos, too. I continued to see life around me through the same lenses I had used in rural Texas. I continued to use the same social categories and constructs that I had developed for myself in Texas. I was unable to realize that I had in fact been "liberated" from my Texas social environment and that I could really have new kinds of rela-tionships with others. Some experiences from my prep-school days come to mind and illustrate this point for me. In themselves these experiences are insignificant, yet like all experiences they shed light on what our life is about when seen within a wider context. For the first couple of years that I was at the prep school, we did not go home for the Christmas holidays. The big Christmas social event was the carnival. The seniors and college students would fix up the gym so that we could enjoy an evening of fun and games. It was a lot of hard work for them, but a lot of fun for us younger ones. At one of these events, a couple of guys wanted to take my picture and also wanted our picture to be taken together. I ran away from that all night long. I now believe they wanted me as a friend, and not just as a schoolmate, but I remember thinking at that time: "Why do they want a picture of me?" I remember, on another occasion, a classmate starting to play the piano on the spur of the moment in one of the music rooms. I started singing, and we had such a good time. When I was com-plimented on my singing, I remember being embarrassed. I said to myself: "I really do not know how to sing. He is just saying that!" I really did not recognize this as an affirmation and act of friendship until much later in my life. Another experience was a negative one. One day in my junior or senior year, I was put in charge of a work detail that involved getting the dry laundry sorted out into the individual laundry boxes. This was something new for me, being placed in charge of Review for ReliKious a work detail, and I was feeling good. As I made my way to the basement laundry room, I overheard a boy say to another in a normal voice: "I'm going back to the director and ask to work somewhere else. I'm not going to let a Mexican tell me what to do." I do not remember feeling much of anything. For me it was the exception for "Mexicans" to tell anglos what to do, regardless of education, expertise, or experience. That is the way life was then, and I accepted it. Upon reflection these experiences say something to me because I now see them within a social structure that hampered my power as an individual. I am not saying complete powerlessness, but certainly enough that my efforts to make it in life included special inhibitions about making any waves. While I recognize that there are some definite equalities in life and that all persons encounter some unjust situations that they must learn how to deal with boldly, I also know that some specific societal norms and customs made prisoners of me and others sharing my minority status. Racism and the'effects of racism were alive and well within my social environment, even in the prep school. The fact that I was not aware of all that was going on in terms of racism did not prevent my negative experience of racism. Awareness My first assignment after ordination in 1970 was to a retreat center in Houston, Texas. In the previous year a new association of Mexican-American priests had been formed: Padres Asociados para Derecbos Religiosos, Educativos, y Sociales (PADRES). Two rep-resentatives of PADRES came to visit me shortly after my arrival; we had a long talk. They were recruiting me for the organiza-tion. They talked to me about racism and discrimination in the church against Hispanics. I kept telling them that I did not feel discriminated against, and I did not think that our community was racist. While I could accept the fact that we lived in a racist society and that some people we lived with were racist, I had not yet come to an acceptance that my church was racist, much less my province. I thought I had really escaped racism. Only later did I discover that I had not escaped it; I had merely (and conveniendy) denied its existence within mylife experience. One reason why I began to reevaluate my position on this issue was my involvement with Hispanics at all levels of my life. L499-- September-October 1996 Barrdn ¯ Raci.rm and Religious Life We generally do not think about how social constructs such as words and language, policies and directives, and administrative and organizational structures welcome certain peopie or groups of people and exclude others. -- oo I began to listen to the stories of the Hispanic peoples who were becoming part of my ministerial life. I also began to appreciate the life stories of my own family as I heard them being repeated at family celebrations and gatherings. Every time I visited my aunts and uncles, I heard how difficult it was to be Hispanic and work for the church. It would be a mistake to assume that these people, my relatives and those I accompa-nied in ministry, were bitter and dis-illusioned people. There came a point at which I realized that these accounts were testimonies of peo-ple who loved the church even though they had suffered much at its hands. The most common theme woven through these stories was exclusion on the basis of ethnicity. Some were told in anger, some in resignation, and others just as com-mentaries to life. A fe.w of them may illustrate what I mean. When my parents would talk about their wed-ding day in 1935, they would tell us how they had to drive to the "Mexican" Church for their cere-mony. This church was, in reality, a mission of the parish church, a good ten miles away. We did not need much explanation, for we knew that Mexicans were not wel-comed in the main parish church. My mother also talked about how they had to stop for an hour or so in town on their way back home. They were very hun-gry and thirsty by the time they got there, since they had fasted from midnight to receive Holy Communion. They had to eat in the park.like area in front of the courthouse, because no restaurant would be open to them. In 1973 I began working in Los Angeles at a parish that had been forced into having a Sunday Mass in Spanish because the pastor did not think that there were enough Spanish-speaking parishioners within th~ parish boundaries. The parish finally put in a Spanish Mass after being pressured by a few vocal people. This change had taken place a year before I started working there Revie-w for Religious on weekends. By the time I left that parish to move on to another assignment in October 1975, a good deal of growth had taken place. We had standing room only at the Spanish Mass, a choir, eight Movimiento Familiar Cristiano (CFM) reflection groups that met every two weeks, a catechetical program in Spanish for more than 120 children, two Hispanic men who had applied to become (and eventually did become) deacons, and other signs of life and growth. What this said to me was that Hispanics who had been liv-ing in the area for years did not become involved in church life until there were pastoral leaders ready to welcome and support them. In more recent times, in a Los Angeles rectory, about a dozen of us who had gathered for a penance service were engaged in a lot of shoptalk around the dinner table. The talk came around to the different ethnic groups in the archdiocese, particularly the Spanish-speaking. One of the more recently ordained priests-- from a parish that had had a poor turnout for the Lenten penance service--wondered out loud why "these people" needed to have services in Spanish. A couple of nights later, for a penance service in a parish that does its best to serve various language groups, the church was packed. I heard confessions in English and Spanish for more than two hours. Over a dozen priests heard confessions in English, Spanish, and Vietnamese. A Deeper Analysis I cite these comparative incidents to illustrate institutional racism, even in the Catholic Church, and also to show that racism is not always intentional, malicious, or premeditated. In fact, I believe that in the majority of cases we are unaware that racism is operative in our lives. I believe that most people of good heart and goodwill have not reflected sufficiently on how social structures affect their ~lay-to-day lives. Our society's mores and laws have to a great extent come to exist, not in order to promote the reign 6f God, but to protect what the more wealthy and powerful incline to hoard for themselves. We generally do not think about how social constructs such as words and language, policies and direc-tives, and administrative and organizational structures welcome certain people or groups of people and exclude others. Racism is much more ingrained than we believe it is. Furthermore, even when there is recognition and formal repu- September-October 1996 Barr6n ¯ Racism and Religious Life diation of institutional racism, it becomes a major struggle to do something about it. It is not easy to change societal constructs, whether they be words, policies, or organizational structures. Along with our sense of guilt, we also experience a sense of help-lessness. We want to do something, we want to make a statement, we want to do the right thing; but, faced with the immense real-ity of it all, we do not know what to do. My Dealing with Racism I am aware of some evolution that has taken place within myself as I have struggled to understand the reality of racism. One of my earliest reactions to racism was the belief that making people alert to racism, aware of it, and acquainted with it would be enough to make them change their ways of thinking and act-ing. My task became one of revealing and unmasking the evil of racism so that racists would convict themselves and change, or feel the guilt of not changing. I really believed that people of good heart and goodwill would change, be converted, once they saw their own racism. So I became involved (and I still am) in programs and projects to raise the people's level of awareness regarding racism. I think that one reason why great numbers of people have been turned off by consciousness-raising is the way many "social-justice types" presented their case. Their rhetoric is often inflam-matory and confrontational. Sometimes these modern-day prophets use questionable data and much hyperbole to get across their points. I could admire their bravado, but I thought that, if they presented their points with calmness and serenity, then peo-ple would listen and would admit their racism. That is how I thought I would go about it. Sometimes this approach worked; more often it did not. I did not understand the power of denial, to use a psych.ological term, or the condition of blindness, to use a scriptural notion. You can say, "twenty million Hispanics," "eighty percent Hispanic," "one of the highest levels of poverty," "the highest dropout rate at school," and still get responses like "So what?" and "Prove it" and "Don't you think that it's their own personal fault they are the way they are?" Where racism is concerned, comprehension, understanding, reason, logic, facts, and all the other things that go into "knowing" can bring one only so far. Then you are going to Review for Religious have to say yes or no to that reality; you either embrace the truth or you walk away from it. I believe that the other approach, emotional and vitriolic, can at times be much more effective because it pulls us out of the ordinary rhythm of life and challenges us to affirm or deny our position with passion. Often it is in that passionate response that we come to know whether we are confronting truth or living a lie. It screams at us, and we cannot be deaf to it any longer. Living with Racism Once I owned up to the realization that it takes more than just awareness and acknowledgment of racism before some posi-tive response can take place, I was faced with a dilemma. What is an appropriate response to racism? If letting people know about racism, telling them facts or even leading them to some insight, is not enough, then what should I be doing? ' To do nothing is not an option. To be involved in educating people about the evil of racism is good, but it has not been very successful. So what is it that I can do? I have had to learn how to live with the reality of racism without allowing it to con-sume me or compromise me. Racism is both strong and insidious. If you are constantly fighting it, it will wear you down. If you never confront it, however, it will corrupt you and you will conform to it. I have had to learn how to live with it and still be sensitive to it. I have had to learn how to live within its grasp and still be able to name its evil. I have had to learn how to live with people who have no desire whatsoever for critical reflection on the subject and still not dis-count them as brothers and sisters. I also have had to learn that I could not fight racism alone and in isolation. I include in this understanding of aloneness or isolation the clique or inner circle that one forms when engaged in this kind of struggle. When you associate only with men and women of like mind and heart in regard to racism, you run the risk of having them become an extension of your own self. You then have two kinds of people, those who are enlightened by the truth and cleansed by the conversion experience (the inner circle) and What is an appropriate response to racism? To do nothing is not an option. September-October 1996 Barrdn * Racism an'd Religious Life those who are the great unwashed (the rest of humanity), who need to be purified before they can truly be a brother or a sister. And those of the inner circle know in their heart of hearts that hardly anyone from the great unwashed will ever make it to their level of purification and commitment. I believe that, in order to fight racism effectively, one needs to be allied with men and women who are at all stages of a~are-ness and commitment. There is no one of us who has always been right in each and every thought, word, deed, or omission. No one has a complete and correct theory of how life is to be lived. So we need to network with others who agree with us and with those who do not. We need to be in relationship with those who share our insights and with those who do not. We need to be a gen-uine brother or a sister to those who are racists and those who are not. Otherwise I do not see how we can bring about structural conversion. Some Strfita of Memory and Hope Looking at my parents today, I see an elderly couple who knew racism and its effects firsthand. They knew what it meant to live in segregated neighborhoods and in housing that was once chicken coops. My parents knew what it meant to be laid off work, to send their children to a broken-down building that served as the school for "Mexican" children, to be in the hospital without any insurance, to be excluded from stores and services, to be "Mexican" Catholics in a predominantly anglo community. I saw people come to our door and ask for advice or a helping hand or to have official letters read to them. We received many a Catholic missionary into our home, to eat with us and sometimes stay with us during the time they were evangelizing and catechizing. One day, as I shared this history with a group of people at a workshop, I found myself understanding the meaning of "being evangelized by the poor." My parents knew only one way to live in a racist society, and that was to love God with all they had and to love everyone else the best they could. Today I see a couple respected in their hometown and throughout the diocese for their perseverance, their faithfulness, their constancy in the faith and in the way they treat people. No matter how evil the structures were and how evil the people who strove to keep those structures in place may have been, my par- Review for Religious ents' faith has allowed them to overcome that evil. I do not see a bitter, broken-down couple blaming others for what they do not have, but a faith-filled couple continuing, by their example, to call others to a better way of life. Yes, society continues to be racist. The church continues to be racist. And, yes, there is racism even within my province. How should we respond, however, to our racism as a society, as a church and as a religious congregation, well, that is a conversation that we still need to have. Jesus Willing He could have multiplied currency as easy as loaves reasoned down other paths. he gave freely to everyone left the poor still poor rich with more than before. could have died another way unnoticed in desert sand lived as paralytic beggar with none coming to succor when angels stirred waters with a great serving spoon. for though he chose manger and tree, Peter and

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

Issue 52.2 of the Review for Religious, March/April 1993. ; re lig oIJS C~stian Heritages and: Contemporary Living MARCH-APRIL 1993 . VOLUME 52' ¯ NUMBER 2 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 ~.Vashington, 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 $ l 5 plus mailing costs. Two-year subscription $28 plus mailing costs. See inside back cover for more subscription information and mailing costs. 01993 Review for Religious for religious Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Assistant Editors Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Michael G. Harter SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Jean Read Mary Ann Foppe Joann Wolski Corm PhD Mary Margaret Johanning SSND Iris Ann Ledden SSND Edmundo Rodriguez SJ Se~in Sammon FMS Wendy Wright PhD Suzanne Zuercher OSB Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living MARCH-APRIL 1993 " VOLUME 52 ¯ NUMBER 2 contents 166 feature Leadership, Authority, and Religious Government Mary Linscott SNDdeN clarifies the interrelati6nship of leader-ship, authority, and religious government in the development of religious life up to the present. 194 202 213 220 226 evangelizing The Meaning of Evangelization Today Janice McLaughlin MM suggests that in the light of her experi-ence in Africa evangelization involves us in a process of change and choices which turn us upside down. Broken African Pots and a Mission Spirituality Mario I. Aguilar SVD proposes that African pottery making pro-vides a model that fits our need for spiritual fulfillment and the j3resence of God in our lives. aging in christ A Spirituality of Aging Michael D. Moga SJ invites the elderly to explore a spirituality well suited for their final years. Soul Making and Life's Second Half Anne Brennan CSJ and Janice Brewi CSJ encourage people in mid-life and beyond to open themselves to the fullness of their inner lives. Life Review, Families, and Older Religious James J. Magee DSW offers a model of life review for older reli-gious to modify their own anxiety in the face of family issues and to help other family members also to work with the issues. 162 Review for Religious 236 238 241 living religiously Hope in Loneliness James Martin SJ searches the emptiness of loneliness and finds space for God and others. Thoughts from Death and Life Vera Gallagher RGS offers a personal reflection on dealing with a serious diagnosis of illness. May I Love You, Lord John Patrick Donnelly SJ provides the first English translation of a psalm-prayer composed by the fifteenth-century Dominican Girolamo Savonarola. 247 259 275 283 visioning religious life Galile£n Perspectives on Religious Life Anne Hennessy CSJ suggests that the sometimes blurred focus on the person and message of Jesus Christ can be helped by a Galilean perspective. Religious Life in Nigeria Today Mary Gerard Nwagwu gives a summary picture of the various forms and influences of consecrated life now common in Nigeria and their influence on society. I Have Kept Faith: Clare of Assisi Karen Karper PCPA highlights some incidents in Clare's spiritual growth and the approval of her religious rule of life. report U.S. Hispanic Catholics: Trends and Works 1992 Kenneth Davis OFM Cony reviews the various events and writings in the Catholic Hispanic experience. departments 164 Prisms 304 Canonical Counsel: Common Life 311 Book Reviews March-April 1993 163 prisms a~tican Council II is frequently described as a watershed event in the history of the Catholic Church. Certainly through our eyes now and even in its actual hap-pening the council was one of those precious creative moments which take place randomly, but consistently, in our human affairs. Just as consistently, creative moments are followed by a period of consolidation. A common example (perhaps too easily caricatured) from the history of religious life is the creative action of St. Francis of Assisi in calling forth his gospel-based mendicant group and the later consolidation efforts of Brother Elias to establish solidly this ideal in a lasting community form. Some would term the present period in the Roman Catholic milieu a period of consolidation. As evidence they would point to the promulgation of the Codes of Canon Law for both the Latin Church (replacing the first Code of 1917) and the Eastern Churches (the first for-mulation of a Code). The publication of the new Universal Catechism is another piece of evidence for a consolida-tion movement. With the 1994 Synod of Bishops sched-uled to consider consecrated life, there appears to be a completing of the review of all the groupings which make up the People of God. Consolidation periods lack the euphoria and excite-ment of the creative moments, but they are just as impor-tant if life is to keep its direction and to flourish. We may have a fear of consolidation movements because they seem to represent a rigidity and to forebode an age-long immutability. Others of us may too readily desire consol-idation as a way of returning to the way things were, of rejecting a certain period of time as an aberration. 164 Review for Religio~s Consolidation, after a period of creativity, is meant neither to set in stone the present reality nor to throw aside recent history and return to a fixated tradition. Consolidation is meant much more to be a plateau where gains and losses are assessed, directional lines reviewed and discerned anew, and energies replenished for the continued journey forward of this pilgrim people. Although we have frequently used the word transition to cap-ture these times for our church and for religious life, perhaps more pointedly we might now use the word consolidation. For example, the FORUS study published in our last issue provides religious life with a consolidation document. Religious groups would be using it without serious thought or reflection if they were to reject the legitimate and church-expected experiments of these past decades. Consolidation works only when there have been some creative moments preceding. Without creative moments, life--any life, religious or other--weakens and faces death. That continues to happen to lifeforms throughout our planet and, more pointedly, may be happening to some religious congregations at this time. On the other hand, without consoli-dation creative moments are only ephemeral and their energies dissipate to exhaustion. Consolidation is necessary for true growth and sure direction in continuing the movement so that we can focus our energies for the New Evangelization of our time. Consolidation remains just as necessary on the micro as on the macro stage, that is, in our everyday life as well as in the large-scale reflections which we have been making about religious con-gregations. Too often we can pass by the efforts necessary for a consolidation review in our own individual-lives and our living together. Why do we live the way we do, why do we do the works we do? How is this related to my and our love of Jesus Christ and what does it have to say about the evangelizing quality of my and our works? These simple questions are necessary as we look towards the solid future of religious life. David L. Fl.eming SJ Marcb-Atrril 1993 165 MARY LINSCOTT Leadership, Authority, and Religious Government feature More than twenty years ago, in 1969 and 1970, I attended two meetings in St. Louis which were a turning point in the history of the Conference of Major Superiors of Women in the United States. Various developments ensued, one of them being a change of name from Conference of Major Superiors of Women (CMSW) to Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR). In this case the rose by another name did not immediately smell as sweet. The then Sacred Congregation for Religious and Secular Institutes (SCRIS), which had to approve the change, was reluctant to do so on the ground that it involved more than a matter of simple terminol-ogy. The Language and the Reality For the congregation, "major superiors" and "leader-ship" were not synonymous terms; the use of the one for Sister Mary Linscott SNDdeN is a former superior general of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur and a former president of the International Union of Superiors General (UISG). She has worked in the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (CICLSAL). This article is the somewhat shortened text of a talk which she gave in April 1992 to English-speaking superiors and councilors general in Rome and which appeared originally in UISG Bulletin 89. 166 Review for Religious the other could create confusion and even lead to changes of a more ~ubstantial kind, notwithstanding the likelihood that the sisters intended the words to denote the same reality. (We have to bear in mind that the change of name for the conference in the Uiaited States coincided with the reaction against authority which followed the special chapters of renewal and with the beginning of considerable modifications in the structures of religious gov-ernmerit. Moreover, the national conferences [or councils or unions] mandated by Perfectae Caritatis §23 and Ecclesiae Sanctae §42 and §43 were to be of major superiors, both for men and for women.) At all events, SCRIS felt that the substitution of "lead-ership" for "major superiors" could raise problems in an area where clarity was needed. Pc mission for the change came only after long reflection and on condition that the interpretation of the name was in accord with the provisions and intention of the Second Vatican Council. After twenty years the use of the word leadership in documents other than constitutions and directories has become quite widespread. We are used to headlines in our congregational pub-lications: "Province X Elects New Leadership" or "A Report from General Leadership." In some institutes "leadership group" has replaced "team" to denote sisters serving according to the con-stitutions at different levels of government. The usage seems to be mainly in the English-speaking world. Unless the word leaders is ~dopted without translation, as it is occasionally by French- or Spanish-speaking sisters, the concept which it expresses is usu-ally paraphrased or simply implied. For historical reasons the Italians avoid duce and the Germans fiibrer. The French always have responsable to fall back on. In English writing, however, there is a rather frequent use of leader and leadership. Over the years, what has happened to SCRIS's initial diffi-culty about religious institutes' use of the word leadership? A first remark ~hould be, I think, that the distinction of meaning made after 1970 still obtains. Leadership is a charism, a spiritual real-ity given freely by God to individuals for some special purpose in a community; authority in religious institutes is a canonico-juridi-cal as well as a spiritual reality. The two, therefore, are not syn-onymous and not interchangeable. Second, there has been a period in which popular writing and parlance about religious life have tended to avoid the word authority. Instead the term leadership was used but given much of the content that belongs to author- March-April 1993 167 Linscott ¯ Leadership, Authority, and Religious Government ity. This produced some confusion that weakened religious gov-ernment at all levels, but especially the local. In a third phase, more recently, we have had a certain clarification along this line: that, while leadership and religious authority are indeed different and distinct, they do not have to be in conflict, and in fact both are needed for good government. In this clarification some understandings have emerged which I will use for the purposes of this paper. With regard to leadership, wider and more immediate communications, the influence of the international institutes, and the cumulative effects of structural renewal have all helped to bring out the .concept of leadership as a personal gift in its own right. It is a charism expressed in per-sonal qualities which inspire respect, trust, following, sometimes enthusiasm. Since it depends on the qualities of a person, lead-ership is an enduring gift, not something assumed for a certain time and laid down at the end of a mandate. It is not conferred or limited by constitutions, and it cannot be legislated. It does not go with any given responsibility, and in itself it is no more account-able than any other charism. It derives, not from external cir-cumstances, but from inner sources, and it is linked much more with what a person is than with what she does. Leadership is found in many spheres other than government. It exists quite apart from authority. At the same time, the lengthening experience of renewal and the revision of the constitutions have pointed up the need for other elements besides leadership for the effective running of a religious congregation: functional government structures and clearly invested religious authority are essential. Religious author-ity, like that of the Lord from which it ultimately derives, involves a certain power, but it is power as service and for the sake of the mission. Such authority goes with the vow of obedience and is conferred for the achievement of the goals of the congregation: the spread of the gospel in and through the unity, growth, and service of the sisters. Necessary for the religious institute as a human organization, religious authority is also ecclesial in that it derives from constitutions approved by the church. Since it is attached to an office, it is an authority of status. It is given for a specified period to persons duly appointed or elected within the limits of the constitutions and church law. Religious authority has to be accountable. It is personal but not exercised in isola-tion. It can be legislated and must be provided for constitution- 168 Re~iew for Religious ally. It is assumed on a specified date and is laid down at the end of a mandate. It relates to what a person does and to what her responsibilities are, rather than to what she is in herself. Of itself it neither confers nor presupposes leadership, though leadership qualities are obviously desirable in a sister exercising authority. Government is a matter of duly chosen individuals inspiring, directing, and admin-istering with a.uthority the affairs of a con-gregation according to its spirit and sound traditions and according to church law and its own. Of itself government gives a lead, and in a religious congregation it is a con-crete expression of the charism acting to attain the congregation's purpose. I would say that these recent clarifications are helpful. Leadership, authority, and government are now seen as distinct from each other but closely .related in complementarity and all of them necessary for the healthy functioning of religious life. There are difficulties only when they are confused with each other, when one or other of them is not working properly, or when any of them tends to dominate the remaining two. I propose to look at the three elements in interrelation from two different angles. The first is historical. As phenomena in reli-gious life, leadership, authority, and government have come into being at different times in response to different needs, and in the course of history they have had different emphases. A look at their roots and evolution may help us to see better where we are at present with regard to them and may give us some ideas for future direction. The second angle is contemporary. Later in this article I will share with you what a surv4y of sixty approved con-stitutions seems to tell about leadership, authority, and govern-ment in congregations across the world today. The two angles will bring together the past and the present in view of the future. Where does religious government come from? The Phenomenon Where does religious government come from? Perfectae Caritatis §2a says: "Since the final norm of the religious life is the following of Christ as it is put before us fn the gospel, this must be taken by all institutes as the supreme rule" (see canon 662). It was the desire to follow Christ with greater liberty and to Marcb-/lpril 1993 169 Linscott ¯ Leadership, Authority, and Religious Government imitate him more closely that prompted men and women from very early times to practice, in various ways, the evangelical coun-sels (see PC §1) and thus live the gospel radically. As the great persecutions of the early church came to an end, many persons gave gospel witness by withdrawing into the desert and under-taking heroic acts of self-denial and penance as a substitute for martyrdom. Their life was a combat with the forces of evil, whose last stronghold was the wilderness. The call was often solitary, but among those who sought God in the desert there were inevitably some who were experienced and some who were begin-ners, renowned persons and those who were unknown, persons sought out for advice and guidance and those who still had a lot to learn. Without any structure, when there was as yet no orga-nization that required formal authority and government, a kind of leadership based on competence, personal qualities, and experience in the ways of the Lord brought into being some very personal relations between teachers and disciples. The earliest elements of religious leadership may be here: persons together seeking God's will and ways, with the gifts of the one at the service of the other and both persons helped towards the fullness of a Christian vocation. The living of the gospel was still the supreme goal and rule when, in the face of the decline of the desert type of life and because of the changes brought about by the barbarian invasions of western Europe and northern Africa, people grouped together in a more stable manner. Once there was grouping, some kind of agreement, however simple and loose, was necessary for order and peace. In this is the first seed of religious government. Humanly speaking, there would be leaders for the sake of unity if for no other reason. Once grouping was a stable way of life, the leader would usually be the one who founded the group, who accepted followers to form the group, and who contributed most to shaping its way of gospel living by example, prayer, teaching, and organization. It would be up to that person to ensure fidelity to the accepted way of life, to lead in the deepening of spiritual values, to give direction, to ensure viability. Everything would be geared to the gospel as the purpose of the group's existence, )nd the founder would lead in virtue of an authority of competence recognized by the members and by the church. This stable way of life affected the church both locally and universally. The stability of vows, the public witness of life, 170 Review for Religious required contacts with church authorities, especially the local bishop. There had to be the possibility of representation. Moreover, basic though the gospel was, no founder ever felt it sufficient simply to put the gospel text into the hands of his or her religious. The way of living out the gospel in any given congre-gation was expressed in a rule or constitutions usually drawn up by the founder and always approved by the church. The fact of liv-ing vowed life together, therefore, created human, ecclesial, and theological conditions that required the service of some member or members to the others in a way that fostered spiritual values, unity, fidelity to the founding bond and spirit, discernment of direction, links with the church, correction, spiritual and material provision, viability. Such responsibilities could not be undertaken without some kind of authority within the group itself. We there-fore find the elements of religious government coming into being as founders, who by the fact of founding showed qualities of lead-ership, accepted the responsibility of directing their religious fam-ily and each of its members towards the agreed-upon goal of the gospel by a service of authority recognized by the church. This service of authority was still needed in succeeding gen-erations, and for the same reasons as those which first prompted it. Once the founding generation was gone, however, the choice of members who would exercise authority was less obvious. It was not that there were no religious who had the competence, but rather that none had the unique claim of the founder. Loyalty, support, and obedience were given to the member who was duly elected or appointed to exercise authority, and with that there came into being an authority that could be apart from that of competence: an ex officio authority derived from role or status. The Evolution before the 19th Century All this needed considerable time to evolve, and it took on different patterns and structures according to the different charisms which it expressed. Moreover, it developed as new forms of religious life came into being to meet the needs of successive times. The first appearance of religious in the form of monks and monasteries was a spontaneous phenomenon in the church, a free action of the Holy Spirit, but by the 5th century their random multiplication had become such a problem that the Council of March-April 1993 171 Linscott ¯ Leadership, Authority, and Religious Government Chalcedon (451) established the requirement of episcopal per-mission for the founding of a monastery and made monks subject to bishops. It was recognized, however, that the community of monasticism required a certain independence in internal matters. Religious government, therefore, came to have two aspects, inter-nal and external, both involving authority. Over a long period the image of episcopal authority, which of its nature is hierarchical in the church, to some extent colored that of religious authority. Certainly the balance between the degree of freedom necessary for internal affairs and the submission to the bishop, which was equally necessary for the good of the local church, was a feature of canonical legislation for religious for centuries. The great founders and reformers somehow found ways to handle both the internal and external relations of religious government. Internally, St. Benedict, father of western monasticism, respected the whole community and united it around the abbot under the discipline of the Rule. Authority, leadership, and government came together harmoniously in his provisions. Externally, in centuries after his own, there were problems over necessary relations with bishops and civil rulers. When Benedict's work was refounded in the Cluniac and Cistercian reforms, Cluny managed to be subject neither to king nor to bishop. It was one of the first of a system of exemptions by which the evolution of religious life was handled. After the desert and the monasteries, both of which types of religious life continue today, a third period with new needs was that of the mendicants. Here the pattern of life was no longer the stability and close unity of the monastery, but instead the diverging travels of friars who went about preaching the good news, begging their way, and giving to the poor. They belonged to a more fluid community often located in a town that had been revitalized either by a growing medieval university or by the com-merce that followed the Crusades. In pursuit of the same gospel ideal as the monks and the desert dwellers, the mendicants orga-nized their lives differently. They did not have stability in Benedict's sense. Their forms of leadership and government had to suit their kind of public witness and the flexibility of their out-reach. The religious whose authority and responsibility for the whole group would parallel those of Benedict's abbot were sig-nificantly given different and suggestive names: guardian for the Franciscans and prior for the Dominicans. With the age of discovery and reform, new forms of religious 172 Review for Religious life, those of the apostolic orders, were the response of the Holy Spirit to the mission opportunities in newly discovered conti-nents and to the theological and educational needs nearer home. Religious life in the Latin church, still very much a European phenomenon, needed people like Francis Xavier, Jean de Br~beuf, and Junipero Serra to carry it to India, Japan, and the Americas. This out-reach in itself was a challenge to structures of government. The pio-neer missionaries were often at great distances from their original commu-nities. They were inevitably few, at least at the beginning, yet they were an important growing point of the institutes to which they belonged. They needed good leadership quali-ties themselves and a considerable del-egation of authority. The kind of religious government that was strong primarily at the local level did not really match their gift. There had to The Jesuits in their government heightened both leadership and authority and gave a new importance to what would henceforth become general-level administration. be support from a higher level where the overview of everything could unify the various local endeavors and thereby achieve a par-ticular witness to Christ. Not by coincidence is the general supe-rior of the Jesuits called the praepositus. Exempt from immediate episcopal control so as to be free for papal mandates, the succes-sors of St. Ignatius had to combine leadership by competence, which was vital, with the authority to inspire and administer a far-flung apostolic enterprise while strengthening the service given in pastoral, social, and academic fields in Europe. The Jesuits in their government heightened both leadership and authority and gave a new importance to what would henceforth become general-level administration. The Evolution after 1800 With the cataclysm of the French Revolution came various needs which were met by the most recent type of organized reli-gious life: institutes dedicated to works of the apostolate. Although by no means all of these are for sisters, the period since the Marcb-April 1993 173 Linscott ¯ Leadership, Authority, and Religious Government Napoleonic Concordat of 1802 has been marked by an extraor-dinarily high proportion of women's foundations. It is on these that I now focus. Very many institutes of sisters came into being as the response of the Spirit to the needs created by the industrial revolution, the successive waves of emigration from Europe to the new world, the opening up of Africa and Asia, and the series of revolutions which swept Europe from 1789 to 1848. They were founded not only to live the gospel themselves and to witness to it in a society that was mainly one of believers, as many previous religious had done, but also to be Christ the teacher or healer or shepherd or apostle of the Father, in ways specified by their founding gifts, in a society which was increasingly post-Christian and material-ist. Their vocation was apostolic, and the government they needed had to provide for apostolic mobility, with its requirement of cen-tralization as well for effectiveness at scattered locations as for unity and corporate direction throughout. They needed their own internal authority. As for leadership, it became clear as time went on that leadership gifts of many different kinds were required for the effective service of these institutes, particularly in areas of the apostolate which involved specialization. A new responsibility for sisters exercising authority was the fostering and harmonizing of these leadership gifts among the members for the unity of the whole and for better service in mission, even though in this case leadership was not related to government but to the apostolate. The governmental needs of the new institutes with regard to centralization and internal authority were not at first easily met. We have to remember that, during the century before 1901, sis-ters in institutes dedicated to apostolic works were technically not recognized by the church at all. It had been the ecumenical councils which determined and enunciated the church's provi-sions regarding religious life, and in the early 19th century the lat-est of these was still the Council of Trent. Trent had made a serious effort to tidy up a very complicated situation according to the signs of its own times. Three years after the close of the coun-cil, the decree Circa Pastoralis (1566) had stated the basic law of the church for religious, summarizing the canons of Lateran IV (1215), Lyons (1274), and Trent that referred to them. According to Circa Pa.storalis, religious were members of the church living a common life with solemn vows and cloister. All orders which were not exempt were subject to the local bishop. By 174 Review for Religious implication, therefore, members of groups which did not have solemn vows or which were not cloistered were not religious, and .they were subject to the local bishop without full internal reli-gious authority of their own because .they were not among the exempt orders. Institutes of sisters dedicated to apostolic work lived and served as religious, looked like religious, had the goals of religious, and gave the witness of religious while having sim-ple vows, little or no cloister, and a different way of living life in common from religious who were in accord with Circa Pastoralis. They needed an internal authority similar to that of the exempt congregations and for reasons like those of the apostolic orders. Actua.lly, the praxis of the church was ahead of its legislation in the 19th century, and both pontifical approval and the approval of several far-seeing bishops cleared the way for institutes of sisters. In 1900 Leo XIII, in Conditae a Christo, anticipated what was an evidently necessary change in church legislation~ He opened to religious groups with decrees of praise the formal right of cen-tralization under a superior general with real, personal authority throughout the institute. This recognized sisters in institutes ded-icated to works of the apostolate as re!igious in their own right: a third kind of entity with those conforming to Circa Pastorali's and with th~ exempt clerical orders. The recognition was' welcome, but it could not of itself erase the long experience of ambiguity, which was the only one that most institutes of sisters knew at first hand. Authority and gov-ernment were the issues on which the matter of recognition was solved, and both were associated with the image of the local bishop. Leo XIII followed up Conditae a Cbristo in 1901 with a set of norms which were a blueprint for the future Code of Canon Law (1917). The sisters updated their constitutions in the light of .,both documents; and, perhaps because in terms of religious life the autonomous government of institutes of sisters as a reality canon-ic~ lly recognized and supported was something relatively new, both a.uthority and government structures loomed large in the revisions. Great attention was given to new structures, especially those of provinces and general chapters; roles were spelled out in considerable detail. Time would bring out what this implied and how it would work out in practice. Of the three elements leader-ship, authority, and government, attention concentrated on the last two, which were concrete and could be legislated, even though the previous image many institutes had of them did not necessarily March-April 1993 175 Linscott ¯ Leadership, Authority, and Religious Government reflect their founding charism, but was colored by the rightly hierarchical character of the authority of the local bishop. Leadership was either taken for granted or channeled into apos-tolic enterprises. These sociological traits be~zame even more marked as the pressures of works and of professionalism came to bear on institutes in the mid 1950s. The Situation after Vatican II Less than fifty years after the Code of 1917 came the mandate of the Second Vatican Council to renew religious life according to the criteria of the gospel, the founding charism, and the signs of the times and to revise constitutions and directories in accord with this renewal. To make sure that the renewal actuaily took place, every institute was to celebrate a special general chapter within a period of two or three years. The chapter had excep-tional authority for this one occasion and was to be prepared with the widest possible involvement of all members of the institute. In the case of sisters dedicated to works of the apostolate, the timing of the conciliar mandate was critical. It came at a histor-ically ripe moment. The educational movement of the 1950s, the communications explosion of the 1960s, the influence of the human sciences, the authority crisis, and the development of fem-inism were only some of the elements which affected the way in which sisters tried to reexamine totally a life which they had taken very much for granted. They worked under pressure of time, with no precedent, technically unprepared, but with very much good-will. Inevitably, the sisters went first for adaptations: concrete changes which could be seen to be done and where change was clearly necessary. These involved structures and processes, plan-ning, participation, the Vatican Council's principles of subsidiar-ity and coresponsibility, the insdtute's style of life, and a review of apostolic works and resources. As sisters came to grips with these things, new leaders of a charismatic or natural kind--"born lead-ers"-- began to emerge. Their competence might be a particular professional field or an ability to communicate or the capacity to articulate well a personal vision for the future of the institute or a good grasp of dynamics. Whatever their gift, these leaders often came to the fore at the expense of leadership based on authority and experience of government. The membership of general chap- 176 Review for Religious ters from 1967 onwards was of a different composition from those which went before, and the influences on government and author-ity were consequently different. There was less experience of gov-ernment and more creativity; less hard information and more "dreaming" in the positive sense; less his-tory and more sociology; less theology and more impact from the human sci-ences. It all needed to be balanced out if it was to produce good religious govern-ment. A time of struggle, confusion, and emotion, however, is not the best time for balancing, and the difficult 1970s and early 1980s did not allow time to evaluate objectively what was happening. Nor was it possible to have the distance necessary for objectivity. The individualism of the period produced leaders in plenty, but not a similar number of sisters willing to accept responsibility. At the same time, various forms and degrees of resistance to authority made religious government very difficult. Expectations were not clear, and it was far easier to raise questions than to find constructive responses. All the while, people were aware that the overall num-bers of sisters were declining, that departures were frequent, that needs were multiplying and not being met, and that religious life was a microcosm of a church and world which were also in flux and seeking their way. In all this how did leadership, authority, and government fare? They were much-discussed topics in renewal, and it is in the con-text of renewal that we have to see them. Renewal involves inter-nal change. It causes us to interiorize and make our own--here and now, as individuals and as communities--the teaching of Jesus as it is lived in accordance with the charism of our religious insti-tute. Renewal affects beliefs, relationships, values, commitment, attitudes, and zeal. It determines how we live and serve, and it involves a conversion that is corporate as well as personal. Being basically interior and spiritual, renewal cannot be brought about simply by legislation. It needs the example and personal influ-ence of leadership, which i~ of its nature an agent of internal change. But leadership in religious renewal has to be enabling, Being basically interior and spiritual, renewal needs the example and personal influence of leadership, which is of its nature an agent of internal change. Marcb-April 1993 177 Linscott ¯ Leadership, Authority, and Religious Government helping sisters renew themselves and their institute by consis-tently proposing the gospel goal and ideal and by encouraging involvement, conviction, and commitment. Such enabling lead-ership is increasingly seen as necessary today. It is not in excess supply, for it requires an unusual blend of Christlike poverty of heart and inner freedom and at the same time strength, empa-thy, and clarity. It is ~ charism and, as such, cannot be conferred ex officio or be legislated as a predictable and controllable part of government. Yet without it even the most clear-cut exercise of legitimate authority does not succeed in changing fundamental attitudes and values, whatever it may do to outward forms. The very fact that leadership is neither predictable nor con-trollable from the point of view of legislation means that it needs a balance which can be predicted, controlled, and legislated. The balance is authority. In the years after the Second Vatican Council, the balance afforded by religious authority was significantly down-played, largely as reaction to the authoritarianism in the precon-ciliar years and also because of the trend towards greater participation. Pa~'ticipation, however, does not remove the need for authority, and authoritarianism is an abuse which can be reme-died without touching the principle o.f authority itself. If no chan-rlels of legitimate authority are provided, one of two things seems to happen: either (1) the group crumbles from within because there is no commonly acknowle.dged center, no one has respon-sibility at the corporate level, and each sister has to go her own way, interpreting her religious life to the best of her ability; or (2) some sister emerges as a leader without religious authority, either by fo.rce of con.viction or natural gifts or charism or plain per-sonal aggressiveness. In either case the important value of re!igious obedience gets lost. Yet it is through religious obedience that we understand religious authority, and it is the two of them together that create the unique relationship in which a properly autho-rized leader can enable sisters to grow, not in passivity and not in external adaptation only, but in an active collaboration which make~ for joy and greater fullness of life. Religious government, therefore, needs both leaders.hip and authority and needs them together. Authority wi'thout leadership can become an insecure and heavy-handed exercise of power. Leadership without authority can lack sound direction, responsi-bi! ity, and accountability," making for disturbance rather than for peaceful growth in the Lord. Structures of government somehow 178 Review for Religious have to harmonize the two. Authority is usually provided in struc-tures at general, provincial, and local levels that maintain personal authority balanced by councils, chapters, and assemblies according to particular traditions, and that indicate an unambiguous line of accountability. Leadership, which cannot be legislated so directly, is implied in statements about the charism, spirit, and vision of the institute, in the qualities required in sisters exercising author-ity, and in the details of responsibilities and job descriptions. Moreover, it has been characteristic of the structures of religious government that authority is not exercised in isolation, nor should it be exercised in a way that creates a gap between those exercis-ing authority and those accepting it. This last point is a matter of style rather than of structure and is as much a challenge for teams and groups, even when the respective responsibilities and rela-tions are well spelled out, as it is for individuals. The revision of constitutions has led to some solid rethinking in the whole area of leadership, authority, and government. As we have seen, the theme goes far back in the history of religious life, and the strands intertwine inextricably, like differently colored ply in a length of wool making a single thread. Sisters today are certainly clearer on the issues than they were at the turn of the 1970s. All the same, we are never free from the responsibility of asking ourselves: (I) Has the basic function of leadership, author-ity, and government in religious life changed? If it has, why? And to what? (2) Do our structures correspond to their purpose and function? Now I would like to share with you what some samples of recently revised and approved constitutions from different parts of the world have to say to us about leadership, authority, and government in religious life today. In the light of these concrete statements, I will afterwards pick up again the two questions I have just raised. Sampling Some Revised Constitutions During my period of service at the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (CICLSAL), about 1500 revised constitutions received their decrees of approval, and there have been a few more since then. Among this overwhelming amount of material, my only option was to take a sampling. I decided on five criteria of choice. March-April 1993 179 Linscott ¯ Leadership, Authority, and Religious Government 1. My first criterion was to restrict myself to constitutions presented in English. There are more than enough of these to give a range of thought and experience, and I have the advantage of knowing them well and of having worked with many of the sisters who produced them. 2. My second criterion was to cover the different spiritual traditions in religious families, since these affect concepts and structures of government. I took sisters' constitutions deriving from the inspiration of the classic founders Alphonsus, Augustine, Benedict, Dominic, Francis, Ignatius, and Paul of the Cross. I also took some from the women's congregations that have a com-mon source of spirituality: Ursulines, Sisters of St. Joseph, Sisters of the Presentation, Sisters of Mercy, Sisters of Charity, Sisters of the Incarnate Word. I sampled as a further category congrega-tions with a strong and clear individual charism that are not notably indebted either to one of the major religious families of men or to other groups of sisters. 3. My third criterion was to cover a wide range of cultures, since these are important in the expression of values and princi-ples. The English-speaking world is notoriously extensive, and also some institutes present their texts in English either because this is an acceptable second language or because their principal growing points are in English-speaking areas outside their coun-try of origin. I ended up with constitutions from Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, England, France, Holland, India, Ireland, Malta, New Zealand, the Philippines, Rome, South Africa, and the United States of America. 4. A fourth criterion was to include a few constitutions of men religious by way of comparison. 5. Lastly, I included a random sampling of the remaining texts to a total of sixty constitutions. Fifty-five are by sisters and five by men religious: two clerical institutes and three of brothers. My observations are based on these sixty texts. Initial Impressions As one would expect of approved constitutions, on the subject of leadership, authority, and government, all the texts are canon-ically accurate inasmuch as they all harmonize with the present law of the church and with the values, principles, and basic structures deriving from their own previously approved founding charisms. 180 Review for Religious Yet no two are alike, and when I speak of a certain degree of com-monality I am not referring to common material or even to depen-dence on a common Code, but to a certain convergence of values and thinking across texts worked out independently and expressed with a great deal of diversity. Convergence. The highest degree of convergence is in the impor.tance attached to authority in regard to both government and leadership. In almost every case, whether the actual words are used or not, there is the idea that authority is to be exercised in government by sisters with qualities of leadership. The three elements go together, and it is authority that links the other two. There is a high degree of convergence also on the source of reli-gious authority being ultimately God himself and on the spirit of service which marks its exercise. Jesus Christ, whether as shep-herd, servant, son, or savior, is the model for the kind of exer-cise of authority in leadership that should characterize religious government. This spiritual level is usually clear and well expressed with a direct application to unity and mission. Areas of Diversity. The convergences are not bland, because there is no uniformity in the concrete provisions that express the converging values and principles. Each institute has not only its own founding gift, but also its own living tradition and experience, its own "now," and its own vision of the future. So, for example, even institutes which have the Rule of St. Augustine or that of the Franciscan Third Order Regular or the Constitutions of St. Ignatius as part of their proper law will have their own ways of incorporating these in concrete enactments. A good deal can be inferred, therefore, from the way in which the principles of government are actually spelled out. There are nuances about authority, leadership, and government to be found in the job descriptions given for moderators at the different lev-els, in the qualities and priorities looked for in those who will be responsible for government, in provisions for a particular style of operation, or in the way that responsibility and accountability are handled. Relationships and structures are the other areas with rich implications. The way in which a text expresses the com-bined responsibility of the membership and the various sisters in authority for the well-being of the institute is also instructive. So are the relations and interaction of moderators and councils and of both with chapters. Something can be learned from the way that the material on March-April 1993 181 Linscott ¯ Leadership, Authority, and Religious Government authority and government is organized and presented. Some con-stitutions begin with people, some with types of norm; some begin with the whole entity of the institute as the body expressing the corporate charism and recognized as such by the church, some with the rights and responsibilities of the individual sister. Most start at the general level, since this avoids having to repeat and anticipate, but some begin with the local level. Perhaps the most revealing thing is terminology. If we raised our eyebrows in 1983 over the Code's use of"moderator," it was only because we had not yet realized our own creativity in find-ing names for those who were once uniformly referred to as supe-riors and for the sisters who work immediately with them. All the constitutions I studied were approved between September 1982 and May 1991. In them I met superiors, abbesses, prioresses, directors, facilitators, coordinators, sisters-in-charge, guardians, custodians, mothers, moderators, ministers, and presidents. These are helped and advised by councils, cabinets, government groups, boards, teams, and assistants and are accountable to assemblies, senates, and chapters. When the substance of all these is actually spelled out in terms of purpose, function, authority, and account-ability, there may not be any great difference at present between one reality and another. I have a strong sense, however, of dif-ference in climate and general approach between sisters who are superiors with a council responsible to a general chapter and sis-ters who are presidents with a cabinet responsible to a senate. What is denoted is similar, but the connotations are different, and it remains to be seen where that will take us. Leadership, Authority, and Religious Government in the Texts First of all, let me say that the three concepts, though they are present in each of the sixty texts, are not always specifically named. Neither do they receive equal emphasis. Authority gets by far the most attention, even in the two constitutions where the writers did not use the word itself. Government also gets pretty full treat-ment, especially in the abstract, and texts which reflect some reluctance to say that a moderator governs will spell out for her a number of responsibilities which are clearly those of govern-ment. Leadership is stressed much less. The word rarely occurs except in phrases such as "the general moderator is the leader of the congregation" or "the sister chosen as the general moderator 182 Review for Religious should have qualities of leadership." Leadership in its ordinary sense, however, is very often implied, and the spiritual role of leadership is clear. Religious Government and Authority. Statements about gov-ernment alone are usually clear and often pithy. They tend to ~pecify purpose: "Government in the eongregation provides structures and offices that facilitate our common life and ministry by ordering relat!onsh'ips and designating the functions of the members" (U.S.A.). "Governance is the means through which the resources of the congregation are unified, directed, and integrated" (U.S.A.). More subjec-tively descriptive but still purposeful is a' statement such as this: "Government is an experience in relationships, in deci-sion making, and in communication. Through itwe strive together to seek and do God's will" (Rome). From England comes the observation, that government is par.t of any organized society and that, in the case of rel!gious, it maintains the inspiration, nature, and purpose of an institute as living reali-ties. Most of the provision for government follows statements on authority which place its source in God o1: in Jesus Christ and which distinguish it from other kinds of personal power: :'Christ's authority given him by the Father was clearly .distinct in its exer-cise from the authority of the rulers of this world who lord it over their subjects," says an Irish text. "Christ expressed his authority in loving service: to heal, to forgive, to give life, to send in mis-sion." Some texts underline the ecclesial dimension: "Authority is given by God to the church, and it is from the church that the congregation receives its recognition as a religious institute and therefore a share in the authority of Christ" (England). "Authority in our institute is of an ecclesial nature and should reflect the self-g!ving of our divine master" (Philippines). "God is the source of all authority, but in working out his plan he asks for our coop-eration" (England). Some constitutions refer authority directly I have a strong sense, however, of difference in climate and general approach between sisters who are superiors with a council responsible to a general chapter and sisters who are presidents with a cabinet responsible to a senate. March-April 1993 183 Linscott ¯ Leadership, Authority, and Religious Government The model of religious authority is, without exception, Jesus Christ. to superiors and chapters, but at least one broadens it to this: "From Jesus, proclaimed in the gospel, the authority of the . . . congregation, mediated and affirmed through the church, resides in the communion of its members according to their respective roles" (U.S.A.). The model of religious authority is, without exception, Jesus Christ, "the master who made himself servant in order that those he served might share his life and mission and that they in their turn might minister to others" (England). "Evangelical author-ity," says a congregation based in Rome, "is service which reflects the humility and self-giving of Jesus." Another one says: "Authority is founded on Christ, who received it from the Father and who came as one who serves. The example and teaching of Christ inspire sisters in positions of authority and all of us to serve as he did" (Rome). From Austria comes this statement: "In a religious con-gregation, the only model of authority is Jesus." The same arti-cle goes on to say, "Being a Marian congregation, all authority should reflect the gentleness and motherliness of our blessed Mother." This unanimously affirmed source and model determines to a great extent what the constitutions have to say about the nature of religious authority, what it requires, what it extends to, and how it is exercised. The question "What is it?" is variously answered: "It is a service meant to help the sisters discern and accomplish God's will" (U.S.A.). "It is a ministry of service which has as its object the fostering of unity in our diversity and the promotion of our mission in the life and work of the church" (England). "It helps us incarnate the vision of our founder in our time and to go forward together in the same spirit towards the same end" (Canada). Unity, mission, identity, and the discerning of God's will recur constantly as themes of response to the ques-tion "What is religious authority?" or "What is it all about?" It is interesting that the attempts to define authority as principle, which tied some of the renewal chapters in knots in the late 1960s, have been abandoned in the approved constitutions. There is no dictionary definition but rather a description, or an inference from needs and consequences, which is concrete rather' than the- 184 Reviev~ for Religions oretical. It expresses a basic principle, however, and links it with government, charisms, obedience, and leadership. This principle is nearly always taken from the standpoint of faith. What is required for the exercise of religious authority is expressed in terms of values, attitudes, qualities, and relation-ships. Sisters exercising authority do so for the sake of unity, wit-ness, effective corporate service, the growth of their sisters towards the fullness of Christ, and the building of the kingdom of God (Belgium, France, South Africa, U.S.A.). They are asked to be unifiers, animators, discerners, listeners (England, Holland, Ireland). The qualities looked for in a good superior at whatever level are instructive. In these texts there is much less of the utopi-anism that characterized the early 1970s and scared away many a good potential superior by requiring a combination of qualities which an archangel would have had a hard time meeting. The requirements now are geared to a more realistic perception. "A sis-ter who exemplifies the spirit and life of our congregation" (India) is a requirement which recurs fairly often and which applies to religious Pope Paul VI's observation that the people of our time respond better to example than to theory. "A woman of prayer and faith, close to God in her personal life" is also often mentioned. Then come the personality traits: compassion, courage, vision, love for the institute and for the sis-ters, practical intelligence; then the qualities that relate specifically to the exercise of authority: perceptiveness, good judgment, patience, balance, firmness, experience of life, and the capacity to listen, to collaborate, and to decide. It is noticeable that recently approved constitutions take it for granted that the qualities of those exercising authority need to be complemented and com-pleted by those of their immediate collaborators and by the sisters at large. Hence the importance of relationships, not only in the sense of personal relations--as, for example, between a superior and her councilors or with her sisters--but also in the deeper sense of the necessary interrelation of authority and obedience for the common project, or in "the sense that all the sisters in their various ways are responsible for the good of the institute. "There can be no community among us," says one text, "unless our com-mon life and mission are governed by deliberations and decisions that draw us all towards a u.nity of thought, sentiment, and action. To those deliberations and decisions we are all obligated as reli-gious pledged to obedience--both to contribute and to respond" March-April 1993 185 Linscott ¯ Leader'sbip; Authority, and Religious Government (U.S.A.). A text from England sees sisters serving in authority as "challenging each sister to fidelity in our shared spirit and charism so that our way of prayiiag, living, and working together may be fruitful for burselves and for others." This kind of statement car-ries religious authority beyond the juridical limits of the consti-tfitions and church law according to which it is exercised and into the realm of th~ basic values of religious life for which it is given. Principies foi" the exercise of religious ~iuthority receive more attention in recently approved ,constitutions than in preceding texts, where they tended to be taken for granted. As early as 1966, Ecdesiae Sanctae provided for "an ample and free consultatiofi of all [the religious in an institute]" in the preparation of the special general chapter of renewal (ES §4), and this basic concept of par- ~igipation echoes in practically every text. One document puts it like this: "Since the Holy Spirit works in all, we encourage the active pai:dcipation of each in the decision-making process within the community and the congregation. Our acceptance of respon-sibility for implementing the decisions made is a source of unity among us" (U.S.A.). Participation is seeh as a source of mutual support (India) and is meant to further the aims and goals of the congregation (U.S.A.). More specific than participation as a gen-eral principle is participative government which, according to one text, "includes these elements fundamental to government struc-tures: sl~ared responsibility, subsidiarity, accountability" (U.S.A.). These last three principles, together with the need for commu-nication, are mentioned in practically all tiae constitutions stud-ied and directly reflect the influence of Vatican II. The American text just quoted says that shared responsibility, subsidiarity, and ac6ountability are fundamental to government structures. In one' way, such structures exist to make religiofis authority effective: They channel authority and locate it, limit it, and focus it. They are, therefore, very specific to each institute, reflecting as they do its charism and traditibns, it~ circumstances and its cultures. The connection.wii:h charism is usually evident. Congregations whose founding gift requires a stable way of life in the sense of a fair amount of residential stability and a good deal of authority at the local level will have structures that allow for decentralization and immediate participation. Congregations whose founding gift requires apostolic mobility will have more centralized general structures if things are to work well, and par-ticipation in matters beyond the local level will often be limited i 86 Review for Religious to elected representatives. For example, three congregations in the Benedictine tradition from three different continents all have structures which move solidly from the individual sister to cor-porate unity. Two institutes strongly in the Ignatian tradition begin with the need for someone "who holds the charge of the entire body of the society and whose duty is the good government, preser-vation, and development of the whole body" (Ireland). Here the starting point is the superior general. Most institutes lie on an arc somewhere between these two. The fact is that structures, all of which are approved as adequate in their provisions for government, can be as varied as the charisms they reflect. Circumstances diversify them still further, for there are bound to be dif-ferences in structures of government between an institute many of whose sis-ters are centered in one house Structures, all of which are approved as adequate in their provisions for government, can be as varied as the charisms they reflect. (England), an institute whose sisters are in small houses near to each other (Belgium), and an institute whose members are widely scattered across vast areas in the prairies of the United States or the outback of Australia. Cultures, too, certainly affect structures and in particular the way in which structures are regarded. Institutes of the same reli-gious family and with a good deal of common tradition keep adapting their structures differently according as they are in Australia, Canada, Rome, or the United States. The European texts lay stress on the persons who exercise authority, their qual-ities, responsibilities, soundness of judgment, relation to others, accountability. There is an underlying element of trust and need to support, and an implication that, given the right persons, things cannot go too far wrong even if the structures themselves are less than perfect. This, however, is not an excuse for poor structures. The structural provisions are generally good. The Indian texts have greater structural detail, but still a considerable stress on the person. Some of the American texts, however, are very strong on structure, almost as if good structure of government could protect an institute from any kind of abuse of power. This is by no means a universal feature of texts from. the United States, but March-April 1993 187 Linscott ¯ Leadership, Authority, and Religious Government where it occurs the structures are given in great detail, there is generally a system of checks and balances, a high proportion of the whole text is devoted to government, and there is not very much about the kind of sister looked for to exercise authority. In an extreme case, there is no more than the bare juridical require-ments. Again, between the two extremes, there is a wide range across the sixty texts. Each of them has been approved in its own right. The only point I make here is that, beyond the influence of charism and of apostolic circumstances, governmental structures for the exercise of religious authority are affected to some extent by culture. This has its own repercussion, of course, in interna-tional congregations. Religious Authority and Leadership. That the duty of leading is an aspect of government and that religious authority is given for this purpose is clear in most of the constitutions. "Those who hold authority in the institute have the right and responsibility to lead it in fidelity to its spirit and mission," says a text from Australia. There are also many references to general and local superiors being leaders of the whole institute or of the local com-munity respectively. What this leadership consists in emerges from the qualities looked for in a superior: "A woman of faith, discretion, and courage, she cultivates a spirit of availability and openness. A woman of compassion and understanding, she inspires, unifies, directs. A woman of fidelity, she fosters a response to the church and the world in accord with our charism. She is responsible for creating an atmosphere conducive to the spiri-tual, intellectual, and affective growth of each member, and she should show more concern for the Holy Spirit and for persons than for structures as such and for the letter of the law" (U.S.A.). This pastoral approach reappears in very many texts. Superiors lead by what they are and what they do: "She is steward of our way of life., of the heritage and mission of the congregation and of the gifts of each sister . She leads by her example, teaching, and decisions . . . and she exercises her authority with pastoral con-cern" (Australia). If the superior is expected to have leadership qualities, they are of a Christlike kind and facilitate her free and simple exercise of authority. One constitutional text notes that, when this is the case, the leadership qualities in the sisters are also fostered. "The right exercise of authority encourages each sister to become that per-son whom the Father called in Christ. The superior is confident 188 Review for Religious that the Spirit who creates diversity is able by his loving influ-ence to preserve union of mind and heart among the sisters. In this encouraging atmosphere, the graces of our baptism and religious vocation give rise to a number of leadership qualities among the sisters, all contributing to the vitality of community and the ful-fillment of our mission in the church" (U.S.A.). The role of authority in its pas-toral leading then becomes the encourage-ment and harmonizing of the leadership gifts in the community. This very fact points out the distinc-tion between the authority to lead that is vested in one person with assistance from others and the leadership gifts that can be in any community member. The two are not the same and are usually distinguished when they appear in constitutions. For example, we have from Australia: "The superior exercises her authority according to the spirit and laws of our congregation. In giving leadership, she encourages the participation of all the members," and from the United States: "The community min-ister is the canonical leader and unifier of the congregation. She has authority and responsibility for spiritual and apostolic lead-ership." If the kind of leadership expected of sisters in authority is implied in the qualities desired for eligibility, the direction of that leadership is usually implicit in their functions. At the general level, a superior "unifies in charity, urges fidelity to the gospel and to the constitutions; calls individuals and groups to core-sponsibility and account; keeps abreast of movements in the church and in society; enunciates goals and priorities as a com-munity in mission; focuses the corporate nature of our life and mission; and serves in various representative and governmental capacities" (U.S.A.). At the local level she serves the action of the Holy Spirit who is forming the community from within into a single body for the building of the kingdom (Canada). In texts from Malta, India, the Philippines, and New Zealand, too, this is spelled out in terms of animation, administration, and forma-tion. The role of authority in its pastoral leading then becomes the encouragement and harmonizing of the leadership gifts in the community. March-April 1993 189 Linscott ¯ Leadership, Authority, and Relig4ous Government The ideal would seem to be that a sister who exercises reli-gious authority is a leader and that her leadership qualities are evident in her governing as she encourages and draws on the gifts of her sisters, especially those who more immediately share responsibility with her, for the well-being of the community. Leadership and Government. For the sake of completeness, there should be a word about what the constitutions give us on leadership and government. It is a short word, because they say very little on the point directly. For the constitutions, leadership is a quality desirable in sisters exercising authority, and govern-ment is the concrete process by which authority is exercised to unify and animate the institute so as to attain its goal. The texts take both leadership and government in relation to authority, not in relation to each other. We are obliged, so to speak, to go via authority if we want to link the other two. This is probably an inevitable state of affairs, for constitutions are spiritual juridical documents which give principles and norms for what can be leg-islated. Both authority and government are patient of legislation; leadership is not. So it is normal that, while several texts hope for leadership as a quality in those vested with authority to gov-ern, nobody assumes that it is a quality conferred by the fact of having that authority. This in itself is a realistic step forward. Conclusion How can we summarize all this? The new elements that mark the current phase of religious government in contrast to those which preceded it seem to be: ¯ a renewed sense of the spiritual dimension and of the kind of responsibility which it involves; ¯ a sharp awareness of the rediscovered founding charism; the concept of authority as service reflecting the Christ who came not to be served but to serve; ¯ the idea of complementing necessary gifts; openness to a wide participation of the sisters in general according to their roles and experience, continuing the thrust of the Second Vatican Council on the dignity of each person and expressing the belief that the Holy Spirit can work through each one for the good of the whole; ¯ the adoption of responsibility, subsidiarity, and account-ability as basic principles; ¯ the recognition by many that religious government is inseparably linked with the founding charism and with 190 Review for Religious the vow of obedience and so has a dimension of faith and of relation to the church that distinguishes it ultimately from administration, organization, management, or indeed any other form of government. At the same time, pro-cesses of consensus and discernment, variously under-stood, have been widely adopted. The evolution of the understanding and praxis of leadership, authority, and government in religious life is continuous. It is not in itself an experiment which can be tried out for a certain num-ber of years and then be confirmed, modified, or dropped, although individual structures expressing it can be handled in this way. In itself the evolutitn is essential and consistent. It is, there-fore, from the viewpoint of the present moment in an evolving continuum that we can pick up the two questions we raised some pages back. Has the basic function of leadership, authority, and government in religious life changed? If it has, why? Ana to what? We have seen that the goals and values for which leadership, authority, and gov-ernment exist in religious iife go far back in history, emerging from the following of Christ in radic~il gospel living as it was first understood bythe desert fathers and mothers and the early mqnks. From at least the time of St. Benedict, these goals and values have included the promotion of individual and community growth towards the full maturity of Christ; th~ fostering of unity, peace, and mission at the service of the church; the encouragement of fidelity; the ensuring of forrhation; the provision of the necessi-ties for consecrated life, all in accord with the particular found-ing charism of the institute. It is evident from the survey of the sixty recently approved constitutions that these basic goals and values remain constant. The stated purpose and function of gov-ernment is always that the institute a~hieve the goal for which it exists in the church: a specific pu.blic witness to Christ and his gospel in unity, prayer, and growth in love and in the service of mission. As regards these purposes, there is little change. What has changed, from the evidence of quite a few texts, is something which is not directly within the competence of con-stitutions: the kind and extent of responsibility actually involved in undertaking the service of government today. Whereas, even into the 19th century, religious government was (and in principle still is) primarily a spiritual and ecclesial matter, for many insti-tutes of sisters today there are accretions which create a further and different kind of responsibility. A superior general who has March-April 1993 191 Linscott ¯ Leadership, Authority, and Religious Government been elected to see to the growth and mission of her sisters in service to the sick with Christ the healer may find herself by that very fact fostering that growth as president of a multimillion-dol-lar hospital corporation. The superior of an institute with an apos-tolate of education may well be ex officio a member of the boards of various colleges and universities. She will almost inevitably find herself ultimately responsible for the administration of homes for the aged sisters and for dealing with financial reports. The spread of an institute and the desire for hands-on government may call for wide travel, a knowledge of languages, and the capac-ity for inculturation. Both public relations and communication, with all their current technicalities, will claim attention. Clearly, responsibilities have to be delegated. However, under this kind of pressure, things may get treated from the point of view of the accretions instead of the essential. This substitutes administra-tion for religious government. It tends to depersonalize, to use authority for efficiency only, without the spiritual quality which should animate the government of religious. The accretions, which are many and demanding and which show no sign of dimin-ishing of their own accord, are the proper field for delegation and group work. To elect superiors and councilors or tdam mem-bers in view of the accretions instead of the capacity to serve the basic goals and values of the institute would be to build in a dis-tortion. Somehow, the different responsibilities have to be dis-tinguished and provided for in their own right. Do our structures com'espond to their purpose and function? This is a question that each institute has to answer for itself, because each one has its unique charism that determines the purpose, function, and structures of its government. Certain circumstances, however, have influenced structures and government in many institutes of sisters dedicated to works of the apostolate; there are reflections of them in the constitutions studied. It may be worth noting them, for they could still clog the wheels in some institutes. Among such circumstances would be: ¯ an institute's existence before canonical recognition when there was not a corpus of canons a.dapted to the needs of sisters and when, in consequence, individual traditions of government could range from the very firm to the very loose according to personalities and to the local circum-stahces-- such precanonical traditions may well have an influence still; ¯ the high degree of uniformity in provisions after 1917; 192 Review for Religion, s ¯ the tendency to authoritarianism and the stress on author-ity of status between the Code of 1917 and the renewal initiated hy Vatican II; ¯ the rapid change in structures and praxis that followed the special general chapters at the end of the 1960s; ¯ the impact of social, political, and psychological change brought about by major movements over the past thirty years: peace and justice, solidarity with the poor, femi-nism, rapid communication, even the recent collapse of communism; ¯ internal tensions regarding identity vis-a-vis the laity, lifestyle, mission, place in the church, raison d'etre; ¯ some confusion of the functions of consultation, consen-sus, and discernment with the functions proper to gov-ernment. SCRIS had a point in the early 1970s when it held that lead-ership and religious authority are not the same thing and that their respective relations to government are different. Time has brought out, however, that religious government does not impose a choice between the two. On the contrary, both are needed, although in different ways. Good religious government reflects not only the word of the gospel, but the Word himself, who leads as pastor and as servant precisely because he so evidently has authority. 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, or institutional promotion of for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will be considered only on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. March-April 1993 193 JANICE McLAUGHLIN The Meaning of Evangelization Today evangelizing The Shona people of Africa have many names for God. My favorite is "Chipindikure"--The One Who Turns Things Upside Down. Chipindikure comes from the root word kupinduka, which means transformation or revolu-tion. This is what God is doing in the life of each of us and in our world. And this, I think, is what evangelization is all about; letting God's message--which is the most revolu-tionary message the world has ever known--letting that message transform us, turn us upside down, so that we in turn may transform society. Evangelization, then, is about change and about choice. I can say no to change. I can choose to stay in my little rut and refuse to be shaken up and turned upside down. But God does not give up that easily. Like St. Paul, God knocks us off our horse over and over again until we get the message. We have all had these moments of insight in our lives, these turning points, which open us to n~w possibilities. Let us look at some examples of what I mean from my experience--after which I hope you will look at examples from your own experience. After I entered Maryknoll in 1961, I became involved in the civil-rights movement and the antiwar movement. Janice McLaughlin MM spent 22 years in Africa. She recently completed her doctoral dissertation on "The Catholic Church and Zimbabwe's War of Liberation 1972-1980" at the University of Zimbabwe. She may be addressed at Community Office; Maryknoll Sisters; Maryknoll, New York 10545. 194 Review 3~br Religious I also worked with the "war on poverty" program in the small town of Ossining, New York, near Maryknoll. But I think that my eyes were really opened for the first time when I went to East Africa in 1969. Learning another language and living in another culture is perhaps a shortcut to transformation. It forced me to give up my old way of looking at things--my Pittsburgh, St. Lawrence O'Toole Parish, McLaughlin, United States way of looking at life, at God, at the world. It is a shock to learn that you do not have all the answers and that you are not even asking the right questions. The wonderful people of Kenya, and later the people of Zimbabwe and Mozambique, taught me that people are more important than things; that being is more important than doing; that God and relationships are at the heart of everything. In 1977 I went from Kenya to Zimbabwe, which was Southern Rhodesia at that time, and worked as the press secre-tary for the Justice and Peace Commission. I was detained and then deported for telling the truth about the war that was taking place there. Racial segregation and discrimination were govern-ment policy, as they had once been here in the United States. I saw that the war of liberation was an Exodus experience for the African people as they journeyed from slavery to freedom. I came to realize that this iourney goes on in each of our lives as we seek to free ourselves from whatever enslaves us. For some peo-ple it is drugs or alcohol or a history of physical or sexual abuse. For us religious it is often our fears, our inflexibility, and our selfishness. Later I worked with refugees from the war and saw that we are all refugees on a journey through life to our true home. The refugees showed me that, the less we carry on the journey, the easier it will be to reach our destination. In fact, life is a process of stripping us of all we cherish until God is all and everything for us. This is the mystery of death and resurrection which is at the heart of our faith--dying to self so that we may live in Christ. Thus refugees and displaced persons, political prisoners and freedom fighters, and the courageous men, women, and children of Africa who never give up hoping in the midst of so much destruction and death have evangelized me and have shown me that evangelization is incarnational and prophetic and is rooted in prayer. March-April 1993 195 McLaugblin. Evangelization Evangelization Is Incarnational Valentine, one of my students at a school for freedom fight-ers in Maputo, Mozambique, helped me see how incarnation works today. He told me how he had joined the liberation strug-gle after his graduation. "I thought I was better than the others because I had finished high school," he confessed. "I thought that I would be made ~ commander. But I was treated like everyone else." He said that his clothes became torn, that he had no soap for bathing, and little food. He began to think that he had made a mistake and that life was better under colonialism. "Then in my downtrodden position," he said, "I learned the beauty of the revolution. I learned that my suffering was to help others. My life now is to serve the people." Valentine was turned upside down, from being a conceited, selfish youth to becoming a person for others. "From my down-trodden position, I learned. ," he said. This is how God teaches all of us. When we are down and out; when we have lost what is precious to us; when we do not have all the answers; when we feel useless, lost, and alone: God reaches out and touches our pain, our suffering, our loss, turning our little daily deaths into new life. "She who loses her life will find it," God has promised. The happiest moments of my life were the times when I had the least, when, like Valentine, I was downtrodden and suffering with and for others. The three weeks I spent in solitary confine-ment in a Rhodesian prison, for instance, I had few material pos-sessions: a prison uniform, a lumpy bed, and lousy food. But this hardly mattered because the other prisoners reached out to me and welcomed me in their midst. They sang freedom songs at night and smuggled notes to me during the day. They even sent me food when they learned that I liked their African diet. I felt part of something bigger than myself. I was suffering for a cause, and the pain and fear no longer mattered because I was not alone. I was with the oppressed people, and God was there with us in our prison cells. I had this same experience of solidarity and closeness to God in the refugee camps deep in the forests of Mozambique. There I was the one who was weak and powerless. I did not know how to survive in the forest, so the children became my caretakers and guides. They would keep me company to cheer me up; they would teach me their language and share with me any special treats like sugarcane or maputi (a kind of popcorn). They were ministering 196 Review for Religious to me. I did not have to produce or perform, but merely to be there with them in their exile from home. This incarnational approach from within is very different from the balcony approach, where we stand outside and above, pointing fingers at what is wrong and telling others to change. Too often church people, including us religious, stand on our bal-conies criticizing and throwing stones at the world instead of immersing ourselves in the pain and suffering of the poor and oppressed, as Christ did. This immersion enables us to see the world from a new perspective. It is what turns us upside down. Evangelization Is Prophetic When we have been changed, then we are ready to change the world together with the victims. I remember an African sis-ter in Zimbabwe, Sister Marie Theresa Paulino, who explained to me how she became involved in assisting the freedom fighters during the war of liberation. "I thought of Jesus carrying his cross," she told me. "Everyone stood on the sidelines and watched. Only one woman had courage and came forward to wipe his face with her veil. I decided that I could not stand on the sidelines and watch my people suffering, but like Veronica I must have courage and do something to help." She was a nurse. She would disguise herself as a peasant woman, tie her medical instruments around her waist, and walk long distances to mountain caves where she would treat freedom fighters who had been wounded. This was a very risky thing to do. She could have been arrested and even killed if caught by the government authorities. Who knows what the church authorities would have done if they had known of this single sister's act of courage to wipe the face of her suffering people? Each of us is called to have this kind of courage, to wipe the faces of suffering people: the homeless in our streets, the drug addicts, the AIDS patients, the gangs in our inner cities, the sin-gle mothers, the abused and abandoned children, the new immi-grants. I have discovered in the months that I have been back in the United States that there are endless problems here needing to be solved. In fact, it seems tp me that the people of the United States are much more needy than the people I have known in Africa; people in this country of excess and abundance are in dan-ger of losing their souls. Marcb-Atrril 1993 197 McLaugblin ¯ Evangelization Prophetic action is needed to turn the values of this country upside down. We need more than a new president or a new congress or a balanced budget, though these might help. We need more than family values, though these too might help. If we want to save this country, save this planet, and save ourselves, we must return to the radical message of Christ in the gospels. What would the world look like if we truly walked in the footsteps of Christ? Do you think we would turn back Haitians fleeing the poverty and violence in their country? Would we exonerate the police-men who beat up Rodney King? Would we doubt Anita Hill? Would we bomb Iraq or any other so-called enemy? Would defense be our largest industry? Would we fail to sign environ-mental treaties at the Earth Summit? Would we allow thousands of Africans to die of starvation? Would we walk by the homeless in our streets? Would we allow violence and sex to dominate our television and movie screens? Would we let money rule our lives and rob our souls? Someone must stand up and say that t.he emperor has no clothes. Emperors, whether in the church or in society, do not like being reminded of their nakedness, and so we can expect to be condemned and criticized. Do we expect that we his servants should not suffer as Christ, our master, has suffered all these things for our sakes? Let me tell you of a friend of mine in Zimbabwe, Father Michael Lapsley. He is an Anglican priest from New Zealand who has spend all of his adult life condemning the sin of apartheid in South Africa. He was deported from South Africa and from Lesotho. Then two years ago in Harare he opened a package that had come to him from South Africa. It was a letter bomb. It blew off both his hands and destroyed one of his eyes. When I went to see him in the hospital a few days after the bombing, he had two bandaged stumps where his hands had been and a gaping hole that had held his eye. If it had been me, I would rather have been dead. But Michael was cheerful, and he said, "The Boers took my hands and my eye, but they left me my most powerful weapon, my tongue. And with my tongue I will continue to denounce apartheid until the day I die." This is what it means to evangelize the world, to live as Christ did and in so doing to change the world. 198 Reviev; for Religious Evangelization Is Rooted in Prayer We cannot hope to lead such radical lives without the sup-port of prayer. Prayer will give us the courage to take risks, the wisdom to expose the lies of our society, and the strength to join the victims. My understanding of prayer, too, been changed by my expe-rience in Africa. The African leader and philosopher Leopold Senghor has said, "Faith here [in Africa] is as essential to the soul as is bi'ead, rice, or honey to the body. Africans' gift to humankind is their ability to.perceive the supernatural as something really natural--so to speak." Creation spirituality, then, is nothing new to the people of Africa. It is their cul-ture and their way of life. They do not dis-tinguish between the sacred and the secukir. God is perceived as being tru.ly present everywhere and in all things. So they respect other human beings as the temples of God, and they respect the earth and all its creatures as God's dwelling place. African spirituality is all-embracing; there is nothing outside its scope. During Zimbabwe's war of lib-eration, for instance, the traditional religious leaders set down rules of conduct for the freedom fighters. VChile these spiritual men and women who are prophets, healers, bringers of rain, and mediums between the living and the dead were not able to prevent the war, they were able to humanize it by forbidding the needless shedding of blood and the destruction of wildlife and vegetation. African religion thus played an important role in introducing spir-itual norms and values into the freedom struggle. A recent article about prayer from South Africa's Institute for Contextual Theology points out the surprising fact that Jesus had not been teaching his disciples how to pray. They had to ask him. The article explains that Jesus wanted his followers to experience prayer as a need rather than a duty, and notes that there is no commandment in the Bible which says, "Thou shalt pray." It goes on to explain that prayer is like eating and sleeping. Unless there is something wrong with us, we will all eventually feel the need for food and for sleep. The same is true of prayer. How we pray will vary with each person and with our situation. Prayer will give us the courage to take risks, the wisdom to expose the lies of our society, and the strength to join the victims. March-April 1993 199 McLaughlin ¯ Evangelization Africa has taught me to be still and listen to God speaking through all creation and through the people and events I encounter each day. It has taught me to take time for silent pr.ayer, as well as to join in religious celebrations of the people. I have learned to trust the action of God in my life and in other people, rather than trying to do everything myself. Conclusion Life, then, is a journey towards God and with God. Evangelization involves becoming aware of this presence of God in our lives and then sharing this knowledge with others. I believe that this awareness grows when we immerse ourselves in the real-ity of the poor, whether in Zimbabwe, New York, or New South Wales. Their suffering and their faith shatter our complacency, forcing us to question all our preconceptions and prejudices, turn-ing us upside down. We can either become cynical, hopeless, and bitter, or we can face our own powerlessness and grow in faith, hope, and trust in God. Steve Biko, the South African leader who was tortured and died in prison, once said that comfort and security are incom-patible with leadership. I would add that they are incompatible with religious life. We will rarely be turned upside down in the comfort and security of our middle-class convents, spending all our time looking inward at our own spiritual growth. When we come down from our balconies and go out to oth-ers, especially the outcasts and the most needy, we will come alive. It is prophetic just to take the poor seriously in this society where wealth, possessions, and power mean so much. I should add that as women we are also among the poor and the oppressed because we have so little power in our society and in our church. Making the voices of the poor heard in our churches, homes, and offices and in the corridors of power throughout this land can make a difference. I firmly believe that we religious women can turn this society upside down. Let us do it! 200 Review for Religious Questions for reflection and sharing: i. Reflect on some of the turning points in your own life. How were you turned upside down? 2. What do you think needs to be turned upside down in your present situation? 3. What do you think needs to be turned upside down in this society? 4. What action will you take to make at least one of these changes? A Daughter's Monologue with Her Mother You are my child now. Now, you are my child. You may raise your brows at my leaving, or close your eyes on approach, wanting more nearly to turn toward the wall, to shut out the world long since set aside; one you no longer speak to. I will make room for your mood; your darkness, delight. You are my child now; who shall I name you ? You are my child now. There's no wanting in you but ¯ merits my care. You can wear soft hair in brhiding or turned in a bun. Neither will burnish my love nor undo it. Rest quietly, then, macushla. You can't disappoint me. Just who you are is my best expectation. You are my child now; I am the mother. Ann Maureen Gallagher IHM March-April 1993 201 MARIO I. AGUILAR Broken African Pots and a Mission Spirituality MwisSionary work in Africa has for years been associated ith lonely and courageous missionaries, single indi-viduals or very small communities of religious and lay people who have preached the gospel on the African continent in very diffi-cult circumstances. While the former facts are true in some way, in this article I want to look at the particular experience of a group of religious women and men working in Garba Tulla, Kenya, and their own sense of achievement and failure. Although this case is a very localized one, it opens the way to another understanding of missionary spirituality and, I would say, missionary work. I kvill focus, not on missionary strategies--that would constitute mate-rial for missiological studies--but on African pottery. I believe it can help to illustrate a spirituality for mission. In this article I assert that spiritual fulfillment, failure, and possible despair in missionary work are directly related to our own expectations coming from our own sense of achievement and self-understanding. The particular goals and expectations that missionaries arrive with permeate their sense of fulfillment and failurein their missionary work. What one person considers to be success and fulfillment can seem to be failure and reason for despair to somebody else. For this reason I suggest that the African way of making pottery could help us discover God's pres- Mario I. Aguilar SVD has taught Scripture and religious studies in Kenya and anthropology at the University of Vienna. His present address is: School of Oriental and African Studies; Department of Anthropology; Thornhaugh St. Russell Square; London WC1H 0XG; England. 202 Revie~ for Religious ence in different cultures--something I would consider the final goal in missionary work and in our own search for a spirituality of mission. On the other hand, there is this about African pottery: it involves making, breaking, and remaking pots. It is a constant process, one which never ends. Garba Tulla Parish: A Case Study The parish of the Good Shepherd (Parokia Tissitu Dansa) of Garba Tulla is located in the Isiolo deanery of the diocese of Meru, Eastern Kenya. The parish as such was created in 1987, after years of being an outstation of the Isiolo parish and then a so-called Catholic mission. By most people it is still considered the Garba Tulla Catholic Mission. Located in a semidesert area and in the middle of Garba Tulla town, it has a very short history as a so-called missionary presence among th~ Boorana people of the area. From the late 1970s, priests from the Isiolo parish (120 kilo-meters away) had gone to Garba Tulla, mainly on weekends, in order to celebrate the Eucharist with the Catholics who worked in the area. It cannot be denied that their missionary presence was oriented towards the conversion of the Muslim Boorana towards Christianity and specifically towards the Catholic Church.' In 1985 one priest and two brothers established their resi-dence for the first time at the Catholic Mission in Garba Tulla, but my case study begins in 1986, when a group of religious sisters joined the men religious who had been working in the area. At that time the missionary personnel working in Garba Tulla started considering themselves a team, a mission team of religious rather than a number of individuals working in the area. In a deanery where most of the priests come from diocesan backgrounds, this missionary team of religious constituted a novelty. Regarding a missionary strategy, the team went through stages of understanding their presence and work in the area. During the first stage, 1986-1987, the team moved towards being a Christian presence among the people, i3ut with the spiritual goal of fulfill-ment through the conversion of Muslims to the gospel. Their sense of spiritual fulfillment in mission came from the fact of their presence there and from the hopeful possibility that some Muslims would eventually believe in the gospel. New enterprises and new expectations, especially for a team Marcb-~lt~il 1993 203 Aguilar ¯ Broken African Pots Each one of the religious on the team felt that his or her spiritual fulfillment depended on the implementation of a particular model of mission. which had just arrived in the area, provided a time of search for strategies and for a religious spirituality that stressed God's dia-logue with his people, but also stressed the need people have for Christ as the ultimate revelation of God. That was expressed in the creation of many projects of development and in efforts to form a praying community among the team, because of the lack of Christians from the Boorana people of Garba Tulla themselves. The team comprised seven people, who came from seven different countries--a nat-ural richness, one would say. Nevertheless, it created a deep crisis of purpose, because of the different understandings of mission work present among members of the team. By 1987 the leader of the team was changed under difficult circumstances, and a search for a new purpose began once again. There was a new sense of searching for fulfillment after the damage caused by the team's fail-ures of communication and understanding had somehow been repaired. (I believe that those scars will never be healed completely.) The spiritual failure felt by the team was ¯ explained as part of the problem of having a team with individuals of different nationalities and therefore with different models of mission. There were ethnocentric tones to the problem as well; people failed to understand one another's attitudes. Nevertheless, I would say that, by itself, the variety of spiritualities present in the team caused enough internal tensions for a complete breakdown in communication and cooperation. Each one of the religious on the team felt at one point or another that his or her spiritual fulfillment depended on the implementa-tion of a particular model of mission. New attempts to unite the team around a particular model of mission work have in reality also failed, even as new leaders in the team have moved to a second stage, dialogue with the Muslim community, and a third stage, the strengthening of the parish. Those two attempts provided a complete change from the above-mentioned first stage, which was concerned with the actual con-version of the Muslim community towards Christianity. This case could sound like a very familiar story among reli- 204 Review for Religious gious, but to me it posed many questions regarding spiritual ful-fillment, acceptance, failure, and even despair in missionary work. The result of that time of tension was a new beginning, a new search. Years later the team is still searching for answers. Years later different nationalities are still trying to understand what went wrong with those religious at that time, and the scars are still present. As a member of the team which followed the 1987 crisis, I asked myself many times if what actually went wrong was con-nected, not to mission strategies, but rather to a very limited understanding of a spirituality for mission. That mission team ran out of their spiritual resources as religious because they failed to accept that personal fulfillment also requires failures and even despair at certain times of our lives. It is in this sense that I pro-pose that African pottery provides a model that fits our need for spiritual fulfillment and the presence of God in our lives. Success and Failure in an African Pot In 1992 I had the wonderful opportunity to sit surrounded by potters at a village of the Nkhoma mountains in Malawi. The potters were women who belong to the Chewa people. I was acquainted with the art of pottery in my home country, Chile, and also as a religious I had explored the possibility of prayer involving the use of clay and pottery, with very limited results. But now I felt the need to relate a spirituality for mission, based on my experience in Kenya, to the feelings and events of those days spent under the sun in the mountains of Malawi. Among the Chewa people, women produce pottery while men weave mats. A group of women sit in front of a house, surrounded by their children. Usually one woman has learned the techniques of pottery from another village and teaches the others. The clay is prepared by being pounded in a mortar so as to eliminate impu-rities. Pottery making begins when the woman takes a lump of clay and proceeds to pick out of it the hard little pieces that are still present and would cause problems as the clay is molded. The complete process is simple and at the same time elaborate; skill comes only with practice. The more pots you make, the more skilled you become. The clay is pounded with the palms of both hands till it becomes like a flat plate. Then it is slapped at the sides, till the March-April 1993 205 Aguilar ¯ Broken African Pots A broken pot is never thrown away; it becomes an important part of the process of making new pots. actual form of a vessel begins to appear. This is done with round movements of the hands, with the clay in the air. The shoulders give a certain rhythm to this hard process. A lot of strength is required to shape the clay, and what looks like easy work---and fun, too, in a way--is really hard physical work. The potter's hands become hard and dirty. (A skillful potter can make six or seven new pots in a morning's work.) Finally the pot begins to take shape, and what was a piece of clay looks like a new creation. The whole activity of pottery making is witnessed by a group of the village com-munity. Small girls try their luck at pot-tery making. They mold smaller pieces of clay into small pots, their own contribu-tion to village life and a particular com-munity activity. Less-skilled women who are still learning the potter's art are helped regularly by those who have more experi-ence and skill. The whole activity becomes a community activity, in which individu-als are not ashamed of being helped in their process of pottery making. Individual women are encouraged by others with the phrases "Press harder, . Push the clay up," "Make sure both of your hands are molding the clay," and so forth. There is a constant concern for each other. At the proper moment the new, shaped piece of clay is placed on pieces of broken pots that have been spread out on the ground. Those pieces come from pots which broke while being fired or broke while being used for cooking on the family fire. Broken pots, therefore, are still useful for the community in their cre-ative activity. A broken pot is never thrown away; it becomes an important part of the process of making new pots. Broken pots symbolize the continuity of a particular village, where new pots could not be made and would not exist without the contribution made by those broken pots. The past of a people is symbolized by the broken pots, which become part of a present and provide con-tinuity for the future of a people who need to be fed in order to have a future. In the pottery process the potters constandy apply water to the 206 Review for Religious clay while they shape it. The broken pots and the water both con-tribute to the making of new pots. The clay placed on the broken pieces of pottery lies at arms' length in front of the potter as she sits spread-legged on the grtund. When one asks the women why they work this way, they simply say it l~as always been like this. For my part, I am reminded of the act of giving birth. Just in front of the womb, a new creation is b.eing shaped and brought to "life." The process is like giving birth, I could not help thinking how distant, by contrast, from the work of their hands first-world potters appear to be, while in the African villages there is a close union between the potter and her creation, the new pot, nourishment and new life for her own village and community. A piece of wood is used to shape the sides of the pot. The bottom of the pot is shaped with a knife. The inside is cleared of any extra superfluous clay, and the pot is left to dry in the sun-- except during October, when the pots are shaded from the very strong sun of that time of year. After the clay has dried some-what, the pot is smoothed with a stone and decorated and is then ready for firing. Mthough the potter may modify the traditional line-and-dot patterns of decoration, there is a tendency.towards a good deal of continuity. When a woman ig learning pottery, she is taught how the lines and dots are "supposed to be." The process of firing the pots, which takes place some days later, provides a very interesting sight. The pots are lined up and covered.with leaves and branches, Thes~ are then set on fire. The whole community sit~ around the fire and watches as a few women take care of it. There is~ a great sense of expectation as the proc.ess goes on. Some pots will break. Others will come through in good shape and will be ready ftr the final decorations made with some roots~ while the pots are still hot. The "paint" for the decorations (red and black) is provided by local roots which the commufiity also associates with initiation and maturation.' When I was present for the first time, only one pot out of ten broke during the firing process--considered a real success by the community. Usually more pots break. Following the firing of the pots, the whole community cele-brates the event with a meal. After all, the community itself will store and cook their food in those pots and will also generate some income when they sell some of the pots at the local market. March-April 199~ 207 Aguilar ¯ Broken African Pots Not every region produces pots, for the right kind of soil is pres-ent only in the dry areas of the Nldaoma mountains. Wonderfully, the dry soil of arid mountains is the means of feeding these com-munities and thus sustaining life. Creating and Breaking Pots in Mission Work It seems to me that when one talks about potters and pottery, one assumes (as in Jeremiah 18:1-6) that God is the potter and we are those pots of clay that he is molding. What would happen if we consider ourselves the potters and that the clay symbolizes the cultures and peoples we are trying to evangelize, such as the Boorana of Garba Tulla, Kenya? When a mission community moves in and establishes itself, a particular group of people encounters another particular group of people. Each group has its own culture. The so-called "mission-aries" have the idea of forming a Christian community with the other group. Their effort can be compared to the making of pots, for that process, too, is culturally shaped, and people's expectations derive from tradition. Without excluding the possibility of lay people being mis-sionaries and therefore "makers of pots," I will explore these con-cepts with reference to Garba Tulla and its particular makers of pots and the particular missionary community in the parish of the Good Shepherd. The potters involved here came from different cultures. They all had experience of pottery making, and all of them recognized that it could be done only in a particular, culturally constructed way. Pottery making as the creation, subsistence, and growth of a Christian community required a certain experience and a certain risk. All those missionary religious had already experienced mis-. sionary work in other cultures and had brought with them whole bundles of assumed knowledge and expectations. Because of those past experiences, the process of learning pottery making in the Garba Tulla context was already shaped by their backgrounds. There were no teachers involved in this pottery making. Each one just did as he or she knew best. The clay had been prepared by the Italian missionaries who had lived among the Boorana before. When the new potters took over, there was no period of preparation, and the process of mak-ing the pot began immediately. The pot had to be shaped accord- 208 Review for Religious ing to the potters' expectations, and everyone's expectations were different. Although fulfillment, success, and failure can be assumed in the community of African women making pottery, there was no sense of one community of pot-ters among those missionaries. The making of pots was being done individually; different pot-tery techniques were being used. While it is true that a pot is a pot and not something else, the same word when used by different peo-ple evokes different images, shapes, and colors. And so, with-out some discussion and planning and some exchange and dialogue concerning the matter, there is no way to know somebody else's ideas about the making of pots-- or the making of a Christian community. While a pot is being made, much cooperation is needed. People offer each other valuable suggestions about the shape and consistency of a pot. The water needed for making the pots needs to be shared cooperatively. But for both potters and missioners, the process of firing a pot is the crucial moment of. fulfillment or failure. Without some discussion and planning and some exchange and dialogue concerning the matter, there is no way to know somebody else's ideas about the making of pots-- or the making of a Christian community. Towards a Spirituality of Broken Pots The pots need to be fired in order to be ready for use. In fir-ing, the makers of pots learn how successful their work has been. After the ashes are cleared, some of the pots will be found broken and later find themselves part of a new effort to make pottery. The time when the community witnesses the firing of pots is a very exciting time. A whole community effo]'t is being judged and evaluated. Our Western attitude looks almost exclusively at the result: if the pots that have broken amount to none or only a few, then the whole exercise has been a great success. If the bro-ken pots are numerous, then the whole community exercise is a disaster. March-April 1993 209 Aguilar ¯ Broken African Pots Even if all the pots break and there is none left, they still rejoice because they have exercised a community moment, they have strengthened their common effort to keep their community fed. The African attitude toward such evaluations is completely different, and it hassomething to contribute to a missionary spir-ituality. Very few times in their lives hive the potters seen no broken pots after the firing. Even when a great number of pots breaks, they rejoice in the sturdy few that will increase the num-ber of cooking pots or the income of their community. Even if all the pots break and there is none left, they still rejoice because theyhave exercised a community moment, they have s.trengthened .their common effort to keep their community fed. If the number of new pots is none, they still have the broken pots, which are needed for the making of new ones. With these thoughts in mind, I consider no missionary effort ever to be in vain; any attempt at community life and at preaching the gospel through that community life cannot be in vain. Even the¯ so-called "fhil-ure" of the religious missionary team in Garba Tulla at a particular time, has aided new attempts to proclaim the gospel among the Boorana peo-ple. Through the life of those reli-gious, broken pots have become new pots once again. New expectations have arisen, and new people have arrived. Once again some individuals have disagreed with one another, but new expec-tations l~ave been created. Some will become'broken pots, others goo.d pots, but they will all eventually be part of each other. If'one looks at success and fulfillment and at failure and frus-tration in mission work, one realizes that the fulfillment or frus-tration among religious does not come from the visible or measurable results, but from the attitude towards those events. The sense of expectation and purpose in a religious community is the guide to the true meaning of fulfillment or frustration in mis-sionary work. Of those religious who served in Garba Tulla dur-ing that time of "crisis," some would consider that period a failure because the objectives of the planned mission work were not real-ized. Others, instead, would see tl~at period as a fulfilling and 210 Review for "Religiom. gratifying one because they provided it the much-needed experi-ence of learning how to cooperate on an international religious team. Success and failure among religious men and women can-not be evaluated in a simple empirical way, as in the business world, but they coincide with our own attitude towards the whole process of preparation for that particular time in our lives and towards the spiritual fruits which can appear during that time and afterwards. Further Points for Reflection. The lessons for a spirituality for mission based on the process of molding and firing pottery can be summarized in the follow-ing points: ¯ The whole process calls for an openness to the Spirit so as to recognize the whole process as already a "success." ¯ We need to accept that we are always learning and that oth-ers are also learning. The whole process of going through a learn-ing period in our lives is also a success. Hopefully that process of learning will never end. ¯ Pottery cannot be properly made by one person; it has to be a community effort, because we all need others to help us. Religious doing missionary work also need others in order to bear fruit and make new beautiful pots. ¯ Different people have learned pottery from different teach-ers and designs from different regions and villages. The beauty of it lies in its diversity. The success in our process of learning pot-tery comes from the realization that a proper diversity brings beauty and opportunities for exchange and dialogue. When reli-gious come from different countries and different cultures, they also experience success if they are able to recognize and appreci-ate the beauty of their diversity. ¯ The pot of water that is shared by the potters is needed for the flow of moisture in the making of pots. That water is passed around when somebody realizes that somebody else is in need: the other person's pot is also my concern. Success in missionary work begins when one realizes that all persons, including even oneself, need water at one point or another. The fact of caring for one another's project is already a success in life. ¯ The broken pots become important because they symbolize the continuity of a group of people, of a community. They are March-April 1993 211 Aguilar ¯ Broken African Pots used in a new effort to make pots for the community, for the stor-ing and preparing of food for the life of the community. The bro-ken pots become more important than the good pots because the pots that turn out fine after firing will eventually be sold to mem-bers of another community. The broken pots provide continuity of life that the village community needs. Maybe a spirituality for mission could be called a spirituality of broken pots: the more pots we break, the more successful we are, for we have experienced the past and present community pulling together, and we have recognized the need for others if we are to be successful. A spirituality of broken pots would recognize the need to accept that we cannot fully control the firing pro-cess. Whatever we do, some pots may end up broken, and so there is the possibility of trying again. Other pots may turn out well and then, in one way or another, will help the community to serve other people, even other potters, and people in other villages. The broken pots retain their unique importance because they provide the foundation for a new making of pots and thus for the food and life of the community. I feel that a spirituality for mis-sion should be a spirituality of broken pots--and that a spiritual-ity of broken pots always creates success, as Jeremiah shows: "So I went down to the potter's house; and there he was, working at the wheel. And whenever the vessel he was making came out wrong, as happens with the clay handled by potters, he would start afresh and work it into another vessel, as potters do." Note 1 See M.I. Aguilar, "Nagaa: Centro de Encuentro con el Islam," Chile Misionero, 9 (1992), and "Dialogue with Boorana Religion: A Path of the Gospel in Garba Tulla, Eastern Kenya," The Seed (Nairobi), October 1992. Review for Religious MICHAEL D. MOGA A Spirituality of Aging In life we are confronted with many spiritualities and are frequently forced to make a choice among them. There is the spirituality dis6nctive of a diocesan priest and there are many spiritualities of religious life. The spirituality of a contemplative religious is quite different from that of a religious engaged in the active apostolate. The spiritual-ities offered by oriental religions differ from those of Western religions. The theme of this paper is simple: the spirituality for an older person is quite different from the spirituality for a younger person. As we grow older the Spirit of God leads us through certain approaches and principles that are distinctive to the particular period of life in which we find ourselves. Human life is constantly changing and we are chal-lenged to move with those changes. We move through the stages of childhood and maturity into old age which demand that we leave behind one way of living to face life in a new and different way. The adjustments are difficult and may take many years to accomplish. The change from maturity to old age challenges us once again to leave something behind and to adjust to a new situation of life. Like the passage from childhood to maturity this new change presents us with a difficult Michael D. Moga SJ has taught philosophy in various seminar-ies and colleges in Mindanao. His address is Xavier University; Cagayan de Oro City; Philippines. aging christ March-April 1993 213 Moga ¯ A Spirituality of Aging adjustment which will demand a great deal of effort and pain before it is fully accomplished. I find it strange that a rather long portion of time and edu-cation (as much as 40-45 years) can be set aside to prepare a per-son for adult life whereas little or no attention or time is devoted to planning for one's final phase of life (which can sometimes last as long as 25 or 30 years)! In our early training as religious we were presented with a certain spirituality that for the most part fitted the life of a young person. It emphasized generosity ("to give and not to count the cost"), high ideals (working for "the greater glory of God"), and commitment. This spirituality was exemplified in a saint like Francis Xavier who lived a life of generous commitment until his early death at 46. He did not live long enough to face the need to change his spirituality. A spirituality for an aging religious must, of necessity, be quite different. I suggest that John the Baptist, who said: "He must increase and I must decrease," would be a fine model. John saw that his disciples were leaving him and following Jesus. He sensed that his basic work was completed and his role in God's plan had been fulfilled. He accepted all of this. He did not try to hold on to his disciples nor did he need to continue his previous work of preparing for the Messiah. He stepped back and let Jesus pro-claim his message, trusting that God was working through Jesus and through others. In a spirit of trust he lived his statement: "He must increase and I must decrease." Aging religious find themselves in the situation of John the Baptist. As they grow older many things are taken from them. As they diminish in body, mind, and spirit their influence in the world around them is lessened, and they are called upon to find God in these losses. Instead of emphasizing generosity as they did as a young religious, they are called to accept these dimin-ishments and even to rejoice in them. The total commitment to apostolic work of the young religious is set aside. Instead of giv-ing themselves more fully to apostolic involvement, aging reli-gious are called to withdraw from such involvements. Above all they are called to trust, to believe that as they decrease, Jesus increases. They are called to trust that their diminishment is part of God's way of furthering the kingdom. A spirituality of aging can take many different forms. Let me present a few of them. 214 Review for Religious 1. The spirituality of an old person should include a serious preparation for death. Death is not simply something that happens to us. It is one of the most important actions of our lives, for in death we go back to God. Such an important movement of our lives should be given due attention and concern. Just as in our younger lives we took the choice of our careers very seriously, so is death a similar crucial moment which deserves to be treated with similar seriousness and to be prepared for. The period of aging has been given to us by God as a time of intense preparation for death. It would be a mistake to be so busy with our work and other affairs that we give no time, thought, or effort to this approaching event in our lives. We may want to die with our boots on but such an attitude may possibly manifest a lack of faith. We are, of course, called by God to do our share of the work of building the kingdom. But our faith affirms that we are called by God to pass beyond ~his world to live with him in an eternal kingdom. It would be wrong in our present lives to be so occupied with the "God of this world" that we ignore that "God of the future" and the life that he calls us to. One way that we prepare for death is to begin to put things aside. Since in death we will be forced to leave our involvements in this world, a preparation would be to step back from these involvements, to become less absorbed in our concern for the achievement of goals and the attainment of success. Nature aids such stepping back from involvements. For an aging person the world often becomes rather "tasteless." The process of aging may not only reduce the sensitivity of our taste buds but also diminish our hunger for the activities and concerns of the world around us. We can find ourselves not caring which basketball team is the champion this year, which songs are the most popular, or who is the most popular movie star. When we were young such things made a difference, but as we grow older we find ourselves losing touch with these "popular" concerns. The tendency to lose touch need not be conceived as a sad thing, a loss. It is clearly the way nature guides us to turn away from unimportant things and to focus our lives on what is more Aging religious find themselves in the situation of John the Baptist. March-April 1993 215 Moga ¯ ~1 Spirituality of Aging essential--on the death that is coming, on the God we are soon to meet. Thus as we prepare for death we are challenged to free ourselves from all that is unimportant in life. In our journey through life we easily let ourselves get caught up in concerns, possessions, and habitual ways of thinking and being. How won-derful it would be if the contemplation of death could make us truly "free" of all these petty things so that we might live for what is truly important. Preparing for ~something means that we focus on it. The preparation for death demands a positive focus on that meeting with God which is found in death. Preparing for death thus invites us to turn toward God and give ourselves directly to God. Older religious shbuld be freed from apostolic involvements precisely so that they might have more time for prayer, more time for God. Every year we prepare to meet God in our celebration of Advent. During Advent we join with the people of the Old Covenant in their "waiting for God." We also join with Mary as she waits for her child to be born. During Advent we Christians give our energies to "waiting," to living out our waiting in a full and complete way. The lives of aging religious can embody this spirit of Advent and be filled with a "waiting for God." 2. A challenge to accept. One major characteristic of a spiritu-ality of aging is its emphasis on a person's acceptance of dimin-ishment. As we grow older various things are taken from us. There is a basic lessening of energies as we grow older. Vision and hear-ing begin to deteriorate. Health fails as we encounter various ill-nesses and pains. Control over one

Issue 52.3 of the Review for Religious, May/June 1993. ; frOe i g,i ous Christian Heritages and Contempora~ Living MAY-JUNE 1993 ¯ VOLUME 52 ¯ NUMBER 3 Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at Saint Louis University. by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-535-3048 ¯ FAX: 314-535-0601 Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP ¯ 5001 Eastern Avenue ¯ P.O. Box 29260 Washington, D.C. 20017. POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ° P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Second-class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. SUBSCRIPTION RATES Single copy $5 includes surface mailing costs. One-year subscription $15 plus mailing costs. Two-year subscription $28 plus mailing costs. See inside back cover for more subscription information and mailing costs. ©1993 Review for Religious for religious Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Assistant Editors Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Michael G. Harter SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Jean Read Mary Ann Foppe Joann Wolsld Conn PhD Mary Margaret Johanning SSND Iris Ann Ledden SSND Edmundo Rodriguez SJ Se~n Sammon FMS Wendy Wright PhD Suzanne Zuercher OSB Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living MAY-JUNE 1993 * VOLUME 52 ¯ NUMBER 3 contents 326 feature Prophecy or Restorationism in Religious Life Gerald A. Arbuckle SM describes the effects of the prophetic and the restorationist movements on religious life. 340 350 witnessing Would That All Were Prophets~ Dianne Bergant CSA examines the 'meaning of prophecy in the life of religious congregations. Committed Christian Secularity Paul J. Philibert OP explores some areas of development for those called to the life of the secular institute. prayer and direction 364 Liturgy of the Hours: A Reflection Suzanne Zuercher OSB finds that the ritual praying of the Liturgy of the Hours manifests what monastic life is and needs to remain. 371 380 Get Serious! The Monastic Condemnation of Laughter Kenneth C. Russell suggests some ways for us to understand and give modern application to the monastic attitude towards laughter. A Mystical Moment: Spiritual Direction and the Adolescent Fred Herron highlights aspects of spiritual direction in the con-text of adolescent development. 322 Review for Religious 39O 418 428 432 446 454 religious leadership Religious-Leadership Competencies David Nygren CM and Miriam Ukeritis CSJ report on skills and characteristics which mark superior performance for contemporary religious leaders. Some Ruminations on the Identity of Religious David F. O'Connor ST reviews the current identity issues around religious life. An Identity Dilemma: Standing with the Poor Patricia McCann RSM focuses the question about a gap between the espoused ideal and the reality of standing with the poor in religious life and ministry. ~ living gospel values Poverty as the Embrace of Insecurity Richard J. De Maria CFC stresses that the insecurity of poverty in some form remains essential to religious life. Men Vowed and Sexual: Conversations about Celibate Chastity Selin D. Sammon ~MS and Judith Ann Zielinski OSF describe a project sponsored by the Conference of Major Superiors of Men to enhance the living of celibate chaste life by vowed men. A Story of Addiction and Co-Addiction William F. Kraft tells a story of how the problems of addiction and co-addiction can be signs of contradiction that lead to new and better living departments 324 Prisms 462 Canonical Counsel: Common Life and Houses 469 Book Reviews May-.~une 1993 323 prisms ~edo not talk much about "working at the virtuous life." Perhaps the Pelagian inference--that "working at it" is enough, all by itself---keeps us suspi-cious of such talk. Maybe we are reluctant to admit explic-itly that virtue is on our list of outmoded things. There is also the possibility, even the likelihood, that some people strong in virtue have offended us in some way. "Nice" people may be easier to live with and less offensive than people imbued with courage or fired up for justice' sake. But Jesus demands more of his followers than that they be nice. Christians in every age need to work at the vir-tuous life. Recently in North America the news media have made much of various accusations or admissions of sexual mis-conduct by bishops, priests, and religious. The result is that the leadership in the local church and in religious congregations has had the painful, but necessary, task of coming to terms with a difficult and disturbing situation. What becomes evident to those living the consecrated life is that celibate chastity is not only something which we can "lose," but also something to be worked at: that only through a lifetime effort does one grow in chastity and love. Various programs like Marriage Encounter and the Christian Family Movement and Teams of Our Lady have long stressed how couples need to Work at their marital chastity if they are going to deepen their love and grow to be ever more faithful to each other. In a similar way, through some painful reminders today, both men and 324 Review for Religious women in celibate commitment are being called to make the effort they need to make if they are to grow as loving celibate people. In the scholastic theology of St. Thomas Aquinas we are taught the meaning of the virtues of the Christian life through his masterly explanation of habit. It would be interpreting Thomas fairly to bring our commonsense thinking about acquiring a habit to our understanding of his insight into acquiring--"working at"--virtue. Without denying the primacy of grace, especially experienced in the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity, we need to put forth the human effort to make those qualities more deeply our own. Theological developments since Vatican II have stressed that, just as conversion is continual in a Christian's life, so too growth in virtue is never finished--nor can either of these occur in iso-lation; they demand the presence of the faith community. Similarly, we now see even more clearly that virtue, like conver-sion, is never a private matter but impacts the public and social sphere. Our very working at virtue gives force to our evangeliz-ing efforts in our families, communi.ties, and workplaces. As a case in point, then, there are recent efforts being made to ~work at celibate chastity within a community setting and not in isolation. As married people have discovered in their various Christian family organizations, it is within the faith community that growth in virtue finds its support and that marriage and fam-ily values are witnessed to and witnessed. "'Men Vowed and Sexual," a project sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Major Superiors of Men and reported on in this issue, is one way to achieve a com-munity setting of support and understanding for the celibate chaste development of individuals. In another effort to assist those who are committed to the tasks of spiritual formation, the Christian Institute for the Study of Human Sexuality has been announced by the staff of theJesuit Educational Center for Human Development. Along 0¢ith the primacy of the grace of God and continuing individual effort, such community projects point the way for all of us to "work at" virtue today. David L. Fleming SJ May-June 1993 325 feature GERALD A. ARBUCKLE Prophecy or Restorationism in Religious Life "Turmoil is going to break out among your tribes." --Hosea 10:14 Anthropologically a tribe is a gathering "of bands., hav-ing a feeling of unity deriving from numerous similarities in culture, frequent friendly contacts, and a certain com-munity of interest.''1 By this definition religious life before Vatican II was one tribe consisting of many bands or clans (congregations) bound together despite their individual differences by a common belief in the nature and purpose of religious life. Now this tribal oneness no longer exists. Today, instead of clans within one tribe, we have many dif-ferent tribes that do not share a common vision of reli-gious life. Even within the same congregation there can be several different tribes, each claiming that it alone is authentically interpreting religious life and the original founding congregational vision. Communication across the boundaries of these reli-gious- life tribes may be poor, as is commonly the case between different ethnic groups at any time in human society. Each tribe, says anthropologist Edward Hall, usu-ally takes the position of "thinking and feeling that any-one whose behavior is not predictable or is peculiar in any way is slightly out of his mind, improperly brought up, irresponsible, psychopathic, politically motivated to a point Gerald A. Arbuckle SM continues to write, lecture, and con-duct workshops on the refounding of religious life. His address is Refounding and Pastoral Development Unit; 1 Mary Street; Hunters Hill; Sydney, N.S.W. 2110; Australia. 326 Review for Religious beyond redemption, or just plan inferior.''2 This rather blunt (but generally accurate) statement of tribal ethnocentrism describes the strong prejudice-founded belief that my tribe is the center of everything, and all other groups or tribes are scaled and rated with reference to it. Unfortunately, the way some religious tribes within contemporary religious life at times view other groups-- with hostility and self-righteous intolerance--is not unlike Hall's description. Sometimes. religious-life tribes agree to co-exist side-by- side with apparent harmony; peace is maintained because they agree at least tacitly not to raise their significant differences over the m~aning of religious life. They deny or suppress the differ-ences lest exhausting tensions erupt openly. Dialogue, which demands an op.enness to the other and to the possibility of change, is difficult in these circumstances--even impossible. This article has a twofold function: first, to summarize why one religious-life tribe has fragmented into many different tribes or quasi-ethnic groups since Vatican II; and second, to describe the significant qualities of these tribal groups. From Tribe to Tribes in Religious Life Religious Life: Founding Myth Undermined. The founding myth .of religious life historically evolved wheri people began to gather together to live the radical values of the gospel, to devote, them-selves totally to the person of Christ and his kingdom values. The major mo;vements (monastic, conventual, and apostolic) were prophetic reactions to abuses or corruption of power within the church and society at large. Prophetic action is thus integral to the founding stoW of religious life. Johannes Metz correctly asserts that religious communities must be "a kind of shock therapy" challenging the church to live the fullness of Christ's message. "Against the dangerous accommodations and questionable com-promises that the church . . . can always incline to," he writes, "they press for the uncompromising nature of the gospel and of the imitation of Christ.''3 Myths bind people together with a common vision. They are value-impregnated beliefs and notions, born in sacred time and space, that people live by and live for; at the level of the culture they are primarily unconscious, powerful in their influence, and partic-ularly difficult for people to articulate objectively except in stoW form or by describing the life histories of their culture's heroes or May-a~une 1993 327 Arbuckle ¯ Prophecy or Restorationism: heroines. In reality people adhere to relatively few archetypal myths, of which the conspiratorial enemy and the all-powerful hero-liberator are central kinds. Myths provide a feeling of cer-tainty, direction, and trust rather than the paralysis, fear, or bewil- The council challenged religious to rediscover the prophetic heart of their ministry when it directed them back to the person of Christ, the founding experience of their own congregations,. and the apostolic needs of the world. derment that chaos--the opposite of order or the predictable--brings.* Over time, however, myths can drift away from their original message without people' being quite aware of what is happening. This in fact hap-pened to the founding myth of reli-gious life. In recent centuries religious life has lost its prophetic emphasis within the church and the world and has become based on three pivotal assumptionscontrary to its original founding vision: the world is funda-mentally evil and tobe avoided, reli-gious are the spiritual elite of the church, and their task is to be uncrit-ically supportive of the ecclesiastical and pastoral status quo.~ Vatican II dramatically under-mined these aberrant assumptions and the myth they sustained when it stated that the world is capable of redemption and the church must inter-act with it through a process of exchange/dialogue (that is, incul-turation). 6 Furthermore, all people--not only religiousware called to, and are capable of, holiness.7 Religious asChristians could no longer remove themselves from the concerns of the world, nor could they ever again consider themselves the spiritual elite of the church. Finally, the council challenged religious to rediscover the prophetic heart of their ministry when it directed them back to the person of Christ, the founding experience of their own congregations, and the apostolic needs of the world. The revi-talized founding myth was not neatly put together by the coun-cil and it would be a long time before religious could rediscover with confidence its authentic nature and implications. Reactions to Vatican Ih Conversionist and Restorationist Groups. It is a basic experience of anthropology that any interference with a founding story or myth of a group--even when fully justified (as 328 Review for Religious occurred at Vatican II) and intellectually assented to by the peo-ple involved--is catastrophic or chaotic at the level of identity, belonging, or feeling.8 A satisfying and interiorized myth is never re-created quicHy out of turmoil or chaos. The reaction to a dramatic mythological change, such as hap-pened to religious life at Vatican II, normally follows a fairly pre-dictable pattern. First, there is an effort to control initial unease or anxiety through legislative or structural changes so that an anxiety-reducing order can once again emerge, but political or legislative action alone is ineffective without an attitudinal open-ness to an as yet unformulated new myth. The phase of chaos follows; neither traditional support systems nor mere structural changes provide the needed sense of direction and belonging. Symptoms of depression--such as anger, numbness, "lostness," feuding, denial, sadness, witch-hunting to assign blame for the chaos--emerge within the group or in individuals. As the chaos persists, people are apt to turn to one of two options: either conversionist or escapist movements. Leaders of these movements have the charismatic ability of articulating appropriate visions and strategies to achieve them. Conversionist movements develop when people recognize that the way to change is not by nostalgically and uncritically returning to a former cul-tural stage but by struggling to relate to an entirely different ambience. The building of a new founding myth is painful, demanding courage to let go the past, the willingness to walk in the darkness of uncertainty and ambiguity, waiting, creating and testing new ways of acting adapted to the changing circumstances. No sudden solution to the malaise of the chaos is possible.9 Commonly many people cannot cope with the darkness and uncertainty demanded by the conversionist approach. They seek the escapist option with its fundamentalist and simplistic remedies to the confusion. Fundamentalistic or sect movements are com-mon today within Islam, Judaism, and Christianity and in the arena of politics just as they have always been in times of dra-matic social or cultural changes. They take various forms. For example, some are millenarianl° as they promise a dramatic and imminent appearance of a world of meaning and belonging to their disoriented followers, on condition they commit themselves without question to simplistic and authoritarian-led actions. The popularity of these fundamentalist movements today~ testifies to the extent and depth of the cultural upheaval through- May-3~ne 1993 329 Arbuckle ¯ Prophecy or Restorationism Restorationism is the vigorous effort to return the church uncritically to the pre-Vatican II structures, practices, and attitudes. out the world in reaction to the speed and radicality of contem-porary technological; social, and economic changes. Patrick Arnold's definition of fundamentalism is particularly apt: it is "an aggressive and marginalized religious movement which, in reac-tion to the perceived threat of moder-nity, seeks to return its home religion and nation to traditional orthodox prin-ciples, values, and texts through the co-option of the central executive and legislative power of both the religion itself and the modern national state.''t2 This definition highlights the emphasis that fundamentalists place on the role of civil and religious governments to coerce people to accept their beliefs. James Hunter sees fundamentalist movements as "characterized, to varying degrees, by a quality of organized anger." They aggressively want to make history right again.13 Intellectual arguments will not convert people away from fundamental-ism because fundamentalism is a reaction to a loss of felt belong-ing, not necessarily to inadequate intellectual reasoning. Fundamentalist movements form an increasingly strident, intolerant, and powerful force within the Catholic Church today, indicative of the extent of the chaotic upheaval sparked off by such forces as Vatican II and the opening 0f the church to a world caught up in its own tumultuous change--the revolution of expressive disorder of the 1960s and early 1970s.14 These restora-tionist movements demand that the church return to its pre- Vatican II culture with its patriarchal, dependency, and authoritarian models of leadership. Whoever dares to question what fundamentalists do are branded as contemporary "witches" who are out to undermine in a conspiratorial way what restora-tionists define as orthodoxy. In brief, restorationism is the vig-orous effort to return the church uncritica'lly to the pre-Vatican II structures, practices, and attitudes. (I say "uncritically" because there are some key pre-Vatican II values that need to be revital-iz. ed, for example, a respect for a living tradition.) Restorationism is an abuse of power because key values of Vatican II--for exam-ple, collegiality, the call to inculturate the faith within local 330 Review for Religious churches--are either rejected or undervalued. Like Thomas the Apostle, fundamentalist or restorationist Catholics earnestly seek clear-cut signs of the presence of the Lord: "Unless I can see the holes that the nails made in his hands and can put my finger into the holes they made, and unless I can put my hand into his side, I refuse to believe" (Jn 20:25). Contemporary Religious Life: Tribal Models .With the disintegration of the then prevailing founding myth of religious life, in addition to the other upheavals consequent on Vatican II, religious today are torn between the enticements of fundamentalist or restorationist solutions to the chaos they expe-rience and the painful requirements of the call to radical conver-sion. Those opting for the latter take to heart the words of Christ to Thomas: "Blessed are those who hav~ not seen and yet believe" (Jn 20:29). They recognize that the church (and religious life) is in the liminality stage of a crucial rite of passage--the pre-Vatican II church has yet to be let go and the new to be confidently cre-ated based on Vatican II values. It is a time of pain, lament, and hope. Prophets and prophetic movements are needed to create the "pastoral quantum-leaps" necessary to bring the gospel into interaction with the most.urgent needs of today--secularism and political/economic oppression for example.~s The following tribal models of contemporary religious life fall within what I will call "escapist" or "conversionist" categories. By "escapist" I mean that religious tribes within this category avoid in various ways the struggle to return to the original found-ing myth of religious life--that is, the prophetic challenging of the church and the world. "Conversionist" tribes, however, struggle to live this challenge. My purpose in offering these categories and models is to help clarify an increasingly c.omplex situation within religious life; it is not my aim to judge the subjective moti-vations of individual religious. Finally, a word of warning about the use of models. An anthro-pological model is not a perfect representation of the real world. Rather, a model is very much a necessary research construct to facilitate a better understanding of very complex situations. A model reflects reality to the extent that it highlights certain emphases or trends. For the sake of clarity unnecessary details are omitted. A situation can then be researched to discover just May-J~ne 1993 331 Arbuckle ¯ Prophecy or Restorationism how far it diverges from or conforms to the model. In practice one will rarely find in real life a perfect embodiment of a model; par-ticular qualities of many models will tend to be present, but the characteristics of one model will predominate over others. A model is not a caricature since the latter is a deliberately inaccu-rate representation of reality for comic effect; No one expects a caricature to be modified in the light of reality.~6 Category 1: "Escapist" Religious-Life Tribes The Nativistic Tribal Model. Tribal leaders claim that the unquestioning return to the symbols (for example, religious garb), myths, and rituals of.religious life before Vatican II will in some magical way resolve the loss of meaning or relevance among reli-gious. Fundamentalist and sect-like tribes that approximate to this model fanatically assume "we have the truth and the pope is on our side," yet, like all Catholic fundamentalists, they selectively read ecclesial documents to support their position and rather thoroughly ignore the social teaching of the popes. These com-munities withdraw from the "contaminating world" (which they look upon with considerable doom and gloom), refuse all dia-logue with their opponents, and avoid any critique of restora-tionism in the church. In fact, they are zealous supporters of ecclesiastical restorationism. Prayer is stressed, but only the pre- Vatican II forms that highlight a personal or privatized holiness removed from the world's concerns. They cultivate, as the Puebla document says, "a spirituality of evasion.''~7 Candidates are encouraged to join, but screening and training programs are inadequate for the demands of today's apostolic work. The more who join, the more certain nativistic tribes are that God loves them. In brief, they place the survival of their con-gregation over their commitment to the full mission of the church. The Conservative Tribal Model. In the conservative model, lead-ers are moved by the numerical success of sect-like and restora-tionist lay movements within the contemporary church; they uncritically encourage the return to pre-Vatican II traditions-- for example, quasimonastic structures for apostolic communities, traditional religious habits, and pious customs--but with less fanaticism than nativistic leaders. Souls are to be converted to the Lord, compassion shown to the poor, but the faith/justice 3 3 2 Review for Religious apostolates are to be avoided as irrelevant and dangerous to one's consecrated vocation. Conformist-oriented candidates are encour-aged to join these tribes, particularly if they have above-average needs for security and identity. Dependency and conformity are valued "virtues" in this model as in the previous one. New forms of prayer are allowed--as, for example, in the charismatic movement--provided they do not lead to involve-ment in the social-justice apostolate. Asceticism is an esteemed virtue, but within the narrow limits of the individual's journey to the Lord or as a way of encouraging him or her to submit to authority and the congregational status quo. Liberation theology and inculturation are considered dangerous "leftist" ideologies, and criticism of ecclesiastical restorationism is not considered necessary nor encouraged. The Millenarian Tribal Model. Millenarian movements immi-nently and dramatically expect the miraculous transformation of the world by supernatural methods. In millenarian religious tribal life, all forms of instant-holiness or inner-peace programs are .offered by tribal leaders--for example, encounter-group sessions, bodily relaxing techniques, immediate-union-with-God prayer sessions. Pastoral planning programs are formulated with the assurance that they will automatically lead to an increase in voca-tions. Often, as a sign of one's authentic conversion, in true mil-lenarian style religious indiscriminately discard as "old-fashioned" any reference to the past; thus, for example, the great spiritual traditions of Saints Teresa and John of the Cross are seen as of lit-tle or no value.Is Religious keep searching feverishly from one workshop to another for the "right leader, or spiritual/professional guru, to describe the latest way to inner peace and a firm sense of direc-tion" for themselves personally and their congregations. Try harder, they feel, and the correct miraculous technique will turn up eventually. Leaders and followers are so concerned about inner-peace and identity issues that ecclesiastical restorationism and the apostolic demands of the world are of little concern to them. The Therapeutic or "Me-istic" Tribal Model.19 In the previous tribal model, religious do have concern for the welfare of the group and its future, even though it be in an introverted way. However, group life and concern for its future are of minimal importance to the therapeutic tribal model. Tribal life is marked by individualism, excessive concern for self-fulfillment, and uncrit- May-a~une 1993 333 /trbuckle ¯ Prophecy or Restorationism ical acceptance of secular consumer or material standards. The group andits leaders exist solely to support the narcissistic, indi-vidualistic, and independent aspirations of its members. There is a paradox in this tribe: rampart individualism on the one hand and the desperate need for personal affirmation and support from other tribal members on the other. Individuals may undertake important apostolic work, but it is done with little or no reference to their religious tribal com-mitments or vision. In other words, the links between members and the corporate vision are so weak that the tribe is equivalently a social club; a typical attitude would be: "I remain in touch with my community only as long as it serves my needs." If restora-tionism is criticized, it is only because it is thought to be an obsta-cle to the pursuit of individualism and personal self-fulfillment. The prophetic corporate commitment of religious life within the church and the world has no meaning in this tribal model. The Neo-Conservative T~:ibal Model. Religious gather around leaders who were once fervent advocates of change, but have now become overly fearful of the chaos and the extremes of attempted adaptation programs they see around them. They believe that only slow, measured ox~ predictably safe apostolic adaptation to the world will achieve new expressions of religious life. Orderly pastoral planning becomes an ideology or an end in itself, not a condition for bold creative apostolic action in response to the most urgent pastoral needs of the world. There must be no diver-gences from the pastoral plan lest chaos erupt.2° "Risk is out, order is in" becomes axiomatic. It is assumed that revitalization can occur only if the whole community or congregation moves in response to agreed-to mis-sion statements and strategic pastoral planning. Intra-group ten-sions and conflict are to be avoided at all costs: "Let the province move when all are ready and willing to do so; otherwise no change is to be sanctioned." The sense of belonging to or affiliation with the congregation is viewed as more important than the struggle for the religious community to realize its primary task of prophetically challenging a secularizing world and the church. Creative religious who believe that chaos requires a more rad-ical linking between the gospel and cultures are marginalized or pressured out of the community since they threaten the group's desire for an orderly approach to refounding. The faith/justice apostolate is only lightly supported lest involvement in it disturb 334 Review for Religious the unity of the community. Any critique of restorationism is couched in unchallenging or vague tones for the same reason. The Radical Non-Conversion Tribal Model. These tribes are led by people who have a vision of a radical, social-justice program. However, because the faith values of religious life do not impinge on their consciousness, they see themselves only as social workers, activists, or enablers of others. Their view of the gospel is limited only to the procla-mation of forms of liberation. They do not see that their "contribution to lib-eration is incomplete if [they] neglect to proclaim salvation in Jesus Christ.''2t Tribal life in this model is very fragile; either people withdraw from religious life since it no longer has any meaning for them, or they remain, generally with bitterness against their congregation and the church, living The ultimate identity of religious comes from their faith in the person of Christ and his mission to the world, especially to the marginalized and powerless. highly individualistic lives, refusing any effort to work toward an authentic religious-life vision. There is an un-Gospel-like harsh-ness to their criticism of restorationism within the church. Category 2: Transformative/Refounding Tribal Model Tribes within this, category are transformative or prophetic communities recognizing that the only way out of the chaos is through radically new faith-justice, hope-inspired, corporate action in which the gospel message is directed to the most urgent needs of today. The ultimate identity of these religious tribes comes from their faith in the person of Christ and his mission to the world, especially to the marginalized and powerless. The chaos is seen in biblical and anthropological terms as potentially a graced experience--the chance to rethink the mission of religious life and the tribe's commitment to it. Hence, for exam-ple, these religious tribes struggle to be living witnesses to the radical demands of prayerful asceticism in opposition to the sym-bols of consumerism and "instant spirituality"; living witnesses to the virtue of hope in order to counter symbols that seek to May-ffune 1993 335 Arbuckle ¯ Prophecy or Restorationism negate any redemptive and eschatological power of suffering; liv-ing witnesses to the need to dialogue with the world so as to counter the elitism/sectarianism of restorationist Catholicism; living witnesses through their lifestyle and attitudes to God's mercy, Jesus Christ, in concern for the alienated and the oppressed; living witnesses to vibrant community-life relation-ships founded on interdependence, mutuality, and faith sharing to counter the symbols of excessive individualism, abuse of author-ity/ power in society and in the church; living witnesses to a spir-ituality of involvement with the world, especially the powerless, to counter a spirituality of evasion.22 Through their imaginative, faith-oriented action they create a new founding myth of reli-gious life, a vision in which creative and prophetic action is an integral and primary quality. For these transformative tribes, it is Christ's mission that has priority, not the physical survival of the community. If they dis-cover it is God's will that they are to die, then they accept this as the chance to enter more deeply into the mystery of Christ's suf-fering and resurrection. Consequently, if people do ask to join these tribes, they are accepted only if there are well-founded hopes that these candidates have the demanding qualities of maturity to live and work on the prophetic edge of the church and the world. These communities foster within themselves prophetic or refounding persons who are able to relive within today's context the experience of the original congregational founding people. They are pained to see the void between the gospel and the needs of the world; so, like their original founding members, they move to create pastoral strategies to bridge this gulf. They, together with others in their communities, are dreamers who do. These are rest-less or liminal people in the sense that they are on the edge of what is considered to be the "correct or predictable" way of being reli-gious; they are prepared to critique everything according to gospel values. Not surprisingly, therefore, they and their communities evoke anxiety within tribal groups of category 1; their vision is too threatening so marginalization, tribulation, and suffering are their inevitable lot (as has commonly been the case with founding peo-ple of religious communities over the centuries).23 These apostolically risk-oriented leaders and prophetic tribes maintain their zeal only as long as they prayerfully admit to their own inner powerlessness without the grace of God. Once they allow their own attachment.s to the predicable to go, they repeat- 336 Review for Religious edly rediscover, as did the lamentation psalmists of old, that noth-ing is impossible to them through the mercy and love of the Lord.24 Restorationism is critiqued with a boldness of apostolic faith, love, and compassion because they take to heart the fact that "Christ summons the church., to that continual reforma-tion of which she always has need, insofar as she is an institution of [people] here on earth.''2s Conclusion In the centuries immediately before Vatican II, religious life had become a bastion of the unchanging status quo within the church. We even called it the "religious state." But by its origins it .was never intended to be something static, but an ongoing expe-rience of prophetically becoming in reaction to the ever-changing apostolic needs of the world. Once religious say they "have got it all together," then they have lost their passion for creative gospel life. Today, Paul VI said, the "split between the gospel and culture is without a doubt the drama of our time,''z6 so religious to be true to the original founding myth must be at the cutting edge of the gospel and culture. This is an inescapably agonizing experience, for it means cri-tiquing not just the world but also the church itsel~---a church in which the forces of restorationism are daily more visibly present. Religious life is in the stage that anthropologist Victor Turner terms liminality,27 that is, the betwixt-and-between stage; the unnecessary structural constraints of the former state of religious life have gone, and the reinvigorated founding story of prophetic action has yet to emerge with confidence. It is a stage rich in imaginative apostolic potential for the future. But it is also a dan-gerous phase for those religious who are excessively frightened of the darkness of uncertainty and ambiguity. They are tempted to flee into the false comforts of restorationism and to reengage uncritically the structures of pre-Vatican II religious life, seeing around them "nothing but prevarication and ruin"ZS--the defeatist attitude John XXIII warned us against. When this happens, these religious turn their backs on what is the most exciting and prophetically stimulating period for religious life in centuries. May-~une 1993 337 Arbuckle ¯ Prophecy or Restorationism Notes ' R. Linton, The Study of Man: An Introduction (Appleton-Century- Crofts, 1936), p. 231. 2 Edward Hall, Beyond Culture (New York: Doubleday/Anchor, 1976), p. 43 3 Johannes Metz,F0110wers of Christ: The Religious Life and the Church (Exeter: Burns and Oates/New York: Paulist, 1978), p. 12; see also an analysis of the prophetic nature of religious life by D. O'Murchu, Religious Life: A Prophetic Vision (Notre Dame: Ave Maria, 1991). 4 See G. Arbuckle, Earthing the Gospel: An Inculturation Handbook for the Pastoral Worker (London: Geoffrey Chapman/Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1990), pp. 26-43; see also M. Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return (New York: Bollingen/Pantheon, 1954), chap. 1. s See Arbuckle, Out of Chaos: Refounding Religious Congregations (New York: Paulist/London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1988), pp. 68-77. 6 See "The Church in the Modern World," The Documents of Vatican II, ed. Walter Abbott (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1966), §44; for expla-nations see Arbuclde, Earthing the Gospel, pp. 15-20. 7 See "The Church," §40f. 8 See M. Douglas, Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology (New York: Pantheon, 1970), p. 38. 9 See Arbuckle, Out of Chaos, pp. 14-28. ,0 See explanations by Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium (New York: Oxford Un!versity, 1970). ~l For an overview of world fundamentalism see Concilium, no. 3, 1992. ¯ ,2 "Reemergence of Fundamentalism in the Catholic Church," in The Fundamentalist Phenomenon, ed. N. Cohen (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1990), p. 174. ~3 "Fundamentalism in Its Global Contours," ibid, p. 63. ,4 See overview of Catholic fundamentalism by T. O'Meara, Fundamentalism: A Catholic Perspective (New York: Paulist, 1990), passim, and Patrick Arnold, "The Rise of Catholic Fundamentalism," in America, 11 April 1987, pp. 298-302. *s See Arbuclde, Earthing the Gospel, pp. 187-220. ,6 For an analysis of the nature and usefulness of anthropological mod-els see L.C. Luzbetak, The Church and Cultures (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1988), pp. 135-139. ,7 Final Document, Conference of Latin American Bishops, 1979, § 826. ~8 See T. Merton, "Cargo Cults in the South Pacific," in America, vol. 121, no. 5, 1969, p. 96. ,9 See a fuller development by Arbuclde, "Suffocating Religious Life: A New Type Emerges," in The Way Supplement 65 (1989): 26-39. 338 Review for Religious 20 For insights into the dangers of overplanning see R. Stacey, Managing Chaos (London: Kogan Page, 1992), pp. 43f., 208. 2, Evangelii Nuntiandi, 1975, §47. zz See Arbuclde, Strategies for Growth in Religious Life (New York: Alba House, 1986), p. 41. 23 See J. Lozano, Foundresses, Founders, and Their Religious Families (Chicago: Claret, 1983), pp. 65-70. 24 See Arbuclde, Change, Grief and Renewal in the Church OgVestminster, Md.: Christian Classics, 1991), pp. 61-107. 2s "Decree on Ecumenism," Abbott, §6. 26 Ibid, §20. 27 See V. Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (New York: Aldine, 1969), p. 95. For a summary of Turner's insight into limi-nality see Arbuclde, Earthing the Gospel, pp. 74f. 28 "Open!ng Speech to the Council," Abbott, p. 712. Will He? Veils gone, Securities gone, "Respect" gone. Adulation and ~. Convent-mysteries All gone. Can I sing my Song of Songs to Him In the rags of who I really am ? Will He love me still? Without my baubles And my cover-ups, Will He still love me? Crushed in His arms, 0 wonder of it all! I came to know That, in my poverty, He loves me Twice as much! Maxine Inkel SL May-~'ane 1993 339 DIANNE BERGANT Would That All Were Prophets witnessing In 1989 the joint assembly of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and the Conference of Major Superiors of Men (LCWR/CMSM) drew up ten charac-teristics of the "transformative" religious life of the future. The first of these, prophetic witness, is described as fol-lows: "Being converted by the example of Jesus and the values of the gospel, religious in the year 2010 will serve a prophetic role in church and society. Living this prophetic witness will include critiquing societal and eccle-sial values and structures, calling for systemic change, and being converted by the marginalized with whom we serve." The following reflections have been prompted by this statement. "Behold, I am doing a new tbing" (Is 43:19) Before we discuss prophetic witness, we should briefly consider prophetic insight: Why is prophetic insight needed? Where does it originate? Prophetic insight is born in times of crisis, in its basic Greek meaning of decision and not its popular-usage meaning of misfortune or distress. In a time of crisis, a community is at a turning point and needs some kind of decisive direction--or the community should be at a turning point but, failing to recognize this, needs someone to call it to repentance and reform, to conver- Dianne Bergant CSA presented the substance of this article in a talk to the chapter members of her congregation, the Sisters of St. Agnes. Her address is Catholic Theological Union: 5401 S. Cornell Avenue; Chicago, Illinois 60615. 340 Review for Religious sion, to turning. But, of course, a community is not always at some kind of crossroads; and, if it is relatively faithful to its nature and ideals so that its members encourage and inspire each other, it may not need, for the time being, any distinct and indepen-dent prophetic insight. When prophetic insight is needed, where will it come from? One cannot casually assume it in oneself; not every member of the community is blessed with it. While it is the fruit of a very personal relationship with God, it includes perceptive insight into the reli-gious implications of "the signs of the times," an insight that calls for decision and usually for some kind of change. Prophetic insight is lit by the flame of passionate attachment to the religious tradi-tion. It is critical, not for the sake of being critical, but for the sake of the word of God. Illumined by this word, it perceives either the faithfulness of believers to their religious identity or a lessening or lack of this faith-fulness. It sees clearly what people should embrace within society in order to deepen their commitment to life and to God, and it sees what they should avoid. Prophetic insight assesses the values of contemporary society with eyes of discerning faith, recogniz-ing any distortions and, on the other hand, relating society's authentic values to their divine source. The biblical prophets did not call for change for the sake of change. They spoke out when they were convinced that their communities were in peril. They were often alone as they chal-lenged the institutions and practices that limited and sometimes shattered the lives of their communities. At times the threat fac-ing .their communities was evident to all. For example, King Ahaz was well aware of his predicament when Isaiah warned him against Assyrian entanglement (Is 7), as was King Zedekiah when Jeremiah spoke to him (Jr 27). At other times the threat was more insidi-ous, and the community seemed oblivious of its surrender to seductions that compromised its religious identity. We read that Amos condemned the Israelites for disregarding their covenant responsibilities in favor of material prosperity and that Hosea denounced the people of his day for yielding to the religious prac-tices of the Canaanites. The prophets seem always to have been Prophetic insight is lit by the flame of passionate attachment to the religious tradition. May-June 1993 341 Bergant ¯ IVould That All Were Prophets convinced that the situation had to change because it threatened the community's relationship with God. Prophetic insight and satisfaction with the status quo are seldom compatible. The prophets usually found themselves in conflict with offi-cial leaders. This was not because they disdained authority or authoritative organization, but because the leaders were respon-sible for public policy and for the social and religious structures that supported that policy. Therefore, when those in responsible positions failed to lead as the religious tradition directed them or when the policies and structures themselves created divisions of privilege or marginality, the prophets denounced the status quo and called the community to a new vision. They seldom, if ever, proposed specific new approaches to the problems. They were the visionaries, not the policy makers. They were the ones who called for a new society; others would work to fashion such a society in line with the prophetic insight. We must not confuse prophetic with apocalyptic, which also grows out of a dissatisfaction with the prevailing situation. Prophetic insight, whether it is reassuring people of divine com-passion and care or warning them of God's indignation and jus-tice, is fundamentally positive. It knows that human history with all its possibilities, challenges, and risks is the matrix within which the reign of God takes shape. Down amid social, economic, and political reality, such insight is neither ignorant of nor removed from the needs, aspirations, movements, and accomplishments of society, for it believes that it is within society that God is revealed. A genuine prophetic spirit is fashioned and enlivened by the ener-gies of the day. It is not a spirit of the past or, for that matter, of the future, but of the present. It knows that God is immanent and continually involved in the lives and history of people here and now. No event, no moment in time, is beyond the realm of God's activity. Authentic prophetic i,nsight insists that human beings can indeed influence the course of history and, with divine assistance, can bring .to birth the reign of God. "Apocalyptic" comes from the Greek word for revelation. Since it refers to a divine message about the end of the world, in the minds of many it is associated with prophecy. It maintains that the world and all within it must be purged before it can enjoy that for which God intended it, and it believes that this purgation will be individual, social, and cosmic. For this reason an apocalyptic atti-tude is fundamentally pessimistic. It not only challenges but rejects 342 Review for Religious the prevailing social, economic, and political reality. It does not encourage involvement in the world in order to transform it. Instead, it advocates separation from the world in order to pre-vent contamination. An apocalyptic point of view contends that sinful history is ultimately and exclusively under divine control, and therefore it awaits the defeat of evil and the triumph of good-ness. It believes that only after purgation will the new age appear and God's reign be victorious and unchallenged. While prophetic fervor drives people into the marketplace (for example, Jesus going from village to village proclaiming the reign of God), apocalyptic zeal frequently bids them escape into the desert (for example, the Essenes of Qumr~n waiting for the reign of God to come). At times prophetic insight has been confused with an apostolic spirit, which also calls for decision, repentance, .and reform and is also 6ommitted to the transformation of the world. The word apos-tle comes from the Greek for "send," and it stresses the intimate relationship between t~he sender and the person sent, rather than any message that may be involved. In a veery significant way, the one sent actually represents the sender. "Those who hear you, hear me; and those who reject you, reject me" (Lk 10:16). Paul under-stood his call in this way: "So we are ambassadors for Christ, God making an appeal through us" (2 Cor 5:20). Such an intimate rela-tionship between the apostolic minister and the Lord is more than a matter of personal holiness. It is inextricably li.nked with repre-sentation of the Lord to the world. This is quite different from the situation of the prophet, where the focus is not on the person sent but on the message sent. Belief in the power of the word itself is clearly seen in a passage from Second Isaiah(55:10-11): For just as from the heavens the rain and snow come down And do not return there " till they have watered the earth, making i( fertile and fruitful, Giving seed to those who sow and bread to those who eat, So shall my word be that comes forth from my mouth; It shall not return to me void, but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it. Insisting on these distinctions does not suggest that an apos-tle cannot also be prophetic Or that a prophet may not at times May-June 1993 343 Bergant ¯ Would That All Were Prophets entertain an apocalyptic attitude. Rather, it is to point out that these perspectives are in fact different from each other. "Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy" (J1 3:1) The LCWR/CMSM statement speaks of conversion, critique, and change, language that implies that religious life is indeed at a crossroads. It further claims that "religious in the year 2010 will serve a prophetic role in church and society." Such a claim pre-sumes that an entire body of people will enjoy a kind of insight When the community finds itself at a crossroads, prophetic witness becomes more crucial and even more complex, because there is ambiguity among the members regarding it. that is normally not communal. This prompts us to ask: How can we ascribe prophetic witness to the whole group without compromising the power of unique prophetic insight? In answering this question, we must remember that religious commu-nities are made up of the daughters and sons of foundresses and founders, who critiqued the dominant social and reli-gious cultures of their times and found them wanting and who, as a result, brought new vision and devised new ways of living in the world and in the church. They frequently called for repentance and reform; they always called for decision. Their visions, their insights, became the charisms of their religious families. Because these charisms were always in some way prophetic, fidelity to tMm will always result in a form of prophetic witness. This will be true even when a community does not face a time of crisis, for devoted living out of the founding charism is the fundamental prophetic ideal to which members always commit themselves. Rededication to the ideals of the com-munity does not always call for prophetic insight, but it always demands faithful commitment. However, when the community finds itself at a crossroads, prophetic witness becomes more crucial and even more complex, because there is ambiguity among the members regarding it. It may be that social changes call for a new and contemporary inter-pretation of the founding charism (for example, the early Christian controversy regarding the admission of the Gentiles and the 344 Review for Religqous observance of the Law [Acts 16]). When this is the case, a com-munity faces a serious challenge. It must choose which guidelines to follow in critiquing the social change itself, and it must decide how the integrity of the charism can be guaranteed even as it is reinterpreted. The community as a group must discern how to address this challenge faithfully, and communities do not always achieve consensus on such matters without difficulty. On the other hand, the group may have lost its prophetic edge and may be itself in need of prophetic critique. Such a cri-tique should come from within the community, from an insider who knows the charism intimately and can bring its challenge to bear upon prevailing community understandings that are inade-quate. But who can perceive and articulate the hopes and ideals of the community in such a way as to speak both to it and for it? The community must discern this matter as well. (An example of such a dilemma is the ill-fated clash between the prophets Jeremiah and Hananiah [Jer 28].) Since the charism is to be found within the group and not merely in the intuitions of one individ-ual, the community must be able to recognize itself in the insights of its perceptive member or members. The task of a community at a crossroads is twofold: (1) a crit-ical examination of "the signs of the times" in order to discern the real religious needs of the moment and (2) a thorough anal-ysis of its established religious institutions and practices in order to discover their underlying traditional religious value. Only after such examination and analysis can the community hope to bring to bear on contemporary needs the traditional religious values that flow from its charism. It is not enough to approach this task with faith and commitment. Serious examination, rigorous eval-uation, and faithful yet imaginative reinterpretation are required, all of which call for extensive information, keen insight, and cre-ative visioning on the part of each member and the community as a whole. Not every member will be proficient at each step in this analysis and reinterpretation, but if each member has been formed in the founding charism, everyone will be able to enter into the process in a thoroughly beneficial manner. It is in this way that prophetic witness can be ascribed to the whole group without compromising the power of unique prophetic insight. "Behold, I make all things new" (Rv 21:5) Time and again we have heard it said that we are in the midst of a paradigm shift. May-June 1993 345 Bergant ¯ WouM That All Were Prophets Actually, because of the complexity of today's world, we are under-going the radical shift of m~iny paradigms. The ways in which we understood the world, society, human endeavor, and theology seem no longer adequate to meet and interpret the realities now facing us. The presuppositions of the modern world with its tech-ntlogic~ il achievements and its hierarchical manner 6f manage-ment are being seriously challenged. We ai'e standing on the threshold of the postmodern world, and yet we remain caught in many of the paradigms of the past. For example, we know that the patterns of growth and pros-perity which have provided many of us in the Western world with the benefits of material comfort can no longer be sustained at the same rate or for the same number of people as has been the case till now. One reason for this is that we are depleting our available material resources and are doing little or nothing to replenish them. There are limits to the environment's ability to sustain the kind of lifestyle to which the Western world has grown accus-tomed. Nature may be able to endure a certain amount of imbal-ance, but if its tolerance is exceeded it can no longer be expected to sustain our life. Despite our realization of this fact, we are still caught in a lifestyle that requires an inordinate amount of fuel for heating and for travel, of water for cooling, of paper for com-munication, and so forth. Another reason that we can no longer sustain our present pat-terns of gro.wth and prosperity is that we no~ realize that our privileged lifestyle has often been secured at the expense of the human rights of others. Frequently we are able to procure what we need or what we want at bargain prices only because workers that provide us with these products are paid wages far below what they need in order to live with dignity and hope. We already fight wars over land and the control of natural resources and at the expense of vulnerable people and nations. Still, we continue to live relatively comfortable lives while professing to be in solidar-ity with the disadvantaged. On another issue, we reject any androcentric or misogynist anthropological view that regards women as derivative. We refuse to consider ourselves natural followers rather than leaders, sup-porters rather than directors, dependents rather than providers. We have become sensitized to language and imagery that explic-itly insults, subtly minimizes, or completely disregards women. And yet at times we ourselves employ the very strategies of priv- 346 Review for Religious ilege and control, both among ourselves and with others that we believe relegated us to positions of subservience in the first place. In yet another area we are engaged in ministerial situations that call for a high degree of resilience and include extensive trav-eling. Ours is a kind of itinerant existence which demands that rootedness, a feature that is essential for any sound life, be found somewhere else than in a particular place. Despite this we are often efltangled in concepts of community that are more fitted to a sedentary lifestyle than a peripatetic one. . Finally, we have committed ourselves to the transformation of the world, a world that seems bent on greed and power and on violence in order to preserve privilege. We have taken on min-istries of advocacy; direct social service; ecological, peace, and justice activism; and the influencing of policy on all .levels of gov-ernment, and we carry out these ministries in dangerous circum-stances. We have committed ourselves to uncommon selflessness. All the same, we are often caught in the contemporary preoccu-pation with our own health, both physical and spiritual; the sur-vival of our group and our institutions, even at the price of compromised ideals; and the glorification of personal and pro-fessional accomplishments. None of the above is done hard-heartedly. Rather, things have changed either so rapidly or so imperceptibly that we have had neither the time nor the insight carefully to analyze either the old models that governed us or the new ones that are emerging. Nonetheless, we have already taken upon ourselves the task of fashioning an alternative way of living in the world, and if we are to be faithful to this commitment, we will have to examine seri-ously not only what we do but also how we do it. We will have to learn anew that the reign of God is more a process than~a prod-uct. It is brought to birth not so much in what we do as in the way we do it. Although it is in the world, it is not of the world, and this includes the world's systems and strategies. In order to bring this reign to birth, we must first acknowl-edge that this same world has played an active role in forming us into the people we have become. We possess many of its features (for example, our political and economic values), and we carry the effects of its history (for example, our inherited preferences and prejudices). Although it plays sugh a formative role in our lives, we are not always aware of the ways in which our particu-lar worldview promotes our own well-being and enhances our May-.l~une 1993 347 Bergant ¯ IVould That All 14Zere Prophets lives. It is very easy to take for granted the attitudes and mores into which we have been socialized and to presume that they and only they offer a way of dignified human living. Yet how will we be able to transform the world if we are not even aware of how We must listen to the marginal, not because their way of living and coping is better than ours, but because they help us to see what is wrong with a system that makes people marginal in the first place. much we are embedded in that world and its values, and how much that world and its values are embedded in us? Usually it is only when people feel restricted or in some way diminished (in other words, when they are not members of the dominant or influential group of the culture) that they question the justice of the restriction and then of the underlying rea-sons for it or for the continuation of it. This explains why those who suffer oppression or who are relegated to marginality or invis-ibility within a group are sometimes better critics of that group than are those who are privileged and satisfied. We must listen to the marginal, not because their way of liv-ing and coping is better than ours, but because they help us to see what is wrong with a system that makes people marginal in the first place. But even this may not be enough. We may need someone's prophetic insight to uncover for us our own complicity with such systems and with the world that we hope to transform. We may need to listen to the voices in the world and in the church that offer us insights that, left to our own devices, we may not be able to gain; voices that call for authentic collaboration rather than subtle control, for willing cooperation rather than self-interested competition, for genuine interdependence rather than aloof independence or inappropriate dependence, for gra-cious mutuality rather than uncompromising domination, for uni-versal justice rather than selective exploitation, for unaffected respect rather than veiled disdain, for tender compassion rather than detached indifference, for the reign of God rather than busi-ness as usual. This paper ends where it began, with the challenge of the LCWR/CMSM statement: "Being converted by the example of Jesus and the values of the gospel, religious in the year 2010 will 348 Review for Religious serve a prophetic role in church and society." The task before us appears monumental, but then we are taking on the whole world. Like our predecessors in their own periods of crisis, in many ways we are in uncharted waters, but they did not drown--so why should we expect to? We are being called upon to address urgent human needs that are not only social but also religious in nature. As we work to transform the world, we are bringing to birth the reign of God. Added to this challenge is the task of developing a contemporary theological understanding of who we are and what we are doing. We may still claim meaningful religious traditions that informed us in the past, but our conventional expression of these traditions is not always helpful in the postmodern world that we face. Despite all of this, we believe that we have been called by God and that we are the heirs of a prophetic charism. We are convinced that we must be steadfast in what we do, without being unyielding. We must be bold as we face the unknown, with-out being foolhardy. We must be confident of the pervasive power of God's love, without being presumptuous. We must be creative as we face the future, without being forgetful of the past. In all of this we must be genuinely humble, for after all it is God who promises: "Behold, I make all things new" (Rv 21:5). Letterto a Friend on Her Return from Retreat in a Hermitage Don't be afraid; you bring the forest and the trees back with you. Deer roam the corners of your room; shadows hang upon the curtdins, crouch playfully upon the pane. Healing is not out there; it's within if it's at all. Deep nights and double days, the soft wool throw of quiet. Peace: you carry it with you like persistent pink impatiens in your heart. Ann Maureen Gallagher IHM May-June 1993 349 PAUL J. PHILIBERT Committed Christian Secularity tkniS difficult to profess a Christian lifestyle that is very little own and largely misunderstood, but my hope is that secu-lar institutes will become better known and much more appreci-ated. In this article I argue that the consecrated life of the professed secular Christian is the most vivid example of the ide-als of Christian living in the secular world that were put forward at Vatican Council II. In the light of this council's theology, one would expect church leaders to illustrate the radical meaning of baptism by speaking at every opportunity of'the ideals and prac-tice of members of secular institutes. Yet four years ago, when Pope John Paul II spelled out in his apostolic exhortation Christifideles Laici the "vocation" and "mission" of the lay faithful in the church and in the world, he made only the briefest refer-ence to secular institutes: In the field of a "commonly shared" lay vocation, "spe-cial" lay vocations flourish. In this area we can also recall the spiritual experience of the flourishing of diverse forms of secular institutes that have developed recently in the church. These offer the lay faithful, and even priests, the possibility of professing the evangelical coun-sels of poverty, chastity, and obedience through vows or promises, while fully maintaining one's lay or clerical state.~ Many diocesan bishops in the United States appear to be unaware of the meaning of secular institutes or unconcerned about their development. What, we may ask, does this lacuna in the ordinary teaching of the church actually mean? Paul J. Philibert oP is prior provincial of the Southern Dominican Province. His address is 3407 Napoleon Avenue; New Orleans, Louisiana 70125. 350 Revie'w for Religious One can start the assessment by noting that the present papal administration seems to be distancing itself from some of the reformist orientations of the council. For so long have we been dividing recent church history into two periods called "concil-iar" and "postconciliar" that we have failed to recognize a more complex reality which needs to be named. Like many others, I would divide these years into three periods: 1963-1965, the "con-ciliar" years, during which the council was in session; 1965 until the death of Pope Paul VI in 1978, the "postconciliar" years, dur-ing which the Vatican and most Catholic bishops endeavored to implement the liturgical and pastoral reforms of the council; and, since 1978, a period of "ecclesiastical reassessment" during the pontificate of John Paul II. One of the council fathers, who is now a retired archbishop, has said, "The council rejected triumphalism (the church has all the answers), clericalism (the church is a pyramid), and legalism (church teachings presented as laws). The church is in the mod-ern world as are its ministers. There is no retreating to being people of another world.''2 Yet, to a greater or lesser degree, all three of these orientations--triumphalism, clericalism, and legal-ism-- are creeping back into the attitudes and utterances of some church leaders. Some describe the present tendency of the Vatican as "restoration," that is, an orientation to restore things to the way they were before Vatican II. That may be too extreme a judgment, even though one can understand why some think that way. Different observers account for this retrenchment from the "postconciliar" period in different ways. Some have observed that a significant motivation for this papal administration has been to avoid schism with the Lefebvrites and other ultraconservative Catholics; they say that the Vatican has been bending .over back-wards to avoid alienating those who pretend that Vatican II never happened. Others suggest that some high officials in the Vatican believe that much that came out of the council was mistaken in its orientation and must be replaced with the preconciliar solutions. Probably more accurate is the view that many of the documents of Vatican II are compromise statements that contain the seeds of tension that are now sprouting and bearing the fruit of division and conflict over some basic notions of church. Tlie major orientations of this pontificate that seem to touch on secular institutes are centralization and institutional nostal- May-June 1993 351 Philibert ¯ Committed Christian Secularity The major orientations of this pontificate that seem to touch on secular institutes are centralization and institutional nostalgia. gia. Regarding centralization, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that some heads of Vatican congregations think that incultura-tion and diversity of practice have gotten out of hand. Cardinal Ratzinger is reported as saying that national organizations of bish-ops have gone too far in establishing their independence of Vatican control. Some American bishops, and bishops in Holland and Germany too, have been called on the carpet and chided for statements of theirs. These are examples of what I mean by central-ization. This pontificate does not want anything to be happening in the local churches without consultation with the top. As regards institutional nostalgia, the example of religious comes to mind. The pope personally or through personal del-egates working above the level of the Roman congregations has given prefer-ential treatment to certain new, conser-vative religious institutes like the Society of St. Peter and the Legionaries of Christ as well as to some small traditionalist groups that stayed with the Roman Catholic Church at the time of the excommunication of Archbishop Lefebvre. During the summer of 1992, the Holy See granted approval to a new Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious in the United States at the request of a small number of traditionalist sisters here. (They are fewer than ten percent of the religious women in this country.) This fairly momentous decision was taken by the pope at the behest of an American cardinal arch-bishop without any consultation of the three existing church lead-ership conferences: the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, and the Conference of Major Superiors of Men. Among other interpretations, actions like these make one wonder if this pontificate is calling into question the principles and outcomes of the past thirty years of efforts at institutional renewal undertaken by the vast majority of religious in this country and in western Europe. What is being held up as a positive counterex-ample is the attitude and practice of a small number of religious who follow a regular'daily order and wear a distinctive habit. 352 Review for Religious Separation rather than transformation marks the spirit that is approved. I need to admit, of course, that mistakes and excesses did occur in the thirty years of postconciliar efforts at renewal. That is too obvious to miss. But it needs to be pointed out, I believe, that the Vatican seems now to single out for approval a simple return to the ways of the preconciliar period. This is what I mean by institutional nostalgia. Applying these observations to secular institutes, I note that their form of consecration does not fit well either with central-ization or with institutional nostalgia. They are trying new ways of implementing the church's ancient commitment to consecrated Christian life. Even though their commitment and spirituality are admirably in accord with the lay vocation and mission as described in Pope John Paul's apostolic exhortation, their juridi-cal and cultural independence place them somewhat outside the central preoccupations of this pontificate. In this context I now ask two essential questions: What is the vocation of a consecrated secular Christian? And how should it evolve? Institutes Described in the Code" of 1983 The 1983 Code of Canon Law describes secular institutes carefully. Their members share a radical commitment to Christian witness and apostolic endeavor. The charism given to secular institutes and recognized by the church is to united Christian commitment and secular presence in the world. Members remain lay or diocesan priests, even though they receive a canonical sta-tus in view of their profession of a consecrated life. The 1983 Code has abandoned the term "states of perfec-tion" and, above all, the language of Provida Mater (1947), which allowed one to think that there was a sort of hierarchy of institutes of perfection which placed members of secular institutes within a third rank. Canon 710 says: "A secular institute is an institute of consecrated life in which the Christian faithful living in the world strive for the perfection of charity and work for the sanctifica-tion of the world especially from within." The use of the cate-gory "consecrated life" allows the possibility of avoiding reference to the category "religious." In the eyes of the present Code, "reli-gious" and "seculars" are two categories of consecrated life of equal dignity. May-June 1993 353 Philibert ¯ Committed Christian Secularity Canon 713, §2, indicates that lay members, in the world and operating in a secular manner, participate in the church's evan-gelizing task in various ways: (a) by means of the witness of their Christian life, (b) by their fidelity to their profession of the evan-gelical counsels, (c) by their "efforts to order temporal things to God," and (d) by shaping the things of the world so that they are enlivened by the spirit of the gospel. "Also, they cooperate in serving the ecclesial community, according to their particular sec-ular way of life" (c. 713). Members of secular institutes are called to strive for the per-fection of charity. The ultimate purpose of secular institutes is apostolic. Their apostolate is the expression and the exercise 6f their consecration. As to lifestyle, the Code of 1983 is insistent upon the secular dimension of their living. Neither common life nor religious garb is to be imposed upon members) Consecration vs. Commitment Let us linger for a moment on the term "consecration"; it is the source of a great potential misunderstanding. Almost thirty years ago, Father M. D. Chenu (the gre, at French Dominican theologian who died in 1991) pointed out that the term "consecration" was loaded with ambiguity when employed in a context of relation or service to the world. The word, from the Latin for "to make sacred," supposes an opposition between the sacred and the profane. Is it, asked Chenu, a useful term.at precisely the moment when the Roman Catholic Church is articulating its openness to the world and its embrace of the ordinary conditions of human expe-rience (see Gaudium et Spes)? Historically the word "profane" meant "not pertaining to that which is sacred or holy," from the Latin for "outside the temple." So, Chenu argued, we would do better in this age to leave aside the term consecration, which suggests an oppo-sition to the secular (the nonsacred) and to express the intensifi-cation of a Christian life with a word like commitment.4 Chenu was at the time in search of the authentic meaning of religious life. His remark is even more pertinent to the vocation of members of secular institutes. Chief among their stated goals is to witness to the fullness of a lay vocation or (in the case of ordained members) of baptismal maturity in a world of secularity. The key issue, it seems, is how to be an active participant in sec-ular life and at the same time to be an exemplary Christian. 354 Review for Religious Secular and Christian What is authentic secular living, and what is authentic Christian witness? One of the meanings of the word secular (from the Latin saeculum, meaning "age") is "pertaining to the spirit of the age or the character of the times." This may refer to things like clothing styles and popular music, but is there a deeper mean-ing too? What is the most profound challenge of our age? I think that the answer lies somewhere within the interplay of political and religious phenomena. We are coming out from what was sometimes called "the age of alienation" or "the age of anxiety." Not that all alienation and anxiety are over and done with, but the world seems to be mov-ing out from under the cloud that threatened us for 45 years with nuclear destruction. It is amazing, now that the Cold War is ended, that there is not more acknowledgment and analysis of the waste of wealth on arms of cosmic destructive power. If the trillions of dollars spent on armaments in the past five decades had been available for peaceful solutions to world problems, we could have eliminated illiteracy and starvation and attacked poverty and disease. We were victims of irrational fear for fifty years; now that period is passing. The demise of the major communist governments is another symbol of a changing age. The irony is that Karl Marx devised the philosophy of communism as a response to "alienation"--people not being able to participate meaningfully in the economic and political processes that governed their lives. The tragedy is that the government of the Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin became instead a totalitarian dictatorship that was even more alienating than the corrupt government to which it was reacting. Marx's issue, though--participation versus alienation--is still the issue. Here in the United States, at the end of an overlong pres-idential electoral campaign, it is not at all clear that people are pre-pared to participate vigorously in politics, We have been alienated by the media and by the deviousness of the c~ndidates themselves from truly raising or genuinely addressing the issues that are the most significant for our nation as a whole. In the religious world, participation versus alienation is like-wise a key issue. One analysis of the Second Vatican Council and its aftermath is that the dominant social reality of this age has been to promote full participation in church life--worship and administration included--to all those who, by their baptism, are May-ffune 1993 355 Philibert ¯ Committed Christian Secularity entitled to dynamic interaction within the "body of Christ." Forty years ago we would never have conceived of a woman eucharistic minister, a lay pastoral administrator, or a nonclerical chancellor of a diocese. Now we have all these things and have learned to take them for granted. Despite the fact that more progress has been made in securing entitlements to church office for lay people in general and women in particular in the past fifty years than in the previous fifteen hun-dred years, there is nonetheless strong agitation for even more par-ticipation, includinglthe ordination of Catholic women to priestly service. It can be argued that to be authentically "secular" today is to take a stand for the promotion of rightful participation of all persons in the structures, processes, and decisions that shape their lives and shape the communities in which they live. Authentic Secularity Authentic secularity includes three Cs: conversation, com-passion, and conversion. Social psychologists have argued that people enter into a new form of relation when they treat others not as strangers or inferiors, but equals. This is what I mean by "conversation." A conversation is marked by give-and-take, by listening as well as speaking, receiving as well as giving. This atti-tude, when adopted intentionally, empowers others. It opens us to the perspective of another despite distances of role and situation. It favors the understanding and fellow feeling that we generally call "compassion." Living this relation of conversation and com-passion promotes experiences of "conversion." Here conversion means for me a reorientation that makes us eager to promote the growth and freedom of others. By this conversion, one becomes an agent of liberation and a facilitator of the moral and emotional maturity of our neighbors in this world. My effort to spell out the agenda of authentic secularity in our age of transition has remained rather general and abstract, but I hope that these ideas may stimulate recognition of these patterns or possibilities in yourself. I hope you will notice that many people are still marginalized from government and the econ-omy, education and the church, and that their true well-being can be promoted through their fuller participation in these things. The promotion of such participation is a clear responsibility of those who have secular integrity .at heart. 356 Review for Religious Authentic Christian Witness Beyond secular integrity, how does one integrate authentic Christian witness with it? How is one authentically Christian today? First, I would observe that the key issue here is more akin to pol-itics than to piety. I use "politics" in Plato's classical sense, mean-ing the ethos and the discourse of a people. Of all the dynamic changes that have touched the lives of American Catholics as a result of Vatican II, none has been as important or as far-reaching as the transformation of our sense of church. We no longer see Sunday worship as sacred theater. We see that we are each church, but not as isolated consciousnesses, isolated pieties, or isolated agendas. We are church as part of an organic cooperation and growing solidarity in the gospel and in the Holy Spirit. The council's mos~t dramatic theological paradigm shift, according to most theologians, was the fresh view of the church as the people of God. This view was the fruit of decades of the-ological work, especially biblical research and exegesis, liturgical studies, and the reinstitution of adult catechesis in northern Europe in the period between the two world wars. All three of these streams of research found it important to stress the theo-logical continuity between the Old Testament and the New. The opinion that the Old Testament's God was thunderously severe and arbitrary while the New Testament's God is forgiving and gentle was seen for the simplistic misinformation that it was. Better biblical texts and better exegesis, based not upon early Latin translations, but rather upon ancient Hebrew manuscripts, allowed several generations of biblical scholars and theologians to appreciate the theology of the Old Testament for what it was, a testament of mercy and salvation. The key concept of both tes-taments, which unified the revelation of the ages, was that of a people called and saved by God from alienation and absurdity. From the call of Abraham through the story of the sons of Jacob, the Egyptian slavery and the exodus, the kingships and the exile, and the times of the prophets and the remnant, one message dom-inated salvation history. God called and chose a people to become his very own so that they could bear witness in their very existence to his transcendent reality and mercy. The theology of Vatican II places this truth above all others, forcing other themes of theology and other pastoral insights to adjust to it. God calls a people to be the visible expression of God's way with the real. The descendents of Jacob, Israel, heard May-.l~une 1993 357 Pbilibert ¯ Committed Christian Secularity In Jesl, ls ~ God was again calling a people to be his own--. this time a people so closely identified with Jesus the Lord as to be calledhis "Body." (despite disbelief and temptation) and were haunted by God's call until they became the Judaism of history. Jesus came to call them into an intimate relation of love, forgiveness, and transformation by revealing the mystery of the triune God. But many of them rejected the Messiah Jesus, and the story of God's people reached a new moment in the followers of Jesus. These followers carried the "good news" to the nations, while Israel "hardened its heart" once again. But the fundamental truth did not change: in Jesus, God was again calling a people to be his own--this time a,~ people so closely identified with Jesus the Lord as to be called his "Body." It may be that in this theological insight lies the greatest challenge of all for members of secular institutes. For reasons largely associated with the ori-gins of secular institutes in hostile, anti-clerical societies, the institutes adopted the principle of discretion or reserve. One characteristic of this is that the members are not to lead a lifestyle pub-licly distinct from that of their neigh-bors. Part of their "secularity" is their immersion in the ordinary. A public religious profession or an unusual lifestyle would deny institute members access to the are-nas of.activity and witness in which they hope to use their apos-tolic energies: the place of work, casual neighborhood conversations, and the deliberations of university faculties, gov-ernment agencies, and community assemblies. This kind of anonymity--not publicizing their secular- institute commitment-- need not keep members from active involvement in a local parish's liturgical and apostolic life, but institutes differ in encouraging their members to lend their energies to the shared life and apos-tolic projects of their parish community. An authentic Christian life, however, is, as I said above, an ecclesial life. The institute members must always reflect the call of God to all Christians to be part of the people, of God and to give solid witness to God's presence and mercy in the midst of a hurting world. Therefore, they need to guard against such things as escapism, a piety .that is self-absorbed rather than apostolic, 358 Revie~ for Religious and a manner of liturgical participation that avoids involvement with the worshiping community. The ministry of reconciliation and atonement of the Lord Jesus can be seen as a work of solidarity with those who had become alienated from the forgiving and empowering word of his Father. As Vatican II's Constitution on Divine Revelation puts it, "Jesus perfected revelation by fulfilling it through his whole work of making himself present and manifesting himself: through his words and deeds, his signs and wonders, but especially through his death and glorious resurrection from the dead and final send-ing of the Spirit of truth." The central challenge to our moment of time from the gospel is that of visibly joining the dynamics of faith and of social trans-formation. I have been trying to evoke a general sense of the issues that are involved in this joining. But now it is time to turn to the admirable text of Pope John Paul II that followed upon the synod of bishops of 1987 and in which he summarizes the synod's theological insights. Christifideles Laici At the heart of the pope's message in Christifideles Laici is the assertion that lay Christians can bring to the frontiers of society a presence of the church that is unique. As the council's Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Says, "The laity are called in a spe-cial way to make the church present and operative in those places and dircumstances where only through them can she become the salt of the earth" (§33).5 It is the secular insertion of the laity that is the treasured aspect of their witness, in the pope's analysis. He says, "In particular, the lay faithful are called to restore to creation all its original value. In ordering creation to the authentic well-being of humanity in an activity governed by the life of grace, they share in the exercise of the power with which the risen Christ draws all things to himself and subjects them along with himself to the Father, so that God might be everything to everyone" (§14). The pope interprets the secular character of the lay Christian as a theological dimension of the experience of being Christian. It involves living in the world and transforming it through the exer-cise of "every one of the secular professions and occupations." It involves their relationships with family, friends, professionals, members of society, and authorities of the civil order. May-June 199.~ 359 Philibert ¯ Committed Christian Secularity The pope's theological affirmation appears to be that living and working in the context of ordinary reality from motives of faith in God and love for our human fellows is in itself an exercise of grace with the power to influence and ennoble human exchanges. The pope makes an unusually strong statement in saying: The images of salt, light, and leaven taken from the gospel, although indiscriminately applicable to all Jesus' disciples, are specifically applied to the lay faithful. They are partic-ularly meaningful images because they speak not only of the deep involvement and the full participation of the lay faithful in the affairs of the earth, the world, and the human community, but also and above all they tell of the radical newness and unique character of an involvement and par-ticipation which has as its purpose the spreading of the gospel that brings salvation (§ 15). The pope goes on to emphasize that a member of the lay faithful cannot remain in isolation from the community, but must live in an interaction with others that builds up the church. With reference to the church's liturgy, the pope says, "The various min-istries, offices, and roles that the lay faithful can legitimately ful-fill in the liturgy, in the transmission of the faith, and in the pastoral structure of the church ought to be exercised in confor-mity to their specific lay vocation, which is different from that of the sacred ministry" (§23). At the heart of lay people's ecclesial life is the parish, which is the symbol and the realization of the community of Christians. The pope reports that at the synod the bishops, in their discus-sions about renewing parishes, proposed two approaches: (1) "adaptation of parish structures according to the full flexibility granted by canon law, especially in promoting participation by the lay faithful in pastoral responsibilities"--so as to respond to situations where parishes have become geographically too large or where exiles and migrants demand specific pastoral responses (such as ministry in languages foreign to the place); and (2) devel-oping "small, basic or so-called 'living' communities where the faithful can communicate the word of God and express it in ser-vice and love to one another; these communities are true expres-sions of ecclesial co~nmunion and centers of evangelization in communion with their pastors" (§26). Thus the pope links the renewal of the parish to the expanded role of the lay faithful in the ani~nation and development of parish communities and the foundation of base communities alongside 360 Review for Religious and within the structure of existing parishes. Clearly, the need to find new forms of relationship that call to faith and celebrate faith within the neighborhood or the village is at one and the same time a diagnosis of the church's weakness today and a challenging mission for committed lay people. The pope, stating that the council insisted upon "the absolute necessity of an apostolate exercised by the individual [lay Christian]" (§28), then cites the following text of the council: The apostolate exercised by the individual--which flows abundantly from a truly Christian life (see Jn 4:14)--is the origin and condition of the whole lay apostolate, even in its organized expression, and admits no substitute. Regardless of circumstance, all lay persons (including those who have no opportunity or possibility for collaboration in associations) are called to this type of apostolate and obliged to engage in it. Such an apostolate is useful at all times and places, but in certain circumstances it is the only one avail-able and feasible.~ The pope's letter says much about the possibilities for holiness in committed lay life, but here I will include only some summary comments taken from its closing pages. A key preoccupation of Pope John Paul is to foster unity between everyday life and faith experience. He speaks of the need to evangelize the cultures within which we live. In part this means finding a place (in conversation and in social action) for the gospel values that the church preaches. Lives that integrate prayer, con-templation, and liturgical and sacramental life are a witness to the divine origin of our life and our world. The pope urges a readiness to take part in church programs and activities at local, national, and international levels. He indicates the crucial need for capable persons to commit themselves to catechesis and religious teaching. He urges people to organize gatherings and meetings focused upon a Christian analysis of family, civic, and social expe-rience. Finally, he mentions the value of a spirit of detachment and generosity and the power of the witness of poverty in a world " that is seduced by the power of materialism. John Paul then calls for a "reevangelization" of the Catholic and Christian world; we need, he says, to "remake the Christian fabric of the ecclesial community itself. This will be possible if the lay faithful will know how to overcome in themselves the separation of the gospel from life, to again take up in their daily activities in family, work, and society an integrated approach to life May-.~ne 1993 361 Philibert ¯ Committed Christian Secularity that is fully brought about by the inspiration and strength of the gospel" (§34). Earlier I noted how odd I find it that this lengthy document refers only briefly to secular institutes. I will not dwell further on that point. I observe, however, two things on the relation between secular institutes and the pope's apostolic exhortation on the laity: (1) I think this papal document is an extraordinarily well-crafted exposition of the meaning of the life of the vows for members of secular institutes. What they effectively commit them-selves to is an intense baptismal transformation as spelled out in the documents of Vatican II and summarized in the pope's letter. (2) The papal teaching here takes us a step further. The mem-bers of secular institfites must be committed to fostering the Christian life of their friends and neighbors. There is a mission-ary dimension to their vocation--towards their neighbor and towards the common culture within which they live and celebrate together. Although I have no firsthand experience of living the life of secular institutes, I have come as an interested outsider to the study of this dedicated form of life. My hope is not to answer ques-tions and close off discussion, but to raise questions and open new avenues of dialogue. I feel that secular institutes, especially in the United States, have a great opportunity. The church needs evan-gelical guidelines to help people grow in personal holiness and in effective witness to all the people around them. And so I hope that members of secular institutes will find ways to articulate their sense of their vocation even more clearly 9nd ways to make others aware of the very existence of secular institutes and the nature of their life. The gospel warns us about keeping treasures hidden. Notes ~ John Paul II, The Lay Members of Christ's Faithful People: Christifideles Laici (Boston: Daughters of St. Paul, 1989), §56. 2 David M. Bulger, "Men Who Love Their Priesthood and Their Church," Touchstone (National Federation of Priests' Councils newslet-ter) 8, no. 1 (fall 1992), p. 2. The prelate in question is the Most Rev. James Martin Hayes, retired archbishop of Halifax. 3 See the helpful summary in E Valdrini, J. Vernay, J. E Durand, and O. l~chapp~, Droit Canonique (Paris: Dalloz, 1989), pp. 188-121. 362 Review 3~r Religious 4 M. D. Chenu, "Consecratio Mundi," in The Christian in the World: Readings in Theology (New York: Kenedy, 1965), pp. 161-177. 5 The Documents of Vatican H, ed. and trans. W. M. Abbot and J. Gallagher (Ne~ York: Association Press, 1966): The Dogmatic Con-stimtion on the Church, §33. 6 Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity (Apostolicam Actuositatem), §16. Loving Verbs I've always loved nouns. Neatly framed words with clear definitions. Solid, stable words that name safe things, things you can count on and hold and keep. I know now that I've been afraid of verbs. Words that do and have and are. Words that whirl past you so fast you can't catch them, that alter and change things and give ulcers to nouns . Loving verbs is like saying yes to the rollercoaster, going on but still being scared. Loving verbs is saying yes to a kaleidoscope of action and being and having and feeling. Loving verbs is saying yes to Possibility. I think it's time for me to fall in love with verbs. Christen Shukwit OSF May-~une 1993 363 prayer SUZANNE ZUERCHER and direction Liturgy of the Hours: A Reflection "Ritual is the enactment of the myth." --Joseph Campbell The reality of monastic" life has always been formed and shaped around the ritual of the Liturgy of the Hours. In his Rule for Monasteries St. Benedict devoted numerous, if brief, chapters to the content and structure of this prayer, which he called the Work of God. The Divine Office requires that monastics pause again and again, offer praise together, and then move on to the next aspect of their lives. The complete circle of the monastic day gains its momentum ahd energy by stopping for the Work of God. Many monastics no longer spend eight periods daily praying the Liturgy of the Hours. Nevertheless, the pri-ority of this liturgical prayer remains, and they continue to gather daily. For contemporary monastics, as for early ones, this form of worship best manifests what their life together is about. Early monastics were lay persons even in all-male communities, and so opportunities for daily eucharistic celebrations did not exist in many monasteries. In such a context it is understandable that Benedict would place a high priority on the Work of God, which he made the distinctive and constant form of community praise and worship. It remains the heart of monastic prayer life even in this twentieth century. Suzanne Zuercher OSB, well known for her writings and work-shops, has held both administrative and formation roles in her community. Her address is: St. Scholastica Priory; 7430 North Ridge Boulevard; Chicago, Illinois 60645. 364 Re'view for Religious In times when we are so intent on exploring what religious community really means, one place to look for the answer is in this ritual of the Liturgy of the Hours. Joseph Campbell tells us that by examining a ritual we can find out about the myth the ritual attempts to express. For this reason I would like to spend time reflecting on elements of the Divine Office as it is celebrated in monastic communities in order to better understand what com-munity means in such settings. Today's monastic communi-ties say something about who they are as they gather daily for this ritual and worship. Perhaps even they need to pay close attention to what that statement is. Are we overlooking what community life is and needs to remain by failing to examine what may well be its clearest manifestation? Initially, the most basic communication a monastic community makes by gathering for the Work of God is that their life is founded on hope. David Steindl-Rast in his book Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer distinguishes hope from optimism. A hopeful per-son lives in the present. An optimistic one looks ahead, pumping up positive feelings of how good things will be. A person of hope looks with confidence and trust into reality simply as it is right now. He or she--or they when one speaks of a community of hopeful people--finds life in ordinary, humble, actual experience. Rather than having expectations of good things to come, persons of hope have only one expectation: For those who live and wait in the present moment, life/Life will be a surprise. Monastics watch for such surprises. Ritual, Campbell also reminds us, is by its very nature boring. In its repetitiveness it fails as entertainment and distraction. Instead, ritual forces those who participate in it to search beneath the words and actions to discover the reality it gives shape to. This holds true whether worshipers are from Indonesia or Illinois. Boredom demands the deeper search for meaning beneath litur-gical action. Those who observe monastic communities repeating psalmody week after week and year after year may wonder what can possi- The most basic communication a monastic community makes by gathering for the Work of God is that their life is founded on hope. May-j%ne 1993 365 Zuercher ¯ Liturgy of the Hours bly draw them together for so repetitious a ritual. The sequential reading of Scripture, the yearly round of liturgical seasons, the consistent liturgical gestures are rhythmic, to be sure. To some, such repetition may appear empty and uncreative; but for monas-tics, whose worship is formed around this liturgy, such ordinari-ness underlines the reality of all human life and, consequently, of their life together. It calls to them, demands of them, that they look more deeply into what their lives are about. Eventually, if they are to continue to gather for the Hours, they are forced to cut through ritual to discover what that ritual signifies. It is dif-ficult, if not impossible, to endure the repetitive round of common prayer without such a breakthrough. Monastics who do not respond to this challenge to go deeper either go to sleep or despair. Sooner or later they absent them-selves psychically and physically from gatherings of the commu-nity in prayer or otherwise. Those, however, who hang, on in the face of meaninglessness can be led to the conversion at the heart of monastic commitment. Anguish and desperation can lead to rebirth and transformation in this as in other aspects of the spir-itual life. We do not willingly plumb our lives. We do so only when something demands that we move from the obvious to what that obvious is really expressing. We are forced to ask some questions: Why do we come together, stop our work, come home early, make sacrifices to be together for this time of prayer? What is the mean-ing behind what we do and say here? Do we believe all this, see it as important, even primary? Such questions are about the liturgy. But they are also, if we look closely at them, questions about community itself. Do we really see significance in using up our energies in praise of God together? Given life/Life as mystery, there is no final answer to any important human question. That is possibly why we keep asking what community is over and over again, generation after gener-ation, even though we have a Rule to guide us. Our human nature ultimately insists on experience. Experience is how we learn our answers. Liturgy of the Hours revolves around a lived experience of virtues we have all learned about which form the bedrock of the spiritual life. It makes these virtues concrete. First, we find faith in the gathering of the community, and we believe that life/Life will be found here. Then we recognize that the space in which we 366 Review for l~eligio~s gather is a sacred place where holiness will quicken us; for this we hope. And when it does bring the energy we call spirit/Spirit, we are truly one people, God's family, united in love with those who gather here and with the world of which we are a microcosm. Indeed, the place of our gathering for liturgy is sacred, but the spiritual spills over, if it is gen-uine, into all the other aspects of life: to the kitchen, the grounds, the classroom, the social agency, the hospital ward, the parish offices, the artist's studio. All are sacred places, all filled with objects and growing things and others who are sacred vessels. Benedict told his monastics to pause wherever they were in their work for God's Work, the Liturgy of the Hours, to remind themselves that everything is sacred. They were not to make life holy; they were to remind them-selves that it already is. Another element of monastic community is stability. Sometimes misunderstood as never going anywhere, stability does have something to do with being together in physical space. There is symbol in gathering. When community members come in one after another and take their places for the Work of God, their gathering together says what people want and need to hear expressed: You can count on my presence. Seeing the same per-sons gathered for prayer day after day makes real the word fidelity. The action of monastics looking around and noticing commu-nity members assembled with them is itself a form of prayer--a consoling and strengthening reminder that we wait as a people for our God (o come to save us. The monastics who gather share daily living, values, com-mitment; They are the same people who will be together in wor-ship and in all the other moments of existence as well. Praying together stands for and ritualizes all our being together. Talk and write as we will about the importance of being one in spirit, actu-ally hearing the voices and observing the silences and singing the psalmody with community members provides a needed testimony of this dedication to one another. The physical setting and its rituals offer another reflection on monastic community. As weeks pass, those who participate in the Liturgy of the Hours assume first one role in the ritual and then another. From presider to chanter, to reader, to the one who Praying together stands for and ritualizes all our being together. May-gTune 1993 367 Zuercber ¯ Liturgy of the Hours intones the various choirs, to merely being one of the group at prayer, the rhythm of life involves numerous tasks. The rhythm of monastic community is similar. One may be the prioress for a time, and then the procurator or the formation director, the gar-dener or the cook, the principal of the school or a teacher, the hospital administrator or a staff nurse. Monastics move easily and regularly throughout their lifetime in one another's company from the responsibilities of authority to those of obedience. They do so simply; it matters little in their life together what title they may have or how much prestige it carries. If today they have a larger role, yesterday they were one of the group and tomorrow they will be so again. Prolonged and consistent living among the same people pro-vides opportunity for a unique sort of learning. All the ministries monastics assume in the community and beyond it are for ser-vice, and this service changes. When a group lives in continuity with one another, moving from role to role is a normal, unim-pressive experience. Members give of their talents now in one way and now in another. The content of the Liturgy of the Hours is almost entirely scriptural. Meaning comes from the long and nourishing story of the Judeo-Christian tradition found in both Old and New Testaments. The history of redemption is larger than any indi-vidual person or any community, but Scripture provides words for the human experiences lived out by the whole group and each of its individual members. Monastics ponder the Scriptures until its words--and more importantly, the message they proclaim-- permeate their lives, are absorbed into the marrow of their bones. Body and mind and feelings soak up the liturgical seasons in their cyclic rhythm. In my own experience I once met a group of spiritual direc-tors who were to companion some monastic women on their first directed retreat. These directors expressed concern about how to introduce praying with Scripture. To their surprise, the monastics they directed not only understood the relevance of suggested pas-sages, they were able to add many others on the same theme. The directors were amazed at how steeped these women were in the concrete experiences which various Scriptures highlighted. Many of them had done litde formal scriptural study, but the constant association of the texts with their day-to-day lives had blended both together. 368 Review for Religious The simple reflection on the Gospel which the Liturgy of the Hours provides testifies to the natural, nonelaborate quality of the best of prayer, the best of living. There is design and order in the structul'e of God's Work, but medieval embellishments have been done away with in these times of ours. Monasticism is again being expressed very simply in its most basic and original form, and its prayer ritual has assumed some-thing of the natural breathing in and out of word and silence. As a result monastics experience the order and peace found when an appropriate amount of structure shapes life. It is important that what is and needs to be predictable not degenerate into rigid formalism. Monastic liturgy makes the statement that, as is true for all mature persons, mgnastics need to learn to bend with changing breezes without uprooting themselves as they do so. Perh.aps the most signifiEant statement the Liturgy of the Hours makes is that "it is good for us to be here." In the end, community is its own justification as is prayer. Religious life is valuable simply because it is. People live in community; it is the human thing to do. The kind of community people choose varies according to who they are. Monastics live their kind of commu-nity life primarily because it "fits" them. They find their whole-hess with other people who, like them, seek God, the Work of God and obedience as described in the Rule for Monasteries. When members of monastic communities live their under-standing of who they are in a whole and happy way, they cannot but witness to God's love and peace and joy. They do so simply by their lives. Of course, it is true that any whole person is called to care and to serve~ to be concerned and to work for the good of others. Monastics, therefore, find that they cannot contain what God has given them. It overflows to those around them and cre-ates yet another expression of stability in the environments in which they live. The vision of monastic community that underlies this article is idealized, to be sure. So, too, is the fantasy of perfectly carry-ing out the Liturgy of the Hours. Such perfection never happens. There are coughs and sneezes; people read too softly or too loudly, Perhaps the most significant statement the Liturgy of the Hours makes is that "it is good for us to be here." May-3~ne 1993 369 Zuercber ¯ Liturgy of the Hours too slowly or too fast. People forget to perform their assigned role in the ritual and the flow of things is upset. Differing inter-pretations about how the psalmody is to be read or sung by the group create subtle conflicts. All of these imperfections, and many more besides, limit the beauty and peace of liturgical celebration. Despite such imperfections, monastics continue to gather together for this less-than-perfect expression of a community life that is also less than perfect. They watch and wait, not knowing at what hour the Bridegroom will come in the form of some insight, some consolation, some discernment, some energy released from image or symbol, some decision to act. The Spirit blows when and where it wills. Those who wait find their quick-ening at the point of what we might Fall readiness--a readiness which differs for each person. It demands a culmination of a num-ber of life experiences to reach such a ripeness. Monastics gathered for Liturgy of the Hours never know when their individual hearts will be warmed, when the heart of the person beside them will be set on fire, when the community as a group will hear God's response to the Spirit's groaning within. But they wait, nonetheless, with a certain amount of patience and good humor for these freeing moments to occur in the world of time. This reality best describes for me what community is. It has not always been my description of our life together, but in recent years community has come to mean waiting with one another for each person's time. The ritual of Liturgy of the Hours celebrates and makes that description clear over and over, day after day. It, indeed, enacts the reality we struggle to define, the myth of reli-gious community. 370 Review for Religious KENNETH C. RUSSELL Get Serious! The Monastic Condemnation of Laughter /~,n, chapter six of his famous rule, St. Benedict bluntly forbids talk leading to laughter,''1 Later he notes that a monk has reached .the tenth step of humility when "he is not given to ready laughter:, for it is written: 'Only a fool raises his voice in laughter'" (Si 21:23).2 This condemnation of mirth is not, we must note, some oddity that can be explained away on the basis of Benedict's personal history or the troubled period in which he lived. His outright condemnation of the joviality we applaud was echoed in other monastic rules and in the critical comments of church fathers such as St. Ephrem and St. John Chrysostom.3 This harsh attitude toward laughter seems strange to us and even downright unhealthy. The early spiritual masters frowned on laughter; we, on the contrary, are suspicious of seriousness. ' In today's world all truth is spoken with a smile, as Horace rec-ommended, and Woody Allen, despite his recent troubles, is the only Hamlet we are willing to tolerate. Why Laughter Was Suspect But what prompted the first monks to condemn laughter? The scholars who have explored the early monastic rules and the sayings of the desert fathers offer various explanations. For one thing, laughter disrupts monastic order. It shatters the silence that represents the readiness of a disciple to listen.4 A monk who Kenneth C. Russell is a professor of the theology faculty at Saint Paul University. His address is Saint Paul University; 223 Main Street; Ottawa K1S 1C4; Canada. May-June 1993 371 Russell ¯ Get Serious.t is busy laughing is not ready to hear whatever may be spoken to him by the Holy Spirit or the abbot. In the monastic context it is the abbot's duty to speak and the monk's to listen,s The monas-tic rules are particularly hard on the effort to provoke laughter. In terms of order, this all makes sense because a joker in the clois-ter is obviously the equivalent of the clown in the back row of a classroom competing with the teacher for the other students' attention. Monasticism's reasons for rejecting laughter went deeper than that, however. The early monks prohibited laughter because they associated it with an arrogant, self-satisfied disdain for God and neighbor. Did Jesus not in fact say, "Woe to you who laugh now; you shall weep in your grief" (Lk 6:25)? And where in the New Testament does it say that Jesus laughed? This may not seem an important point to us, but the early monks took the failure of the gospels to show Jesus laughing quite seriously. They were not the only ones. Not even popular piety, which was ready in every cen-tury to fill the gaps in the gospel narrative with legends and sto-ries, ever developed the image of a lighthearted, laughing Jesus.6 Why this suspicion of laughter in the first Christian cen-turies? There would seem to be cultural as well as religious rea-sons for this uneasiness. In the tight-knit societies of the ancient world, laughter was likely to be laughter at someone: the for-eigner, the deformed, the handicapped. It separated the person who had done something "funny" from the group and made him or her a legitimate object of scorn. Laughter mocked and excluded the outsider. This social reality is reflected in the view of the ancient Greeks who, though they recognized risibility as a dis-tinctive human quality, concluded nonetheless that laughter was unbecoming to a mature human being because of its characteris-tic cruelty.7 The world in which monasticism took shape was sev-eral centuries away from the classical era, but the same high regard for how one appeared to others and the same sensitivity to shame were operative. Laughter, therefore, could be seen as a destruc-tive and even satanic force,s We must not think, however, that the fathers and the early monks favored a kind of pious gloom. They did not. In fact, some of those who made the harshest remarks about laughter were well known for their geniality and cheerfulness. What they frowned on was a certain lighthearted devil-may-care joviality. But why? To get to the heart of the matter, I think we have to look beyond the 372 Review for Religious historical situation and the predictable considerations of monas-tic discipline to the very essence of laughter. This is the only way we can discover what the fathers were really condemning and determine whether what they said has any message for us today. What Is So Funny? It seems to me that humor springs from the tension between our spiritual aspirations and the physical limitations imposed on us by our bodies and our confinement in a physical world with laws of its own. Comedy, in other words, is built into our very being. Even when we avoid the ridicu-lous pretensions that blind the proud to the banana peel right in front of them, we are funny creatures. Our efforts to go up the down escalator, our inability to guarantee that the soup in our spoon will reach our mouth without mishap, and all the other follies of daily life constantly remind us of our basic humanity or, to put it differently, of our littleness and dependence. Our comic condition mocks our solemnity? Therefore, if we have a prudent measure of humility and a min-imum of wisdom, we cheerfully accept our role in the human comedy and laugh at ourselves. We also laugh at others, but usually because we identify with them and see ourselves in their pratfalls. That is why Charlie Chaplin holds our attention or why we laugh at the-shy scientist in The Gods Must Be Crazy who falls all over every bit of furniture in sight in the presence of the attractive young woman who has entered his life. "Isn't it the truth!" we say. Male or female, we know what it is like to be completely overwhelmed by the attractiveness and charm of another human being. We have all been there, and our laughter celebrates our humanity and the glory of its fragile being. Our laughter testifies that the world, for all its troubles, is a joy-ous place and humanity, for all its pain, a wondrous thing in the hands of a God who can be trusted. Faith and cheerfulness would seem to go together. Our laughter testifies that the world, for all its troubles, is a joyous place and humanity, for all its pain, a wondrous thing in the hands of a God who can be trusted. May-June 1993 373 Russell ¯ Get Serious! But does our laughter always stand in such a healthy rela-tionship to the basic seriousness of life? What about the cynicism and despair that echoes in much of our laughter? For, indeed, we use laughter, not only to relativize the tragic dimension of life, but also to trivialize it altogether. Laughter can be a way of saying, "Hey, when it comes to silliness and stupidity, we're all in the same boat!" or it can be a frightened, frenzied dance over the abyss of anxiety. Laughter can be a life-affirming chuckle or a panicky giggle. Laughter, therefore, is not necessarily a sign of faith, nor is it necessarily, to use .the title of Richard Cote's contribution to a theology of laughter, "Holy Mirth." 10 It may, indeed, signify a brave stance before the meaninglessness of life. It may be a deter-mined retreat from a truth too dismal to contemplate. It may, ultimately, be an avoidance of seriousness. The Nature of Laughter We have lost the ancient world's suspicion of laughter, but it remains true, nonetheless, that making someone the object of laughter can be a disguised act of aggression. The same chuckle that mocks the other may comfort the joker with the consolation that he or she is not "like that." Whether crude or subtly sugar-coated, this alienating humor is the basis of most racial jokes and stories. Is this cruel aspect of humor just a negative twist that can be explained away by human sinfulness, or is it, in fact, the very basis of laughter? Surprising as it may seem, most philosophers and psychologists who have studied laughter connect it with aggres~ sivity and defensiveness. You may hit your neighbor with a feather duster and protect yourself with a water pistol, but you do hit him and you do defend yourself. In the evolutionary and anthro-pological way of looking at humanity which these thinkers adopt, laughter is partly a protective device, like the cuteness of small ani-mals, and partly a barrier erected to protect the group from the unfit and different. Laughter offers an alternative to a direct assault in those circumstances where overt aggression would be ill-advised. "If you can't hit him, tickle him to death, or make him so uncomfortable he gives up and goes home." The experts seem to consider laughter akin to the excited, mocking behavior of the likes of Tarzan's Cheetah.11 374 Review for Religious Are the psychologists and phenomenologists right? They cer-tainly seem to be on target when they describe how laughter func-tions in society. We have all, at one time or another, used laughter to disarm someone who has assumed an aggressive stance in a conversation, or we have, conversely, "jokingly" taken a verbal punch at someone we dared not face off with seriously. But must we fol-low them when they explain laughter in purely evolutionary terms? Must we see it merely as an outgrowth of aggression and defensiveness? Is laughter--harmful or helpful, loving or hateful--merely an amoral by-product of our swing down out of the trees? Is it someth!ng that will van-ish once genetic engineering succeeds in bleaching aggression out of the human gene pool? The notion that laughter is rooted in the desire to figh.t and defend ultimately cloaks the most lighthearted laughter in very dark colors indeed. It is surely prefer-able, therefore, to view laughter as a God-given, inherent human characteristic and not merely as a stained leftover from some newly grounded ape with the jitters. It is a proper human attribute that can be used, like most things human, for good or ill. Why, then, was laughter so harshly condemned by the spiri-tual masters of early monasticism? It is true that they placed a high value on the gift of tears which enabled a monk to lament his sins .and, indeed, the human condition in its alienation from God, but they certainly did not favor going about under a dark cloud.~z Sadness, after all, is one of the spiritual disorders in the list of passions that John Cassian handed down to Western monasti-cism. 13 We have to keep in mind that cheerfulness is one thing, the deliberate effort to provoke laughter quite another. What Laughter Does It seems to me that, to hold the monastic condemnation of laughter in perspective, we have to keep in mind that cheerfulness is one thing, the deliberate effort to provoke laughter quite another. Cheerfulness is the mark of someone who knows the May-.]une 1993 375 R~ssell ¯ Get Serious! score, as it were. Confidence in the providence of God and faith in the resurrection of Christ make Christianity a joyful religion. Therefore, those who penetrate to the heart of things, the wise, are inclined to be cheerful. However, if they heed the warning of St. Benedict, they will not "love immoderate and boisterous laugh-ter." L4 Certainly they will "speak no foolish chatter" and will not say anything "just to provoke laughter." ~5 Yet surely there is much to be said for the effort to make peo-ple laugh. After all, jokes, wit, and "foolish chatter" function as social lubricants. They act as icebreakers and frequently provide an interlude of relaxation and entertainment in the tense envi-ronments in which many of us operate. This is certainly true, but nonetheless I am inclined to say that, even at the best of times, laughter is a movement toward the surface, toward the shallows. It is always escapist. It is always a distraction because it is always a movement away from the quiet center of one's being. The fact that clowns and clowning around distract us does not, of course, make the effort to provoke laughter an evil. Laughter has its proper, place and its uses. In the hustle and bus-tle of the large, impersonal metropolis in which most of us earn our living, it is a marvelous instrument of social interaction. It helps us survive in a world of strangers. We may not know one another's history or evefi what the person next to us does when he or she is not working in this office, serving on this committee, or attending this class; This may be regrettable on a theoretical level, but the truth is that things would not go smoothly if we had to establish a deep interpersonal relationship with the mul-titude of people we meet. We encounter them in a specific con-text where we wear, as it were, a name tag referring to only one aspect of our personal history. We are "employee," "tennis part-ner, . student," or whatever. We want to be known and to feel that we fit in, but at the same time we have no desire to expose our pri-vate life to people we meet in this one-dimensional setting. Shared laughter allows us to achieve these contradictory goals. It binds the group together by touching our common humanity and, by veer-ing away from a focus on the personal, it protects our privacy. Laughter keeps everything light and frothy as it should be among those who work in the same place or band together to pursue some common social or recreational goal. This'is not the perspective that preoccupied the early monks. Therefore, their derogatory assessment of laughter should not 376 Revie~w for Religious be read as an attack on the social use of humor nor interpreted as a put-down of stand-up comics or, for that matter, the office wiseguy. The words of the fathers were addressed to those who had withdrawn from the turmoil of life and the humor that helps it function pleasantly. They were addressed to those who had, as it were, gone apart to concentrate. An effort to deliberately pro-voke humor in a setting which, by reason of its very seriousness, was surely prone to the laughter rooted in the human condition was obviously inappropriate. Laughter was as out of place in this setting as it would be on a green during a pro tournament. It broke the pros' concentration. Worse than that, the inclination to stir others to laughter indicated that a monk had fallen victim to the restlessness and distraction that the desert tradition called acedia.16 Conclusion Does this ancient suspicion of laughter have anything to say to us today? I think it challenges all Christians to ask, "Why am I laughing?" Does our joviality spring from the confidence that gives rise to cheerfulness, or is it perhaps anxiety in cap and bells faking nonchalance in the entrance hail of death? Is it the prod-uct of faith in a loving God who demonstrated his seriousness by making humans glorious beings and his love by giving them two feet to fall over to help keep things in proportion? Or is it the by-product of unbelief that opts, despite it a

Issue 50.5 of the Review for Religious, September/October 1991. ; Review Religious Volume 50 Number 5 September / October 1991 50 TM ANNIVERSARY VOLUME REVIEW FOR RI:.LIGIOUS (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at St. Louis University by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus: Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard, Room 428; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Telcphonc: 314-535-3048. Second-class postage paid at St. Louis MO and additional offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to R~:\'~EW Foa R~:I,I(;IOUS; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. Subscription rates: Single copy $3.50 plus mailing costs. One-year subscription $15.00 plus mailing costs; two-year subscription $28.00 plus mailing costs¯ See inside back cover for subscription informa-tion and mailing costs. © 1991 REVIEW I.'Oa R~:t,tc, IOUS. David L. Fleming, S.J. Philip C. Fischer, S.J. Michael G. Harter, S.J. Elizabeth McDonough, O.P. 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This order is for [] a new subscription [] a renewal [] a restart of a lapsed subscription MAIL TO: REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ¯ 3601 LINDELL BOULEVARD ° ST.LouIs, MO 63108 IIII III IIII II IIII III I PRISMS. What did you go out to the desert to see? A prophet? The question which Jesus asked his own people takes on a special poignancy for us toda~y in the Church. Our biblical tradition indicates that God raises up prophetic people in dark and difficult days. Because many see the time of renewal called for by Vatican II as a period of continuing strug-gle and tension--sometimes sadly with positions defended or fixed rather than with dialogue explored--affecting people and priests in parishes, bish-ops in national hierarchies, and religious in the same congregation, there is a greater tendency today to go running out, searching for a prophet. As usual there is also the temptation for some to play the prophet. But the prophetic tradition strongly emphasizes that tree prophets do not identify the role for themselves. God plucks people out of ordinary circum-stances, evokes some kind of personal conversion, and then speaks and works through them, even in their own reluctance for the role, and in their fear and trembling. Although we tend to apply the word prophet glibly to some modem-day leaders, educators, and writers, we perhaps are not far off the mark when we search for those movements and calls of God that come in incremental ways through ordinary-looking people and events. It is to acknowledge that prophets, like saints, have a range from "capital P" prophets (like our canonized "capital S" saints) with a major message of modeling and influence ~o the almost hidden (because of everydayness) small-letter prophets who in limited and confined ways raise questions, sug-gest new directions, make us uncomfortable, and at the same time give us hope. Prophets of lasting influence are s~arce at any time in our world's his-tory. Yet we may find it all too easy, even now, to mute the "smail p" prophet either ir~ our fixated search for major prophetic voices or in our disdain for less-than-radical calls. The even greater loss, however, happens when we may intentionally or unintentionally downplay our own lived (small p) prophetic witness to Christ's values--an integral part of our own chosen way of life. Review for Religious has been p~rivileged through the years to present voices of personal witness and articles of challenge and critique which repre-sent this common spectrum of our e ~eryday prophets. In this issue, "Inner Africa: A Journey of Conversion" by Susan Rakoczy is a personal witness to 641 642 / Review for Religious, September-October 1991 God's continuing call to go beyond a familiar homeland and to pay its enlivening costs---costs borne more within oneself than without. Jean Steffes considers directly in her article the theme of the prophetic-witness aspect of contemporary religious life. The articles by Giallanza, Levey, Arbuckle, and Mueller give further reflections on various aspects of religious life that affect its present and future witness. From the area of contemplation, the ground of all prophetic activity, Joseph Tetlow uses a very simple image from the changing seasons of the year to present an understanding of God's calls and our responses for a com-monplace continuity of spiritual growth. In a similar way Gerard Luttenberger sees through the contemplative Fourth Mansion of St. Ter6sa a way of praying apostolically. A prophetic relationship of faith with our United States culture grounds Hoffman's treatment of creative leisure and, in a very different fashion, Hinojosa's suggestions for formation, as he espe-cially has the Hispanic candidate in mind. Rywalt shares his experience of the sometimes dark journeying required of religious trying to follow God's lead in the transfer process in this consecrated lifeform. The prophetic and priestly people which we are will find fresh insight into the manna-food for our joumeying in Billy's "The Bread Kernel," clari-ty in Meyer's restating of the ministerial priesthood foundation through a deeper appreciation of an ambassador's role, and consolation in the gentle wisdom of living reflected in McDonald's "Faithful Servant." Perhaps, in our effort to identify prophets, McDonald's theme goes right to the heart of the matter. No truer discernment or greater tribute can be given to any prophet, spelled with large or small p, than to be identified, like Moses, as a faithful servant of God. David L. Fleming, S.J. Four Seasons of the Soul Joseph .4. Tetlow, SJ Father Tetlow wrote "The Mirror in the Field" for our November/December 1988 issue. His current address is Jesuit Hall; 3601 Lindell Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63108. I~uring the experience of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises, you have a sense of movement and of progress. Particularly during a nineteenth-annotation experience of them, you have the sense of getting along with things and of genuine growth in God. When you have finished the Exercises, if you are like many exercitants, you miss that sense of movement and progress. Even though you continue to pray as long and as seriously as you did during the Exercises, you may well come to wonder where "growth" has gone, and a sense of your life in Christ unfolding for you. You know how times of consolation and times of desola-tion mark spiritual growth or its absence, but this is the microeconomy of the spirit, a topological map of a mountain that does not tell you which range it is in or even which hemisphere. You might find some sense of getting along by applying the traditional phases or stages of spiritual growth. You would recognize, to start with, the stages of the purgative, illuminative, and unitive ways. You have heard of the Dark Nights, of the Senses and of the Soul. But reading these stages requires great expertness and an intense concentration on the interior life. You may find them of limited help in reading your growth in the Lord while you live an ordinary life in the world. Furthermore, these traditional stages of spiritual growth have focused tightly on the individual spirit. They do not comprehend a lot of the "your life world." They do not illuminate the interplay of others' needs and inter-ests with your own, or the tension between remaining faithful to your self and growing more faithful to those whom God gives you to love and be 643 644 / Review for Religious, September-October 1991 loved by. Each of these traditional ways of gauging where you are in your interior life instructs you how to pray at a given time and what to pray about. They do not much tell you what to pray for. Now that you know the Spiritual Exercises, you might find it useful to think of phases or stages of the interior life in terms of the Four Weeks. You can take the Weeks as seasons distinct from one another. They really do match the phases or stages of growth that we go through as we live contem-platives in the active world. If you interpret your experience in these terms, you will not find a lot of instruction on what to pray about (that instruction will rise out of your current experience), but you will find sound instruction on what to pray for. The Seasons of the Four Weeks Think of the seasons not as four parts of one whole life, but as a cycle that we all go through in our life world. Consider life as a whole at this given moment, and picture how it is colored seasonally. The first season would be like this: You go along working hard and praying easily. You feel like springtime, and your whole self sprouts new life. Your life world seems filled with promise. Life is given to you, rising up from within your self and teeming all around you. In such a time, you are in the season of the Fourth Week. The truth is that Jesus came to "give you joy, and to the full," and he was transcendently powerful to achieve what he set out to achieve. As you know, we are created to live in consolation, which means that we share the sureness of the risen Christ that the reign of God comes, for each one of us and for all of humankind together. So we live in the joy of Christ, as we have a fight to do, and this is the Fourth Week. You enter Christ's joy, in work and in prayer. Ask yourself: During this springtime, what do you ask for? You go through times, as all of us do, of confusion and darkness, your inner world and life world matching. Your life world itself may be in tur-moil, and perhaps threatens your family, career, or health. All of us have experienced these times as wars succeed one another and one national crisis after another: toxic waste, the Savings and Loans debacle, the awesome national deficit. In a very real sense, when we suffer these times we are bear-ing the sins of all peoples--the sins of unjust rulers, of greedy people with economic power, of self-centered people who feed on us. In these times you feel powerless and perhaps even helpless. You live in depression or doubt or perhaps even jeopardy. In such a time you are walk-ing with Jesus Christ in his Passion. This is not merely metaphor: our Master warned us that we would feel persecuted and hunted, for if his life world Four Seasons of the Soul / 645 treated him as it did, then we are to anticipate faring no better. St. Paul said that we are to fill up the sufferings that Christ Jesus has still to undergo for the sake of his body, the Church. Sometimes we live in the Passion of Jesus, feeling the terrible weight of taking up our cross daily. In this wintry time of the Third Week, what grace gives you a sense of growth and movement? Again, at times you seem merely to be working along from day to day. You do not feel any great consolation or any notable desolation. You trust God by enacting your own desires and conscience and by doing the next good thing. You do not feel any great pressure to have life all figured out, or the vexing pressure of strong temptation to this or that sin you are prone to. You pray to the Father and listen to the Spirit. You live out your discipleship faithfully and enduringly. This is the Second Week, as you walk with Jesus of Nazareth, either in the long decades of his hidden life or in the brief exertions of his public life. It is full summertime, and you are growing in God. You take summertime concerns to prayer and stay with Jesus proclaiming his Good News. But summertime can seem lazy and unmoving. What grace will help you sense progress? Finally, there come times when you feel the weight of your own sin. You do again something that you thought you had truly put behind you. You fail to do something that you had set yourself most resolutely to do. You are in the First Week again. You find out that your ideal has little of the noble in it, or that your self-image includes falsehood, or that you have been acting as though you loathe your self and despise your life. Then you feel the deep burning of shame. Or you realize that you have been violating your own conscience, deliberately deceiving your own self and spreading your poison around you. Then you feel the icy sting of guilt. Yet all of this time you already know how God loves you, even how God keeps on being your Creator and Lord. This is the season of fall, when you join the cycle of life and death that belongs to this earth of ours. You flirt with spiritual death, but you know that you will not die, but live. You cannot doubt that God forgives again and again, and you take into your prayer that utter confidence in God's forgiving love. This is the season of the First Week. Once you have asked God's forgiveness, what else are we to ask for in order to have the experience of movement and growth? It is to find the answer to this question that you think in terms of the sea-sons of the Four Weeks. Other stages and phases instruct us in the kind of prayer we might give ourselves to. The "unitive way," for instance, suggests a prayer of deep quiet. Other stages help us hold onto the kind of faith and 646 / Review for Religious, September-October 1991 hope we need to exercise. The Dark Night of the Senses helps us know that it is, indeed, faith we are exercising, and not doubt. Other stages or phases name kinds of temptation and grades of consolation and desolation. A pray-ing person who has been drawn to apophatic prayer will readily recognize daydreams of food as a desolation. But the stages and phases give little instruction on the very humble question of what, specifically, we are to ask for. Or perhaps more accurately, what instruction they do give is not readily accessible to the majority of praying Christians. "I Ask for What I Want" Matching the Four Weeks with the seasons of discipleship suggests immediately and accurately what you ought to ask God for. Each of the Weeks has a specific grace. These specific graces are precisely what we need in each of the four seasons of discipleship. When we feel the burning of shame or the icy sting of guilt, obviously, we ask forgiveness. Equally obviously, we receive this forgiveness even before we ask it. Then what? You would immediately reject dwelling on the shame or the guilt. You would repudiate self-lacerating examination. What you need is a sense of your complicity in humankind's sin, and a sense of how the disorder manifest in your life world lies waiting to manifest itself in yourself. You can ask for that plainly, and you will have a sense of getting on with God's project. You can also ask another gift of the First Week: the answer to the three questions in the colloquy of the first exercise. The deepest grace of the First Week is to be given eyes to see Jesus Christ. While you stand under the cross of Jesus Christ, you ask yourself, "What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ? What might I do for Christ?" The growth and movement in answer to this prayer have to do with understanding the past and looking to the future. If you have been sinning, then start with how God succeeded in you, with what you have done for Christ. If you are acting sinfully, you need to attend to what else you are now doing: What are you doing for Christ? And as you repent yet again, you stand with Christ and ask what you might do for him and for his body the Church. This is the growth in the season of fall. A second season: of busyness. Your attention runs in a hundred direc-tions. You face concrete decisions hour by hour. You have to deal with oth-ers day after day. You have to remain authentic to your own self and grow more and more fully a member. Here, in this heated season of summer, you might ask most appropriately for the gift of the Second Week: to know Jesus Four Seasons of the Soul / 647 better, to love him more, and to go the way he goes. He has been through this summer and through the desert of busyness. For some the life of the Lord will be an inspiration (as Carl Gustav Jung said it ought to be). They will learn from Jesus of Nazareth how to relate in the dusty marketplace to the God who chooses to be father and mother to us. For others the life of the Lord will be an example for imitation (as the Church has taught since Jesus proclaimed himself Way, Truth, and Life). For all of us, growth in God means growth in loving Jesus of Nazareth who is the Christ. That is the grace you ask for in the summer, the Second Week. When winter comes upon your self and your life world, you cannot escape suffering. Well, in the Third Week, you have watched with Jesus through his Passion. Remember this accompaniment and what you asked for then. Perhaps you will ask to accept your suffering in compassion with Jesus suffering and to know shame "because the Lord is going to his suffering for my sins," while you have acted in complicity with all humankind in sinning. This is the grace of the first contemplation at midnight. In any pain or suffer-ing, growth will lie in and through compassion. You might be drawn, again, to ask that your own suffering somehow be "with Christ in sorrow, [your] anguish with Christ in anguish, [your] tears and deep grief because of the great affliction" Christ endured for you. This is a great gift, and those who embrace their own suffering in the world know what Jesus knew. This pain will end nothing, but will end; ifI can discern no movement toward life, I know my growth is where I am; God is faithful. This prayer to God transmutes a wintry time from merely a depression or recession or grave aggravation to a time of growth in Christ. Finally, when you live in happiness and your life world hums along in springtime, you can most reasonably beg God that you enter into the joy of Jesus Christ. There lies the way of movement and growth, first of all because you will not be immobilized by anxiety. We hold the happiness of earth tightly because it is given and taken away, apparently randomly. Unlike the joy of the earth, Jesus' joy is not given and taken away; it is given and to the full. Growth does not mean having things permanently or living secure or figuring everything out. All of these are illusory, and depending on any of them is writing on water. Growth for Christ's disciples entails precisely shaking off dependence on possessions and all defense against risks of personal encounter. You grow a more complete self with every deeper realization that God's is the initia-tive, the victory, which is Jesus' joy and glory. You grow more secure as you accept more and more fully that you did not earn life or joy and that, if you can make no demands, the One who gives constantly turns out more willing 648 / Review for Religious, September-October 1991 to lavish gifts than you are to accept them. This is Jesus' joy and his glory. So in these springtimes we find our growth in begging "to be glad and rejoice intensely" not because of the great go6ds God is bestowing on us, but "because of the great joy and the glory of Christ our Lord." A Simple Matter of Moving Along Understand, the Four Weeks are not epigenetic stages that build one on another in succession, with the latest stage transmuting the earlier ones. This is the model used by Erik Erikson and the growth psychologists, and it is not appropriate here. The "seasons" mean something much simpler here. Nor does the word refer to an account of the adult life cycle, the "seasons. of a person's life" devised by Daniel Levinson and his colleagues. The "seasons" here are briefer and include not only internal dynamics but also the actuali-ties of your life world. As phases or stages, they would hardly be long-term and do not name permanent changes in the self. Think of it this way: Many skilled retreat directors begin an eight-day retreat by asking the retreatant what Week they are living. The retreat guide does not imply that the retreatant is going through a life cycle or.a phase with permanent effects--nothing so essential and long-range. The implica-tion is that we all go through certain seasoris and that we can usefully think of those seasons in terms of the Four Weeks of the Spiritual Exercises. Many who have made the Spiritual Exercises yearn to keep the sense of progress and of forward motion that sustained them through the long days or months of prayer. They can help themselves do that by continuing one exer-cise that promoted that sense of progress during the Exercises: the preparato-ry prayer. Even those who turn to the Church's lectionary for the material of daily meditation or contemplation can ask for the special grace of the season they are in. They feel no unease or contradiction. On the contrary, they have a sense of familiarity and consonance, and a sense of getting on with life and with prayer. Few of us feel inclined to go back through the prayer texts and cycles of the Four Weeks, particularly over and over again. But you might find it useful to keep mindful of the special graces of the Weeks, and of the preparatory prayer. Re-creating Religious Life Joel Giallanza, C S. C Brother Joel recently completed his service in the ministry of provincial administra-tion and is currently Adjunct Retreat Director at Maryhill Renewal Center. His address is Maryhill Renewal Center; 600 Maryhill Road; Pineville, Louisiana 71360. /'~mong the principal tasks confronting religious life as the twenty-first cen-tury approaches is refoundation or, more descriptively, re-creation. While religious may not be completely comfortable with the demographics of increasing ages and decreasing numbers, they do not appear discouraged or despairing about the future: In fact, some communities have been reporting a modest and consistent increase in vocations and new apostolic ventures. Chapters, assemblies, and other gatherings of religious continue to search for the most effective means of responding to the needs of the Church and the culture in which they live. Among those means they assign high priority to ~'efounding or re-creating religious life itself. To that end, religious have explored the !ives and teachings of their founders and foundresses as well as the experiences and events which shaped the darly years of their communi-ties. The work now is to interpret those lives, teachings, experiences, and events for further practical application to contemporary religious life. The work now is to prepare for the future. Any creation, by its very nature, does not follow a predetermined blueprint. Nevertheless, there is one primordial model we can consider: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." These reflections will focus on the first three days of creation as a metaphor for the re-creation which religious need to undertake as they move toward and into the twenty-first century. In the Beginning During the first three days of creation, as Genesis relates the story, God 649 650 / Review for Religious, September-October 1991 separates creation, giving each part a distinct identity. Only after this funda-mental work of separation and identification does God begin the cultivation of creation, filling it with a rich variety of living things, culminating in the appearance of humanity. Day 1 ~ Observation In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, covered in darkness; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day (Gn 1:1-5). It is intriguing that, after the heavens and the earth, light is God's first creation. Light enables us to observe and to distinguish; light enables us to see what needs to be done. God was present and active, though creation was covered in darkness. The creation of light makes observation and identifica-tion possible. Thus, light is distinguished from darkness; the former is iden-tified as day, the latter as night. Re-creating religious life involves observation. Religious must look courageously and see clearly the quality of every aspect of their lives and then distinguish between what will enhance that quality and what will not. To some degree this self-observation has been going on as religious respond-ed to the Church's call to read the signs of the times. However, with chang-ing demographics and subsequent adjustments to communal life and institutional commitments, religious need to refresh their response to this call and examine their lives yet more closely. In recent years apostolic religious life has known what it is to be "with-out form and void, covered in darkness." Some of this experience stems from the demographics and economics which have signaled the significant change--if not the death--of the religious life of twenty-five years ago. Some stems from the communal, ministerial, and structural implications of those demographics and economics. Some stems from modifications which religious themselves initiated through the process of'revising their constitu-tions and the traditional practices of their personal and communal lives. The ways in which religious live and minister and organize their congregations have changed and no doubt will continue to do so. Clearly, religious life has responsed to the Church and the cultures in which it witnesses. That religious life has undergone change is by itself no indication that nothing further need be done. Could the formlessness, emptiness, and dark- Re-creating Religious Life / 65'1 ness which religious sometimes feel about their way of life be the result of not observing areas needing yet further clarification and identification? These observations of mine focus on one area central to the lives of apostolic religious: celibate community. There is an asceticism inherent in any way of life in which two or more individuals have committed themselves to one another. Principally, that asceti-cism involves maintaining the common good over personal preferences. The acceptance of such an asceticism is essential to a healthy marriage and family life and to a healthy celibate community. Without that asceticism, the basic mutuality of the commitment begins to erode, and eventually the passion and dynamism within the relationships dissipate, then disappear altogether. If we observe the quality of our celibate community life over recent years, we have to ask whether there are times when consecrated commitment degenerates into corporate complacency. This is not to imply that religious have lost the ability to live community. Rather, it asks whether we have suf-ficiently explored other models of living a celibate communal lifestyle with-in the heritage and tradition of our congregations. Frequently in the past, community "happened" in a relatively large resi-dence associated with a congregational ministry. The daily schedules and general patterns of life within the community were much influenced by the needs of the ministry. Generally, those schedules and patterns reflected and were consistent with individuals' expectations. As ministry diversified (and individualized) during the last twenty-five years, expectations also diversi-fied. Common schedules and patterns became less possible and less realistic, given the broad spectrum of responsibilities and time commitments of local community members. Unless those expectations are observed, articulated, and modified as necessary, particularly in residences originally associated with a single ministry, those members unable to be present at certain times and events can be branded as having lost their sensitivity to or even their appreciation of the value of community. The ways in which expectations are lived are not solely internal; others observe how we live together, for better or for worse. Coworkers and other associates shape their perception and understanding of religious life by the pattern and quality of life they observe among us. Though we cannot live our lives in slavery to the multiple, diverse, and often inconsistent expecta-tions and assumptions with which others characterize us, we should not for-get that religious life is a form of witness to the Church and the culture. It bears a responsibility to be a living example of the Gospel and a working model of Jesus' mission. We need to observe our life as celibate community with a probing and 652 / Review for Religious, September-October 1991 questioning eye. Are our communities prayerful, hospitable, and happy? Do we take individual and collective responsibility for the house in which we reside? In our communities, can we comfortably and frequently discuss the Gospel, faith, and religious life? Do we invite and welcomethose consider-ing religious life? Do we enjoy one another? Do we know one another? Do we live our life together with passion? Day 2 -- Separation God said, "Let there be a space between the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters." God made the space and separated the waters which were under the space from the waters which were above it. And it was so.And God,called the space Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day (Gn 1:6-8). With the dawn of the second day, God begins to put order into creation. Specifically, he makes some working room, so to speak, space in which to continue and complete the work of creation. If the first day emphasized observation and identification, then this second day emphasizes separation and distinction. Re-creating religious life involves separation. In recent years religious have spoken and written much about the need for continuing renewal. Chapters and other gatherings have focused extensively, and sometimes exclusively, on the renewal and refoundation necessary for religious life to be a continuing evangelical and apostolic force. Chapter documentation often remains disembodied as the demands of ministry and the routines of daily life reassert themselves after the chapter closes. Patterns of life change neither quickly nor easily. Regardless of how sublime and profound chapter proceedings may be, we will never effectively legislate renewal and refoun-dation. We must provide space for patterns of individual and communal life to be re-created. For celibate community, the observation and articulation of differing and conflicting expectations may suggest creating some new space. Can quality of life be sustained and intensified if those expectations are left to coexist without enough space for coordination? But, on the other hand, if coordina-tion becomes synonymous with the lowest common denominator, is the effort to provide such space worthwhile at all? Sometimes, no doubt, coordi-nation will bring about re-creation, but this does not seem to be the normal pattern; more often than not, re-creation by separation should be considered. Separation will involve establishing new local communities. Alternative housing could be provided for members who are committed to exploring and implementing a communal lifestyle that will meet their expectations and Re-creating Religious Life / 653 maintain a consistency and an integrity which reflect clearly their commit-ment as religious. The assumption here is that such alternative communities would be established with the highest common denominator as the standard. Prayer and relationships and the practice of the vows would be regularly reviewed to assure that standard. Separation is not schism, it is not a condemnation of other communal lifestyles within a congregation. Twenty-five years ago it was possible to find striking, and even exact, parallels throughout the local communities of a sin-gle congregation. Often those parallels were evident among many congrega-tions, also. Today, even between large local communities of the same congregation, we can find striking differences. Separation has to do with dis-tinction, not division. It seeks to express the rich diversity of ways in which a congregational heritage can be embodied among those committed to it. Major superiors have a significant role in this, a multifaceted role. First, they can take the initiative of identifying people and providing resources for new ventures even if the original initiativecame from community members themselves. The major superiors' involvement could signal the validity of the venture for those whose first reaction is critical. Second, major superiors can offer their support, encouragement, and assistance as new communities get underway. When some "red tape" needs cutting or some bureaucratic procedure needs streamlining, they are usually in a privileged position for expediting whatever needs to be done. Third, they can serve as initial observers and objective consultants for new local communities, Their role is not to mold groups into their own image and likeness, but to see that the members remain faithful to the principles and practices they have agreed upon for their life together. Finally, major superiors can be a buffer between nascent local communities and the established community. Not everyone in the latter group will agree with new ventures and the direction they repre-sent. Major superiors should avoid any defensive posture which would make the new communities look like aberrations in the eyes of the established community. They should focus their explanations about these ventures on their continuity with the congregational heritage. Separation is a means of re-creating celibate community; it is an invest-ment in the future. No doubt there are risks involved, but the prophetic nature of religious life has always placed religious in precarious situations. The risks are a challenge to acknowledge God's providential presence and activity. As religious we must reaffirm our faith in providence and move boldly into the future. Without faith, we undermine the very foundation of our religious life; without movement, we betray any assurance we profess to have about the future. 654 / Review for Religious, September-October 1991 The future will come, but not in a vacuum. The choices we make now will determine the quality of that future. In making those choices, we need to create a fresh space, to provide a place for the future. Day 3 -- Cultivation God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear." And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. God said, "Let the earth produce growing things, plants bearing seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit containing their seed, each according to its kind, upon the earth." And it was so. The earth produced vegetation, plants bearing seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit containing their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, a third day (Gn 1:9-13). The third day brings cultivation to what has been created. With the emergence of land, "growing things" can appear; each of these growing things contains individuality and generativity. Life--and all of creation-- will continue; there will be another day. "And God saw that it was good." With this third day, God has completed the foundation for what will appear on the succeeding days of creation. And the foundation was good. Re-creating religious life involves cultivation. The future quality of celi-bate community will not appear by spontaneous generation, nor will it be manufactured according to elaborate specifications. It must be cultivated. Establishing new local communities does not signal the dawn of the seventh day; it is not the time to rest and lay aside further efforts. Quite the contrary, it is the time to move forward enthusiastically and confidently with every-thing that has been initiated thus far. This is the time for "growing things?' The root of the word cultivate is a term which can be translated "to move around" and "to dwell," depending upon the context. This dual ety-mology is quite appropriate for these present reflections. Cultivating celibate community requires some moving around. Community compromises vitality if it stops moving according to its own informed choices; that is, if it begins to operate on automatic pilot. Vitality springs from the continuing observa-tion and articulation of expectations. Patterns of personal and communal life must be mutually monitored with integrity and without fear of reprisal. Relationships must be nurtured naturally With quality time and refreshed regularly through reconciliation. Cultivation assumes that expectations and patterns and relationships will evolve. Cultivation flourishes in an environ-ment of exchange, interest, care, and concern. Cultivation moves around Re-creating Religious Life / 655 within and among community members to prevent that stagnation which taxes commitment and tempts to convenience. Cultivating celibate community requires some dwelling. Cohabitation is not celibate community; it merely means that two or more people inhabit the same residential space and need not involve any interpersonal commitment. Dwelling goes beyond living together to include entrusting our lives to one another. If we do not have mutual trust with those with whom we live, then what grounds do we have for claiming we entrust our lives to the Lord? It is a basic tenet of faith that the quality of our relationships with one another verifies or falsifies the quality of our relationship with the Lord. Truly dwelling with one another, recognizing that our life together makes a home of the house, is a certification of our love relationship with one another and with the Lord, and a witness of integrity to others. There is no flawless formula for assuring cultivation; it involves all the effort, discipline, and asceticism requisite for any healthy relationship. There are, however, some principles which can support that effort, discipline, and asceticism. First, clarity of vision: Members must have a sense of the direction in which they hope the community to move. More than an in-house conve-nience, that vision is part of the apostolic character of celibate community. Second, communication of values: A common vision is built upon shared values. Without this sharing, there is little common ground to cultivate; com-munity quickly becomes an arid land. Third, cooperation for vitality: This is a discipline and an asceticism which positions the common good as the high-est priority. The vitality of vision and values can be cultivated only coopera-tively; it cannot be assumed. Fourth, concern for vocation: This is the foundational principle. Vision and values have no vital and substantive pur-pose and meaning unless community members share a sincere concern for the integrity of their commitment to the vocation of religious life. In practice, these principles are skrategies which must characterize the re-creation of celibate community. Cultivation is a daily enterprise which will mark the presence and activity of community members with one anoth-er. Thus, cultivation never comes to a point of sufficiency, beyond which no further efforts are necessary. There will always be both peaks and plateaus in the quality of life within any community. The principles of clarity, communi-cation, cooperation, and concern are reminders that neither the peaks nor the plateaus are places of permanence. We must cultivate celibate community if it is to have a prophetic place in the future and even if it is to have a future at all. We must cultivate it since the culture will not support it. We live in a culture whose materialistic, indi- 656 / Review for Religious, September-October 1991 vidualistic, and sensualistic preferences and practices have compromised its capability for fostering the personal commitment which lies at the heart of both celibacy and community. The decline of marriage and the family is but one testimony to that compromise. Celibate community can stand as a prophetic sign that such a commitment is humanly possible. For the future, that sign may be the small seed which is cultivated into the means of trans-formation for the entire culture. In the Days to Come "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." As the story is presented, nothing existed before God began his creative work. Everything could be made as an original, without the pressing and pressuring influence of a long-standing tradition. God could, so to speak, work from scratch. Re-creating religious life, and celibate 'community in particular, cannot assume the absence of any influence. There are values and traditions and practices by which communal religious life has endured and prospe,red over the cen-turies. The observation, separation, and cultivation which will position reli-gious life for re-creation cannot dismiss that influence as unnecessary, nor distance it as untouchable. The influence of those realities which have shaped religious life can be incorporated and assimilated into the re-creation; thus will be their creative transformation. Admittedly, some refinement may be necessary to preserve the spirit of those values, traditions, and practices. Nevertheless, such refinement is not a ruling of inadequacy, but a rendering unto new life. In the days to come we must observe closely the ways and means of our religious life together. We need to articulate clearly and forcefully the values by which we will actually live.Prophetic statements from individuals or chapters or other gatherings that remain forever disembodied phrases will never be true characterizations of religious life. Indeed, they can become pharisaical, lofty ideals without living intent. Observation, as I have used the term, has more to do with enacting motivation than with simply gathering information. In the days to come we must separate ourselves from whatever patterns of life have compromised or constricted our desire and ability to live our religious commitment with intensity and integrity. We must re-create the spirit of being called, of being set apart for the Gospel. Without that spirit, the prophetic prowess of religious life is neither affectively experienced nor effectively expressed. Within that spirit, religious life claims the power and proclamation which are the inheritance of Gospel witnesses. In the days to come we must cultivate our life together. We need to re- Re-creat.ing Religious Life / 657 create the commitment we have made to God and to one another. We have at our disposal a power for and a promise of common life that can bring hope to a world broken by betrayal, gouged by greed, and disheartened by deceit. The passion with which we live our celibacy, poverty, and obedience will counteract the standards set by that betrayal, greed, and deceit. The convic-tion with which we re-create and realize our communal life will cultivate and confirm the presence and activity of the kingdom within and around us. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." This is an old story, but one that may be enacted once again as religious life approaches the twenty-first century. Observation, separation, and cultivation are strategies which can support the work of re-creation; and yet we should never displace the fundamental truth that this is God's work, all is grace. The alliance between those strategies and that grace will enable us to speak of religious life and of celibate community with the same bold confidence which marked Yahweh's promise for the temple. "The Lord Almighty speaks: 'Is there any-one among you who can still remember how splendid the temple used to be? How does it look to you now? It must seem like nothing at all. But now do not be discouraged, any of you. Do the work that is needed, for I am with you, so do not be afraid . In the_days to come the new temple will be more splendid than the old one, and there I will give you prosperity and peace' " (Hg 2:3-4, 9). To the Bird of My Prayer Songster, your hymn of praise Never ceases in a melody all your own; Chanting a song--pleading, thanking-- With the sheer joy of having voice to sing. From highest pole to roof, you find your perch, No earth-bound bush can stifle flight to God. Anna Louise Staub, S.S.J. 217 W. Commercial St. East Rochester, NY 14445 Prophetic Witness in Contemporary Religious Life Jean Steffes, CSA: Sister Jean Steffes has been general superior for the Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Agnes. Her address is: 427 Gillett Street; Fond du Lac, Wisconsin 54935-4598. The notion of being prophetic in today's society can conjure up many images in us, depending upon our perspective. For some of us being prophetic might seem a quality to be admired in Dorothy Day, Archbishop Romero, the martyred Jesuits of El Salvador, and the Agnesians Maureen and Teresa of Nicaragua, but one to which we could never aspire. It wo~ld mean speaking, acting, or giving witness in larger-than-life situations that may never be the platform for most of us. Another perspective might give rise to images of angry demonstrations directed at society and culture or at our Church. The call for greater inclusion of women in roles in Church and society, for the right to life of the unborn, the unwanted, and the elderly, and for the preservation of our environment can result in tactics that seem or are angry. For those who shrink from such approaches, even the very valid and necessary content can be lost. A third image of the prophet (which we may enjoy) is of one who foretells the future. In our society there are those who use past patterns to predict our economy's collapse or other dire conse-quences. For those of us who live a Gospel faith, such prophets do not give the hope so necessary to engage in present realities and so make the world a better place here and now. The images I have shared are overdrawn stereotypes, but they show the difficulty in speaking on the topic of prophetic wit]aess. In this reflection I will explore three broad areas: (1) What does it mean to be prophetic? (2) prophetic witness and the current experience of religious life: (3) an agenda for the future. 658 Prophetic Witness / 659 What Does It Mean to be Prophetic? Walter Brueggemann says in The Prophetic Imagination, "The time may be ripe in the church for a serious consideration of prophecy as a crucial ele-ment in ministry."~ Prophets understood how change is effected. They knew the power of language, how to "evoke newness, 'fresh from the word.' ,,2 Let us develop at some length Brueggemann's ideas of prophecy. He states, "The task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the domi-nant culture around us . ,,3 I believe his approach can help us understand prophetic witness as it applies to the goals and meaning of religious life. Beginning with the story of Moses, we can learn what it means to form an alternative community. The story of the Exodus shows us how Moses and the Israelite people were brought out from their domination by an imperial religion and the politics of oppression and exploitation. The religion and pol-itics of Pharaoh worked hand in hand to keep him in power and control. Through the interaction of Moses and Aaron with Pharaoh and his regime, the Israelites began to see the difference between the freedom of God and the lack of freedom of the Egyptian gods. Belief in the Egyptian gods served to maintain a social order that allowed for oppression and exploitation. The God revealed to the Israelites is tied to no social order. God is a God of free-dom who calls for an alternative community built on the politics of justice and compassion. The alternative consciousness that Moses fostered in the Israelites was both critical and energizing. His critique, validated when the Egyptians were struck by plagues which their gods were powerless to counter, showed up false claims to power and authority which could not keep promises in the face of the free God. Prophetic criticism has an element of grieving in it as the prophet mourns the oppressions encountered. The Israelites were afflict-ed, oppressed, and ground down by the dominant Egyptian culture, and so they risked the freedom of the free God against the regime. The energizing happened not through what the Israelites already possessed but through what was promised. God went before them in pillars of fire and cloud and trans-figured this fear into energy. The people were energized to follow the free God to establish an alternative community built on justice and compassion. Though the Israelites left Egypt to live more freely, they, too, eventually developed a dominant culture. It was characterized by the reign of Solomon, whose whole achievement appears to have had the self-serving purpose of securing the place of the king and king's dynasty. Solomon did not welcome the ideas of a free God and an alternative community any more than did Pharaoh, for they threatened the established order. There were three bases 660 / Review for Religious, September-October 1991 for Solomon's rule that generally mark any dominant culture. First, there was incredible well-being and affluence, though it was not equitably shared. Some went without enough so that others might have too much. Second, an oppressive social policy sustained the standard of living. There was a system of forced labor in which laborers met the needs of the state although unable to meet their own needs. The politics of justice and compassion disappeared, and the order of the state became the overriding agenda. Third, there was the establishment of a controlled and static religion. God and God's temple became part of the royal landscape. How could God, seen as living in a house provided by the king, say anything critical or abrasive? Solomon was countering the counterculture of Moses: the economics of equality was countered with the economics of affluence, the politics of justice with the politics of oppression, and the religion of God's freedom with the religion of God's accessibility. The dominant culture of Solomon managed to brush aside Moses' vision. The gift of freedom was taken over by the yearning for order, and the human agenda of justice was used for security. Against reali-ties like these, people are called to utter prophetic words. Moses both criticized and energized. Like him, Jeremiah is shown as proclaiming the critique while Second Isaiah offers the energy for the new vision. The prophets offer symbols that contradict a situation of hopelessness and give public expression to long-unspoken fears and hopes. They show us that the dominant culture leads people to despair of new life. They present an alternative consciousness, grounded in the unwavering faithfulness of God, that can energize the community to new forms of faithfulness and vital-ity. Jesus, too, is shown as a prophet who criticized the dominant culture of his day. "Jesus is remembered and presented by the early Church as the faithful embodiment of an alternative consciousness.''4 Jesus' ministry and death oppose the politics of oppression with the politics of justice and com-passion. The counterpart to the crucifixion is the birth of a new reality that finds full expression in the resurrection. What does this very challenging reflection on prophets and prophetic consciousness have to say to us in religious life? What is apostolic religious life's prophetic role in church and society today? It is important to reflect on this, recognizing that we have generous portions of both dominant culture and alternative consciousness within us. We recognize our conflicted nature, yet we aspire to a prophetic role in church and society. We must ask, then, whether apostolic women religious have been co-opted by our dominant consumer culture or whether we manifest an alterna-tive consciousness based on the freedom of a free God. Do we show a belief in community and interdependence as inherent in our way of life, or are we Prophetic Witness / 66'1 fragmented and self-centered? Are we motivated by a desire for justice and compassion, or do we prefer stability even at the price of the exploitation and oppression of "invisible" others? The questions are hard but necessary as we examine the religious way of life for evidence of prophetic witness. Prophetic Witness and the Current Experience of Religious Life Our challenge as women religious is to position ourselves to recognize the revelation of the future. One current writer, Mary Jo Leddy, N.D.S., speaks of the need to develop a postliberal model of religious life. Her thesis is that the basis for our contemporary religious life in North America is a declining culture that depends on the liberal thought fed by industrial capi-talism. While liberalism has made many contributions to modern society, it cannot deal with the reality of limits. If there can be no limits, ultimately there can be no meaning or values. Liberals tend to see themselves as contemporary or progressive and in conflict with the conservative or traditionalist ideas of Church and religious life. In Leddy's view, the more serious obstacle to the transformation and renewal of religious life results from the tension between the liberal and the prophetic approaches. The prophetic leads us to a more radical response in spirituality, mission, ministry, and community. The prophetic is risky, for it calls us to response to an unknown future rather than reaction to a no-longer-valid past. Leddy says, "We who live in a disintegrating empire today are summoned at prophetic moments to criticize the patterns of decline within our culture and within ourselves, to contemplate the holiness of God in the midst of these dark times, and to evoke the creative desire in one another for a meaningful alternative for the future.''5 These words are very similar to those Brueggemann uses to describe the prophetic imagination. The prophetic intersects with our apostolic religious life. Contemporary writers call religious to the same challenge the prophets faced in biblical times. Religious congregatiohs represent an alternative to the values of the dominant culture but do not stand apart from the people. Rather, apostolic religious recognize clearly the need for reflection, discernment, and a ground-ing in the holy as they criticize, yet energize, themselves and their peers to bring the values of the Gospel into contemporary society and culture. We have reflected on what it means to be a prophet. We have also recog-nized the challenge it presents to apostolic religious. Let us now look at cur-rent beliefs and responses regarding apostolic religious life in light of prophetic witness. I will consider mission direction, the meaning of member-ship, and some current realities. These areas provide us with the material to critique and energize our own prophetic potential. 662 / Review for Religious, September-October 1991 Mission Direction Although expressed differently in each congregation, mission direction today involves in some way a commitment to transformation of the world, the Church, and ourselves through promoting systemic change for the quali-ty of life; justice for the economically poor; furtherance of the role of women in church and society; and mutuality, inclusivity, and collaboration in all relationships. Such mission direction clearly reminds us of our partici-pation in the mission of Jesus. When we call ourselves to systemic change for the quality of life, what do we mean? We are asking for two things, systemic change and quality of life. When we say the system is not working well, how do we want to change it so it will work better? For whom do we want it to work better? If we take a global view, we see that entirely too much of the world's popula-tion is forced to live at a level that does not meet its basic needs of food, shelter, health care, and education while a minority has more than its share. We see that, in order to feed the wants and needs of a market economy, rain forests are irrevocably destroyed, topsoil is depleted, deserts are expanded mercilessly, and the world's fresh-water supply is tainted and diminished. On local and national levels we 'must ask ourselves how the needs of the poor are being met. After all, Jesus was clear in showing us that whatever we do to the least of his people we are doing to him. The poor are receiving poorer education, less nourishing food, substandard or no housing, and inad-equate health care in this country so rich in resources and technology. We must use our ingenuity, gifts, and talents to change a system that has canonized greed and competition in order to satisfy wants. How can we in our own daily living point the way to change that would benefit those with least access to the system without denying the legitimate gains and goods of our society and culture? Such responses as simplifying our lifestyle by avoiding use of Styrofoam, recycling our disposables, and making thought-ful choices regarding food and other consumer goods can raise our con-sciousness and lead us to getting others involved and to networking with those already involved. Indeed, most changes begin as ordinary people change their thinking and the patterns that go with their thinking. We must know our values so that they, rather than the manipulative marketing of an over- consumptive dominant culture, will shape our choices and responses. We claim that we want justice for the economically poor. This value links with the goal of systemic change for the quality of life. Jesus' life and ministry showed us his love of preference for the poor. This is not to say that Jesus does not love all, but that his ministry was not directed in the main to those who were the power brokers of his day. These, of course, he invited to Prophetic Witness / 663 join him in loving God and neighbor, but the cost was generosity, sharing their possessions. Jesus was good news for the poor. Are we who are called to continue Jesus' mission also good news for the poor? Whether in direct service So the poor or in ministry with middle- and upper-middle-class peo-ple, are we focused on a more just distribution of and access to necessary goods and resources? Do we in our teaching and in our healing, pastoral, and social works always have in mind those who are less fortunate than we are? Are we willing ~o call others to this consciousness even when we see and know that the poor are not to be idealized? They, like us, have faults and failings and may not reflect Christ as we might want them to. A reverence for the poor calls us to a view of Christ very different from that of popular piety. While comforting, it is challenging; while open and inviting, it is demanding; and while satisfying, it never ceases to call out for more--more love, more generosity, more hospitality. Not all of us are called to direct ser-vice with the poor, but all of us are called to seek justice for the poor. In this quest we continually recognize that we, too, are among the needy and are enriched by those we serve. Another commitment common to religious is to the furtherance of the role of women in church and society. Worldwide, the conditions of women vary from those in countries where women have legal equality to those where brides are still considered property. Women the world over have the primary responsibility to feed and care for the children even though means and resources are not equitably at their disposal. In the United States a vio-lent crime is committed against a woman every three minutes, and a woman is raped every six minutes. Households headed by women are increasing while the rate of their income is dropping. Children are our most precious resource, but those who care for them are denied the necessary means. Our Church struggles with the role women are to play in its pastoral, liturgical, and philosophical reflections.In the U.S. the most recent draft document on women's role in the Church and society calls for equality for women in theory but holds back in p.ractice. As John XXIII said in Pacem in Terris in 1963, "Since women are becoming ever more conscious of their human dignity, they will not tolerate being treated as inanimate objects or mere instruments, but claim, both in domestic and in public life, the rights and duties that befit a human person.''6 The women's issue is more than an issue, it is a perspective that demands attention and response. Once unleashed, the forces of confusion and dissension drive towards resolution. In our lives we will use inclusive language, advocate for women, and net-work to help make society a friendlier place for women to develop and share their gifts and talents. Despite such a commitment on the part of congrega- 664 / Review for Religious, September-October 1991 tions, there is dissension among women religious in language usage and other matters. Our heads and hearts find themselves in conflict here, leading to results that could be less than satisfying. Can we avoid being our own worst enemy in the search for inclusivity? Let us not deny the richness of our past, the demands of the present, or the call of the future as we work for justice and right for women in contemporary society and church. Another area of commitment of apostolic religious today has to do with mutuality, inclusivity, and collaboration in all our relationships. The values implied here are very positive, and yet to achieve them one must give in order to receive. The mystery of sacrifice is contained in these words in a way that is not apparent at first glance. For mutuality to occur, I must not only believe in myself, I must also learn to believe and trust in the other. With whom do we allow ourselves to be mutual? Do we let power, position, language, style of dress, or education prevent us from speaking our truth or hearing that of others? In terms of inclusivity, do we go to the extremes either of having no boundaries or expectations or of expecting everyone to fulfill every role or function in an organization? Inclusivity involves includ-ing others in the concerns affecting their own lives. Not all will do every-thing, but there must be input from those affected. In terms of discernment, though all are included, not all perspectives can be responded to or chosen. We often try to make inclusivity mean pleasing everyone all of the time even though this may be impossible. Finally, let us look at c.ollaboration. If we pull the word apart, we can see the meaning as co-labor or working with. At one time we may have considered ourselves collaborative if we hired lay teachers and nurses and more so if we hired lay administrators. Collaboration at its most radical, however, calls us not just to bring others into our projects and have them do things our way, but to work with others and to respond to the signs and needs of the times together. Unhe.althy com-petition or too rigid control in ministry or community strikes at the heart of the love which binds us together so that the 'risen Christ may be discovered among us and in our world. The Meaning of Membership The consideration of mutuality, inclusivity, and collaboration leads us into the meaning of membership. Community life is a topic, issue, and reali-ty that continues to generate much attention. As apostolic religious we have such different experiences, expectations, and definitions regarding commu-nity life and the meaning of local community. Sometimes when the phrase "local community" is used, the assumptions and expectations already in place cause us to "shut down," to become unable to continue a dialogu~ Prophetic Witness because we are really unable to h~ar one another. (I personally have felt anger, despair, defensiveness, longing, fear--and also hope--around this topic.) What has led religious women to this state and what can we do to move beyond shutdown and breakdown to a breakthrough? It is clear that, in this matter, apostolic women religious are striving, striving to understand meaningful bonding and to express it through authentic participation in community. Someone recently said that we may have so emphasized mission and ministry in the years of renewal following Vatican II that c6mmunity has become the shadow side of our way of life. If that is the case, the difficulties surrounding our efforts to deal with community life are deep and profound. We must face and deal with this central area of our way of life so that we are nok torn apart by unclear expectations and assumptions. I offer three perspectives for consideration in the area of community: human-growth issues, the importance of faith community and faith sharing, and l~ousin~ in community. We sometimes get bogged down by human-growth issues in our lives with one another on the local or on the broader community level even though our lived experience points to the need for human growth and development among ourselveg. Each of us knows how difficult it is to change herself and how truly futile it is to expect to change another. Each of us must deal with herself and her own issues in as healthy a fashion as 16ossible. Only when my behaviors and patterng are healthy may I be able to imiarove the dynamics between myself and those with whom I interact on a r~gular basis. The challenge here is to deal with my own behav-iors, realizing that I have no real or lasting power over the behaviors another may choose. My role is to try not to feed into unhealthy behaviors that may be pre.sent around me. Although unatteiaded human-growth issues can wreak havoc on healthy relating within community, still apostolic religious must recognize that we will never overcome all of these problems either individually or corpbrately. Gra~e biailds on nature; it will not replace or deny our humanness. We must realize how eadh sister's desire and motivation influence her choices regard-ing her behavior and interaction. We cannot choose for each other, only for ourselves. Each ~'eligious needs to be challenged to a self-knowledge and self-awareness leading to growth. Practices such as spiritual direction, the annual retreat, and the daily consciousness examen can keep us grounded in reality yet open to ongoing conversion. We must deal with human-growth-and-development issues, but not remain there. We must be committed to the making of or participating in faith community as a means of nurturing shared life, shared love, and shared vision. We must find ways to relate regularly and meaningfully with our sis- 666 / Review for Religious, September-October 1991 ters in community in order to reflect on, renew, and recommit ourselves to the mission, charism, and spirit of our congregation in our daily lives. Depending upon our miriistry and the proximity of other congregational members, how we do this will differ; that we must do it if membership is to mean more than an annual touchdown or the reading of congregational mate-rials is the reality we face. Some Current Realities I. recogniz9 that each congregational member will have other communi-ties thai will lay claim to her time, energy, and affection. That is good and healthy. My point is that we must have quality time for our own congrega-tion as well, as part of the ordering rhythm of our lives. Sometimes one's commitment to ministry or to parish can become so all-encompassing that ther~ is. little or no time or energy left for her to express her membership in her religious congregation. For me, the making of faith community involves reverence for one another, presence to one another for celebration as well ag dialogue and reflection, honesty so that we can affirm one another or call each other to growth, and a commitment to the goals and developing agenda of our congregation. This topic of makirig and participating in faith community leads to another important topic: the difference between housing and local communi-ty: We often equaie the two and this ~quation may not reflect that community life is broader than housing. The recent lived reality of women religious shows that faith community on the "local" level is not necessarily synony-mous with where a sister lives. In some locales th~ sisters have committed themselves to hei,ng a faith community without walls; regular meetings, cele-brations, and gatherings among them challenge and deepen their member-ship in the cbngi'egation, in other locales the sisters in a particular house function well as a faith community. We must recognize such differing com-munity realities and encourage them on the local level as well as on the con-gregational level. A commitment to community in our current society of intenge individualism and consumer gratification keeps us involved in a prophetic role. An Agenda for the Future The prophetic nature of this life to which we are called leads us to cob-sider an agenda for~the future. Any living organization must be open to change or it will die. In a sense change is an ordered type of death, not death as final but rather death leading to new life. One of the greatest strengths of apostolic women religious is the serise that the agenda or common goals Prophetic Witness / 667 belong to all of us. This strength we will build on as we look at change and new life for us religious. Central to understanding ourselves as women religious is understanding our spirituality. I believe that the biggest challenge for each of us with regard to spirituality is to lead more integrated lives. Integration does not just hap-pen in a person's life. It must be worked at daily through a continuous blend of action and reflection leading to further action. Somehow the aspects of one's life must be part of a whole rather than segments that do not overlap. In an integrated life my religious commitment is not separate from who I am when I am at leisure. My response in mission and ministry is not limited to my paid professional work but may overlap into volunteer involvements in food pantries, visiting the sick or elderly, letter writing, and other activities. Community life is not an end in itself in an apostolic religious institute, nor is it merely a refuge that ought to be there when I want and need it. Community is a place or space where I share faith and vision, humanness, and the quest for the divine. My ministry is not all-consuming; I do allow myself necessary time for recreation and reflection. And my prayer life is more than specified exercises or spiritual reading. All these somehow fit together and reflect my spirituality, my integration of life. An integrated life has powerful witness value in a society that wants everything and does not want to be reminded of the need for balance. Integration is not synonymous with transformation, but it can surely open us to being transforming elements in the institutions and structures of society and culture. In our desire to be prophetic witnesses, we commit our-selves to transformation of the Church, the world, and ourselves~ I recently read that one way of understanding transformation is to look at the life cycle of the butterfly. First there is a caterpillar; next there is the chrysalis stage, in which the organic matter is quite shapeless and formless; finally, there is the butterfly. Transformation is what happens in the chrysalis stage. The process is not very appealing; it suggests a profound letting go as well as an openness to a different future. While transformation has global ramifications, it will not begin at the global level but rather at the local level, where we can encourage one anoth-er to let go of attitudes or practices that may have been more helpful to a known and comfortable past than to the needs of the present or the concerns of the future. The desire for transformation of the world, the Church and our-selves flows directly from our relationship to God, self, others, and creation. It is expressed in a commitment to justice, peace, and the integrity of cre-ation. Transformation is not something anyone can directly make happen by willing it. No one person caused the recent freedom movement in Eastern 668 / Review for Religious, September-October 1991 Europe, nor can one individual move our economy from a military focus to a domestic and global focus responding to human and planetary needs in a humane fashion. Likewise, no ond person's recycling of materials will reverse our problem with excessive waste. Yet all of these and many other alternative responses can indeed lead to transformation. When such respons-es begin, networking or replicating starts to happen and systems begin to change. At the May 1990 meeting of the council of the International Union of Superiors General (UISG) in Rome, the following global challenges to evan-gelization were identified: the widening gap between the rich and poor; indi-vidualism characterized by greed, violence, terrorism, abandonment, indifference, and irresponsibility; loss of human dignity through political oppression, social discrimination, and economic injustice; the breakdown of family life; the destruction of the environment; inability to trust the human community, coupled with a preoccupation with survival. These challenges help us to formulate an agenda for transformation that is larger than ourselves, and they clearly link with the transformative ele-ments for religious life in the future developed by the major superiors of U.S. women's and men's communities (LCWR/CMSM) in August 1989: prophetic witness; contemplative attitude toward life; poor and marginalized persons as the focus for ministry; spirituality of wholeness and global inter-connectedness; charism and mission as sources of identity; change of the locus of power; living with less; broad-based inclusive communities; under-standing ourselves as Church; and developing interdependence among peo-ple of diverse cultures. These challenges and transformative elements reflect in broad strokes the goals and concerns ofapostolic religious. Though the future depends in part upon us and our efforts, it depends even more on the grace of God our Creator, the inspiration of the Spirit, and our cooperation with each other as members of the body of Christ, joined in a common humanity and gifted with a common creation. Our communion with and in Christ calls all humanity "to reclaim relationships with family, clan, and tribe, to choose the common good, to seek solidarity with one another and with the earth.''7 For transformation to occur, we must believe and act in such a way that we give the message that life has meaning and that, assisted by God's grace, our responses make a difference. The prophetic imagination described by Brueggemann remains viable as we respond in our own times with an alter-native consciousness, as we critique our dominant culture and yet energize one another for a more just and compassionate future. Our faith gives us the vision and the mission, our hope gives us spirit and energy, and our love Prophetic Witness / 669 grounds us in the mysterious blend of transcendence and immanence that is life. I close this reflection on prophetic witness and apostolic religious life with Isaiah's words: "Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not; see, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?" (Is 43:18-19). NOTES I Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978), p. 9. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid, p. 13. 4 Ibid, p. 88. 5 Mary Jo Leddy, Reweaving Religious Life: Beyond the Liberal Model (Mystic, Connecticut: Twenty-Third Publications, 1990), p. 164. 6 John XXIII, Pacem In Terris, in Seven Great Encyclicals (Glen Rock, New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1963), p. 297. 7 Helen Maher Garvey, B.V.M., excerpt from notes on the Meeting of the General Council, UISG, Rome, Italy, May 7-11, 1990, p. 2. Storms Tornado watch, the weatherman said, to last until ten o'clock. Four hours to wait for what may be or not. Storms of spirit come suddenly; swirl through the heart's towns and wash its skies to morning clean-- with no hours to wait for what so swiftly is. Sister Elizabeth deSales Dee, S.S.J. St. Joseph Convent 7300 Torresdale Avenue Philadelphia, Pa. 19136 Mission or Consecrated Religious Person: Which Comes First in Apostolic Institutes? Marie Therese Levey, R.S.~. Sister Marie Therese has taught school in country areas of Australia. Later she spe-cialized in teaching instrumental music: piano and violin. More recently she has done research in liturgical music and earned a Ph.D. Her address is St. Joseph's Convent; P.O. Box 472; North Sydney, N.S.W. 2059; Australia. In May/June 1988 this joumal published Sister Georgine Scarpino's article "The Unemployed Sister: Challenge and Opportunity." It defines the unem-ployed sister as a woman religious physically and emotionally capable of active ministry who, despite seeking work, currently has no formal position. It gives two causes for this modem phenomenon: the location of the work and the way ministry decisions are made. In summary, Sister Georgine points out the need for congregations of women religious to develop programs within religious institutes to address both employment and unemployment. Surprisingly, no published response has followed her article until now. Since women religious have sacrificed potential material wealth, marriage, and motherhood in order to serve the Church in institutes devoted to apos-tolic works, it seems unjtist that the situations described occur. However, occur they do, and the first step toward rectifying the problems is to admit them. One then asks why they exist and seeks an appropriate cure. Sister Georgine presents causes of these problems in the United States. Although here in Australia there are general parallels to what she describes, yet the causes and thus the cures seem somewhat different here. The present writer has, in religious life, personally experienced "job search" and the special type of demoralization which occurs in close-knit communities when one is the "odd man out." I thus feel equipped to write on this subject. Regardless of the differences between countries in reasons for the phe-nomenon of the unemployed sister, I believe that the two elements most 670 Mission or Consecrated Religious Person? / 671 needed in addressing the problem of appropriate placement in apostolic works of religious personnel in institutes of consecrated life are: (l) a correct balance in religious leaders between their attitudes towards responsibility for the institute's authentic mission and their attitudes towards the rights of the individual members; (2) adequate use of written media, particularly those which are internal to the religious institutes and which include forums for peer review and the opportunity for subjects to respectfully challenge those directives or oversights of superiors which seem to threaten the authentic mission of the institute or the rights of its members. Mission and Person The religious state belongs to the life and holiness of the Church (canon 574), and the primary mission of the Church is the care of souls. Ecclesiastical law insists that apostolic action for institutes of consecrated life should confirm and foster union with God (c. 675, §2). The Church has Msb a social mission, namely, to support and protect people's material well-being and to inspire and promote true civilization through Christian philoso-phy. 1 In the social category of mission can be placed the apostolic pati'imony of many institutes, and the Church insists that such patrimony, or intentions of the founder, should be.preserved by the institute (c. 578). Thus, leaders of institutes of consecrated life f6unded for apostolic works, in order to justify their ongoing existence and their acceptance of candidates, need to ensure that both the corporate entity and the individual members have a correct con-cept of this patrimony as well as machinery to implement it. Bearing in mind that the Church places the person at the center of the social order, religious leaders have a r~sponsibility to see that members of the institute are placed in apostolic works which are appropriate to the tal-ents and needs of each (see Perfectae Caritatis 18). The pastoral commit-ment of a leader in an apostolic institute does not remove--but, rather, ¯ increases--her obligation towards seeing to appropriate placement of per-sonnel. Although religious leaders nowadays delegate administrators for works for which members of their institute are the trustees, a large part of the responsibility of preventing serious damage to the person through long-term lack of appropriate apostolic work must lie, by the nature of their role, with the religious leaders. Moreover, the responsibilities leaders have to individtial persons within the institute vary according to how long and in what manner they have contributed to the institute (see REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 1989, p. 460). Since it is often claimed that consecrated religious are in short supply, the application of the above principles might seem straightforward. In reality 672 / Review for Religious, September-October 1991 there are circumstances in the modem world in general, and here in Australia in particular, which cause it to be very difficult for congregational leaders. As in the United States, the location of the work in Australia affects the opportunity to do it, and the way ministry decisions are made in America has parallels h~re. Some details may clarify the differences between practices in the two countries. Conditions in Australia Prior to Vatican II, the missioning procedures in Australian apostolic religious congregations were relatively simple. Obedience, or the will of God, was equa~ed with doing what a superior told one to do and living where the superior told one to live. In larger Australian congregations, (over 1,000 members) often more than half were primary school teachers, and a large proportion of the remainder were either secondary teachers or nurses. Changes of residence for those "in the ranks" usually involved interchange between personnel engaged in similar works. This principle of interchange was fundamental to the smooth application of the third vow. When a difficult posting was required--for example, to isolated rural areas--younger reli-gious under perpetual vows were usually sent. Postings to apostolic works almost invariably came directly from a major superior, whether or not that superior's apostoli~c background was in the relevant work. Recruitment of staff for a school or a hospital by an administrator, or board, was foreign to most Australian apostolic religious congregations of women prior to about 1960, whether the mission was in the city or in the country. In the early 1960s a radical change occurred in the overall secondary education system in the most populous state of Australia, New South Wales. That change to what was called the Wyndham System, emphasizing science and the arts, was much more revolutionary in Catholic education for girls than it was either in state education or in Catholic education for boys. In the typical local Catholic school run by consecrated religioi~s women in Australia before that time, the girls remained in the same school, almost entirely staffed by r(ligious, from kindergarten through secondary school years. In state education and in Catholic education for boys, secondary schools were already separated at least from lower primary schools. Thus, state-school teachers and men religious in secondary education had been required to have university degrees before some larger institutes of w~men religious recognized such a need. When the more farsighted Catholic educa-tors pointed out that it would now be a problem to provide adequate sec-ondary education for the girls of less well-off families in local pa~:ish schools, some congregations saw in their higher grades a source of more Mission or Consecrated Religious Person? / 673 thoroughly trained religious personnel. That vain hope made difficulties in long-term planning for the transition from religious to lay staff. A further dramatic change in Australian education, which was to affect all ministries, occurred in the early 1970s. After a break of twenty years, the Australian Labor Party, headed by Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, was elected to govern the country. One of its earliest reforms was to make uni-versity education free. Although some criticized the extraordinary cost this was to the nation, the move brought the opportunity for tertiary education to the masses. Before that time, university education had been for the fortunate and the chosen. Now the initiative for tertiary education was up to the indi-vidual. The suc.c~'ss achieved by some "late starters," many in their forties and fifties, revealed how much talent had previously been unused. From about 1975, attitudes within religious congregations changed for both superi-ors and subjects. Superiors began to listen more attentively to those who did well in their tertiary studies, and subjects found their personal confidence and self-esteem strengthened by their academic achievement. With the advances made in the study of theology and the social sciences, it is now rarel~ pretended that apostolic religious life is simple, or that doing the will of God is always as clear-cut as that decided by another human being alone, whether or not that person h.appens to be a religious superior. Because of the broader scope of ministries open to women religious, modem specialization, and improved administrative techniques, the principle of interchange among personnel--which for many years had been integral to the practice of the third vow--is now becoming more and more difficult. In addition, although the median age of religious congregations is rising faster than that of the general population, many religious feel they have the right, and indeed the duty, to request proximity to aging parents. Religious congre-gations in serious decline have virtually no young sisters under perpetual vows who might be sent to isolated schools in rural areas. Since the majority of Australian sisters have reached the "winding down" stage of their lives, many now look to the cities from whence they originally came. In addition to these developments within the Church, the governments of Australia and New Zealand have acknowledged, in the form of funding, the benefits to the country as a whole of certain works of the private sector, including Catholic, and have thus made it necessary to rethink the ecclesias-tical structures for some ministries in which religious are involved. The equitable processing of government funding necessitated merging many local works, including parish schools within dioceses, into larger systems, most of whose personnel are now lay. These mergings required the develop-ment of policies acceptable to the relevant bishops, major religious superi- 674 / Review for Religious, September-October 1991 ors, and state and union representatives for the management of the works, particularly those of healthcare and education. Making the policies work in practice required the establishment of sophisticated structures, which in turn required religious or lay personnel with the proper management skills. As a result, the power of the leaders of religious institutes with regard to the placement of personnel in traditional works in Australia and New Zealand has been lessened. Unlike lay staff, religious in Australia are not permitted employment status; this is not the case in New Zealand.2 Because of all of these circumstances, religious superiors have had to rethink how to preserve their true patrimony oi" authentic mission and what human cost would be involved. Mission or Consecrated Religious Person? The whole issue of the employment, or active involvement, of religious personnel leads to the question: Which is of greater importance to an insti-tute claiming to be dedicated to apostolic works, the works for which it was founded or the persons who will serve in those works? For leaders of insti-tutes whose acceptance of candidates demands that they offer them appropri-ate apostolic work, the answer is neither obvious nor simple. However, the Church has offered some very sound advice in the general area of human work. Of the documents which have come from the Vatican since the council, few could be more relevant to our times than the encyclical letter Laborem Exercens (LE) of the present pope. Pope John Paul II presents human work as "one of the characteristics that distinguish man from the rest of the crea-tures." It is "from work [that man's life] derives its specific dignity" (LE Introduction). Pope John Paul describes the "conflict between labor and cap-ital in the present phase of history" (LE 1 l f f). The Church, he points out, has always taught "the principle of labor over capital." Both are causes of pro-duction, but while capital is the mere "instrumental cause," labor is the "pri-mary efficient cause" (LE 12). In the labor-over-capital issue, Pope John Paul equates labor with per-sons and capital with the material returns from their labor. Consecrated reli-gious, even those who have employment, individually receive no capital }'or their labor. They have sacrificed this right for a stable form of living by which they can follow Christ more closely under the action of the Holy Spirit (c. 573). In Australia and New Zealand, more than half of the person-nel in apostolic institutes made their commitment in the years when religious superiors had supreme control over placement into works, and they are now beyond the stage at which they might have arranged for alternative security Mission or Consecrated Religious Person? / 675 in old age upon seeing that the original system in which they sacrificed pos-sible wealth, marriage, and motherhood was beginning to break down. So the competent authorities obviously have a serious question of obligation towards them now. Many of the religious have perhaps forty years of life which they could still offer in apostolic works within the Church. Pope John Paul also writes concerning the roles of the "direct and indi-rect employer" (LE 17). By the "indirect employer" he refers to many differ-ent elements in society which make up the human environment of the worker. He says: "The role of the agents included under the title of indirect employer is to act against unemployment, which in all cases is an evil, and which, when it reaches a certain level, can become a real social disaster" (LE 18). These are strong words from the pen of the vicar of Christ. The principal agent in the concept of indirect employer for religious personnel would be the wider Church in that country. Should not, then, sections of the local Church accept part of the responsibility to address any problems of unem-ployment for religious? As well, the question should be raised within reli-gious institutes: Is it justifiable for religious superiors to accept candidates to poverty and obedience within a particular institute when those superiors do not have the power to place them in suitable work soon after profession? Perhaps declining numbers in a congregation increase the temptation for superiors to do so, and perhaps they excuse their actions with the reminder that all should "trust in God." I believe that succumbing to such a temptation would constitute power abuse of a particularly destructive kind. The abuse would surely be more damaging if others within the institute were already searching for similar employment, and were exposed to the same market forces. Power and Recruitment for Apostolic Works The power of recruitment brings us to the heart of the present discus-sion, namely, the opportunity for or deprivation of suitable apostolic work for religious personnel. It is neither possible nor desirable to completely sep-arate apostolic persons from the society in which they live. Professed mem-bers of Australian religious institutes are exposed to the forces which are part of the sophisticated living of the decade leading up to the twenty-first century. In this society ~nd age, control of recruitment for works represents power. For religious personnel, recruitment can be translated into mission-ing. Procedures for the missioning of religious should be such that they lead to the spiritual strengthening of the members and the corporate growth of the institute. The immediate practical problem to be faced by governing bodies of religious institutes is to develop policies for missioning procedures that 676 / Review for Religious, September-October 1991 are within their power to implement, that support evangelization, that are just and equitable and adapted to the personhood of each sister, and that accord with both canon and civil law. Nowadays apostolic work for religious may be broadly placed into four categories: (1) viable institutions of which the con-gregation is the trustee, (2) charitable works of the congregation or of other ecclesiastical bodies, (3) viable institutions of other ecclesiastical bodies which pay stipends or salaries for the work of the sister, and (4) viable and nonviable works found in profane structures at the initiative of the religious. (1) Viable institutions owned by a religious institute are, in a distinctive manner, part of its patrimony. They are, as well, material assets of the insti-tute, which its leaders should, in. poverty, care for "with the diligence of a good householder" (canon 1284). Viable works of religious congregations are businesses, and for businesses to survive and attract personnel today, they must be competitive. Vatican II (Gaudium et Spes 64) teaches that eco-nomic development through technical progress "must be fostered, along with a spirit of initiative, an eagerness to create and expand enterprises," and that the purpose of productivity "must be th.e service of. the whole human per-son, viewed in terms of his or her material needs and the demands of his or her intellectual, moral, spiritual, and religious life." Pope John Paul points out that "capital cannot be separated fr6m labor" (LE 13) though, of course, in the case of religious persons, the capital is, through poverty, directed elsewhere than themselves. Religious persons, knowing that they are materially contributing towards the whole, find in the capital "confirma-tion and support" (LE 13) for the work done. Sound economics and evangel-ical poverty should go hand in hand. In order to maintain the correct balance between responsibility to the institute's mission and respect for the rights of the individual members of the institute, congregational leaders (trustees of the works) must regard the work and those involved in it as separate entities: the work itself is important regardless of who does it. Individual members must have the same percep-tion so that they may practice the spirit of poverty, or detachment. There should, accordingly, be protective structures for the ministry, including sometimes the combining of similar works under one administration so that they will continue even in cases of illness or of anyone's taking longservice leave. It is particularly important that this principle of continuation be respected when works require only one person in the local area, for example, instrumental music practices.3 Setting up protective structures for ministries in order to maintain the institute's patrimony will include policies for recruitment of staff. In those works in which a number of religious and lay people, are engaged, religious superiors have the direct power to influence Mission or Consecrated Religious Person? / 677 administrators in the recruitment of personnel. It stands to reason, then, that---other things, like professional qualifications, being equal--in recruit-ment for works of which the religious institute is the trustee, preference should be given to its own members. (2) The category of charitable works might include refuges for the needy which are supported by the congregation and by external donations. Without viable works there can be no charitable works. The Church's teaching on a "preferential option for the poor," by which the poor should have a preferen-tial claim on the Church's resources, cannot be initially applied without the resources. Once competent authorities decide that a charitable work is authentic to the charism of the institute, then the congregation should set up, as it should for its viable institutions, protective structures to preserve the work, whether or not there are religious personnel to staff it. Indeed, true missionaries strive to make themselves ultimately dispensable--teaching the disadvantaged how to be self-reliant and how to recover the dignity which is their right (see LE 9). Protective structures would include finance arrange-ments which can be monitored, and the work should be the source of support for the individual religious workers; that is, their salaries or stipends should be fed back into the general system. Again, for a religious institute's own charitable works, other things being equal, one would expect that members of the institute who are under civil retirement age should be considered first when positions are vacant. In Australia, women over sixty years of age (men over sixty-five) who have limited assets (a category which includes religious) are eligible to apply for the Social Security payments from the government. With the pres-ent societal structures, it seems that religious who receive Social Security should not deprive others (perhaps more deserving) of needed employment positions. In some dioceses it is established policy not to accept into stipend-ed positions religious women who are over sixty. If protective structures for an institute's works do not include allocationof salaries, or stipends which are independent of Social Security payments, then receipt of the latter would generate for the ministry an artificial security which could destabilize long-term plans for it. (3) In the third category above, which here in Australia refers principally to Catholic education, lie the greatest current problems of placement of reli-gious personnel. In most of Australia, the recruitment of staffs for nonpro-motional positions in Catholic schools is in the hands of local principals. This power evolved with the gradual acceptance of lay staffs into the parish schools previously staffed by religious. Perhaps to our discredit, it is only recently (since about 1975) that there has been widespread acceptance of lay 678 / Review for Religious, September-October 1991 teachers into promotional positions. In general, the power of religious supe-riors to place personnel in diocesan works is limited to those positions which were previously held by other religious of their own congregations. Declining numbers, and thus declining positions, led to some religious being exposed to market forces for ministries. School principals, whether religious or lay, still have the power and responsibility of staffing. This has now become an excessive burden for principals of Catholic schools in the coun-try, and an excessive power for those in the city. One solution would be to have staff recruitment moved to the systemic level so that consistent staffing policies might be applied across dioceses. This might lessen the number of religious who today feel forced into the fourth category above. The exposure of some religious to market forces in the area of ministry is quite a different method of missioning than the appropriate placement of a person by a religious superior. The question should be asked: Is it just for the two types of missioning to coexist ~within the same religious institute? The answer to this important question will require great honesty and humility on the part of religious leaders. Religious exposed to market forces are some-times refused employment in diocesan works or, when school enrollments drop, dismissed by school principals of their own congregation who have the power of recruitment. Such practices are effectively structuring out of Catholic education the few teaching religious who are left, and are a serious cause of unemployment amongst religious. Some religious teachers even turn to the state school system for employment rather than lose touch with the classroom and "real life." Considering the authentic commitment which the religious have made, this alternative seems to the present writer an anomaly. On the other hand, relatively little investment has been made by the wider Australian Church over the last twenty years for the education in theology of lay teachers for Catholic schools. The above problems can now be solved only by negotiations between diocesan and religious leaders who have in mind the well-being of both the mission and the persons. As well, past oversight in planning could perhaps be avoided in the future if religious are encouraged to contribute ideas through appropriate media. Adequate Use of Media There are two levels of written communication which are particularly important in preserving a correct balance between responsibility for authen-tic mission and respect for the rights of individuals. These levels are media within the wider Church and media within religious institutes. Media within the Wider Church. Recruitment of personnel for Catholic works is effected via both the Catholic journals and the metropolitan dailies. Mission or Consecrated Religious Person? / 679 Like most other countries, Australia has its regular Catholic state and dioce-san papers. Because these are virtually all the Catholic community has for information on what is happening in the Church, they warrant better support and readership than they receive~ In general, editorial staffs in this country strive to maintain an adequate standard of journalism. Despite these vehicles of communication, religious leaders sometimes offer only private invitations to coveted positions which become available. They would avoid much criti-cism if they were to justify, via the Catholic media, such private invitations, especially those to academic posts in Catholic theological institutes, which remain predominantly male. Media within Religious Institutes. If any group of people ever needed to be skilled in transmitting information to each other, it would surely be the members of a religious community. Today there is frequent reference to the "role of the prophet" within religious institutes. Prophets must have vehicles in which they can deliver the message, and the printed word offers the par-ticular benefit of time for considered expression and response. I believe that religious institutes need especially these two kinds of print media: directo-ries and forums for challenge. Directories. In order for general leaders to affirm a work as part of the institute's authentic mission, they must understand clearly what the work is about and be sufficiently convinced of its value to defend it, if necessary, at the general chapter. On the other hand, if chapter delegates believe that the congregation has more ministries than they can validly affirm, they should seriously and courageously argue that systematic steps be taken towards reducing the number.4 Chapter delegates, in order to make valid contribu-tions to discussions and debates regarding works, must have information about their nature and value. Since this is so, it stands to reason that those who elected them--namely, all members of the institute--should have it too. Therefore, each apostolic institute in today's world needs its own official directOry, revised and published annually and containing information on the residence and mission of each member. The directory, which would be an implicit demographic study of the institute, should contain, as well, an annu-al financial statement of the institute and its provinces, with statistics on works which had some elements in common. I believe this would assist greatly in the appropriate placement of personnel and act as a deterrent to increasing fragmentation in ministries. Forum for Challenge. If members of religious institutes with at least parallel qualifications to lay teachers are to have the same work opportuni-ties in the institutes' traditional ministries, then positions that are open should be advertised first within "the system." Trade unions insist on this 680 / Review for Religious, September-October 1991 right for their civilly employed members, so it should not be too much to expect within the religious institutes themselves. As well, religious subjects often have insights and ideas for better management which are unknown to superiors. They should have the opportunity to share them. Their ideas may be of benefit to all so that problems like unemployment may be addressed before they gain a hold. Since religious women were, for over a hundred years, to an extent indoctrinated not to express an opinion, they will need to be encouraged to contribute. Therefore, internal journals which contain forums for challenge must have a mandate from a competent authority and must be frequent and regular. When what is written in them is not uncharita-ble- that is, criticizes a policy or a structure and does not attack a particular person--and is limited in audience to professed members of the institute, then it is not a threat to loyalty. Indeed, such a forum could become a c.orpo-rate examination of conscience and could preserve or restore the balance between responsibility for authentic mission and the rights of the person. It could also act as a specific prevention or cure of the evil of unemployment within the religious institute. In educating religious to the use of an internal journal, it should be pointed out that the institute, being made up of human beings, is quite subject to error and that it could be harmful to their beioved congregation to write only of its virtues and to overlook its faults, including possibly incorrect policies with regard to the placement of personnel. Conclusion More than twenty years have passed now since religious congregations first experienced declining numbers and lay teachers became an ac.cepted part of Catholic education here in Australia, so there has be~n adequate time to face up to problems which have occurred regarding recruitment for specif-ic works. Sister Georgine recommends that a program "address all the dimensions of employment and unemployment." However, "job clubs" and "comprehensive programs" are unlikely to take shape until religious leaders acknowledge that the problem is there. I believe that leaders also have the duty to provide those engaged in the works with information and reflection based on surveys or particular works so that they will know what the scope of that work will be in the future, how long the work itself is likely to sur-vive, and what the superiors are planning in that regard. There is no guarantee that any of the above proposals are a complete cure for the evil of unemployment within religious life. However, endeavor-ing to maintain a correct balance between responsibility f~r the mission and respect for the persons of the members of the institute goes to the causes of the evil and is more likely to effect a long-term cure. The use of appropriate Mission or Consecrated Religious Person? / 681 media is a method of achieving the "maximum feasible participation" in effecting a cure. We are living in a world at the brink of the third Christian millennium. It is a world which needs the commitment of consecrated reli-gious life as much as ever and perhaps more than ever. A life wholly dedi-cated to contemplation is a rare gift. However, there is plenty of evidence to indicate that apostolic institutes of consecrated life have an important place in contemporary society. The chief characteristic of Christian moral doctrine besides its Christocentric orientation is the integration of love and justice, the latter being "the strong and firm will to give to each his due.''5 For a reli-gious woman who has sacrificed potential marriage, motherhood, and career in order to serve the Church in an institute devoted to apostolic ministry, unemployment is a serious injustice. The Church and religious institutes should work together for both prevention and cure. NOTES I See R. Hoffman, "Mission," in The New Catholic Encyclopedia. 2 For the purpose of the present article, the word employment will sometimes refer to apostolic work, whether or not the religious has employment status in the civil law. 3 The present writer admits to a certain bias towards instrumental music teaching. I believe that this work is of great importance to the liturgy of the Church. One of the long-term effects of the mergings of parish schools and the employment of lay teach-ers in Australian Catholic education was the death of much traditional music prac-tice, which was not absorbed into the diocesan systems and had few protective structures. It seems to me that the most important strategy for preserving the practice of music is to remove revenue management from the hands of the individual teacher. Otherwise the work tends to become like that of a self-employed person--a situation which is not compatible with either poverty or obedience. Skilled musicians in parishes attract worshipers. I believe that budgeting towards producing musicians for the Church should be part of its primary mission. 4 The idea of permitting novices to have unlimited scope in "working out" their future ministry is, I believe, a recipe for disaster; apostolic congregations already have difficulty in staffing missions recognized as authentic to their charism. 5 New Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 8, p. 70. Quotation from St. Thomas Aquinas (ST 2 a2ae, 58.1). Inner Africa: A ,Journey of Conversion Susan Rakoczy, 1.H.M. Sister Susan Rakoczy, I.H.M., began ministry in South Africa in October 1989 and currently lectures in systematic theology and spirituality at St. Joseph's Theological Institute in Cedara. Her address is 21 Buchanan Street; 3290 Howick; South Africa. It was about 2:30 in the morning as the door of the plane was opened. The humid and steaming air of West Africa enveloped me as I was pushed down the stairs by the crowd onto the tarmac of Ougadougou airport. Swept along with women carrying immense bondles on their heads, children looking for their parents, and determined men striding forward, 1 suddenly thought, "I am on holy ground--I am in Africa." But if I had bent down to kiss the ground I would have been trampled--better to let myself be borne by the flow of humanity to the small airport terminal and the arrival procedures. In the rush and confusion of all the formalities I could sense that I had now entered something deeper than my own self for 1 was touching "mother Africa." Later, as we stowed our luggage in a friend's car for the drive to the hostel to spend what was left of the night I wondered, "What have I done with my life?" What indeed. ? The experiences of my years in Ghana (1982 to 1988) provided many different answers to that question. Most essentially they led me into the depths of conversion Which I can describe now as "inner Africa" for I soon learned that "mother Africa" would ask everything of me. The Call Some people dream all their lives of serving outside their own country, but that was not my experience. Not until I was finishing my doctoral studies in religion at Catholic University in 1980 did I sense a call to serve beyond North America. Through the months of preparation, prayer, and discussion 682 Inner Africa: A Journey of Conversion / 683 which preceded my journey to Ghana, people often asked, "Why are you going?" Slowly I clarified my own sense of call, speaking of my desire to share something of my gifts and education with the "young Church" of Africa. As I read about Africa and its needs, struggles, and promise I became aware of a continent and Church reaching towards maturity of faith and vision. Somehow I sensed very deeply that I wanted to be part of that. But it is not enough just to desire to serve in Africa. It is an immense continent, large enough to contain the continental United States two-and-a-half times. I received an invitation to teach in the major seminary in northern Ghana (our congregation had come to that section of the country in 1976) and so the plan was to come and spend a year getting acquainted with the culture and life of the people and then to begin teaching in 1983. As with many people who come to Africa, things did not turn out quite as I had planned. While I did work in Navrongo, a small town in Ghana for a year, the seminary door never opened wide enough to admit a woman theologian. But life at the Centre for Spiritual Renewal, a retreat center in the city of Kumasi, gave me a much wider scope for ministry with opportunities in retreats and spiritual direction, intensive leadership formation with prayer group leaders, and writing and editing, all of which enabled me to enter more deeply into Ghanaian life and culture. All the preparation I tried to do, while helpful in some ways, was still inadequate to the challenge of Africa. After I arrived I realized that what I needed was a radical openness, a sense of adventure, a desire to meet the continent and its people on their own terms. As the day of departure neared my own sense of expectancy of what was ahead increased. Shortly before I left I spent a few days on retreat at our com-munity hermitage. The entries in my journal for those days speak of praying for courage and joy and experiencing great wonder at this call I had received. The night before I left I wrote: Tomorrow~departure. I feel more than ready. Mostly I feel a deep free-dom and joy which has placed fear on the sidelines. Somehow 1 know I will meet the Lord--in and of his people--in ways never before imag-ined and experienced. And that is enough--more than enough--to move me across oceans and cultures. 1 go in utter joy and freedom. As the plane left United States soil the next day, ! remember how my whole spirit moved forward towards Africa. Soon I descended the steps of that plane that hot morning in Ougadougou. Inner and outer Africa now began. Call To Conversion As I reflect on my years in Ghana, I experience them in the images of 684 / Review for Religious; September-October 1991 "outer" and "inner" Africa. The first was the living of African reality in terms of my ministry; it describes what I did, with whom I lived, the rich-ness of my experience in those years. But "inner Africa" was the core of it all. My years in Ghana were fore-most an experience of conversion--a turning from, in order to turn to some-thing else, something which challenged everything I thought I was, knew, and had within me. Paul Robb, S.J., describes well the essence of conversion as a journey into the unknown: It is difficult to endure conversion because it seems to put into jeopardy our very lifestyle and ministry, but even more so because we sense that it touches the very roots of our life. It reaches deep into our being---our personality, our choices, our very self. It touches in places that are unknown, places where we are strangers. To begin a journey into an unfamiliar, haunting land is frightening, but not to know whether we will find life or death, blessing or curse, at the end can be terrifying. To enter the journey with all its uncertainties proves the possibility of finding life and life in abundance. Not to begin the journey, but to harden and steel oneself against it, is already death.2 The images are true and strong and evocative of my own African experi-ence. In my first weeks, as I entered "outer Africa" in its immensity with all the challenges of a new culture, 1 also experienced a sense of inner chaos. Some days I felt as if I were drowning, the waters of Africa enveloping me, About two months after I arrived I realized that I had to truly "walk through the door of Africa" ifI were to survive. In my journal I wrote: I have straddled first- and third-world existence in great disharmony. Today I felt that part of this is ended--it is within Africa now--that (God's) grace will work, from the inside out. It is as though 1 have now truly entered Africa. Once I had walked onto the solid ground of Africa never again did I feel this inner chaos. The work of conversion could now begin. These conver-sions were multiple and touched every dimension of my life as a North American woman of faith in a radically different culture: My first-world perspective was turned upside down; I was called from idealism to realism; I moved from giving to receiving; 1 experienced strength becoming weakness; I passed from death to life--from myself to God alone. Inner Africa: A Journey of Conversion / 685 First-World Perspective Turned Up-Side Down We come to a new culture as we are. If we are even halfway faithful to the challenges of cross-cultural experience, our own self-understanding of our home culture will change dramatically. This I experienced very pro-foundly. I discovered that I had brought a very large amount of cultural bag-gage with me. It was disconcerting to be criticized as "too American" at times--that is, too self-assured, too curious, too organized, too conscious of time; too ready with my questions and opinions. What was salutary, if painful, was the opportunity to allow my world-view to shift into new patterns. I first learned that the United States is not the center of the universe, even if it often acts that way and its military and eco-nomic policies impact the rest of the planet in such dramatic ways. It is one country among many, with its own strengths and weaknesses. I learned also how diverse and beautiful are the gifts of the people of other countries. 1 especially experienced this gift in the opportunities 1 had to meet people from so many different parts of the world and to enter into something of the richness of the world's cultural heritage, to see how differently people can feel, think, and organize human life. There were two central ways in which my world began to be "turned upside down": my experience of poverty and my attempts to learn new dimensions of the common life and hospitality. Poverty is a hard and often a "loaded" word. We fight it and yet some-how sense that in being poor we will find the key to new life in solidarity with others. The Gospel's call to detachment from riches and from every-thing that would hinder our response to the invitation from Jesus to disciple-ship has always challenged Christians profoundly. To come to Ghana was certainly to see poverty and share in it in some small ways. It was indeed a shock for me to see the extent of poverty and marginality: lack of clean and safe water for so many, schools with few books, hospitals and clinics without supplies, limited transportation, rudi-mentary communication, erratic electricity. Some of the practical details of my new lifestyle were a challenge. It was "farewell" to dependable electrici-ty, unlimited water, telephone service, easily available fuel, and to book-shops, movies, and regular postal service. It was, on the other hand, "hello" to a sense of living on the "edge of things" at times--lanterns and attempts to get kerosene for them, recycling every possible drop of water, limited food supplies, simple amusements, and difficulties in communication. All these changes were hard in different ways. I wrote: I am struck again by the gap between theory and practice in my life, for 686 / Review for Religious, September-October 1991 example, to talk about poverty, being with the poor--and then not to embrace poverty wholeheartedly, as indeed Jesus did. The:conversion to acceptance of and a certain ease with my new simple lifestyle took time. I never did get used to the erratic postal system and its consequences for poor communication with family and friends. On the other hand, as the years went by I gradually experienced in myself a certain ability to live with much less and to find in that a real freedom. To have to do things simply and patiently experience inconvenience gradually became a way for me to share some sense of solidarity with the poor who have no options and no outside resources. I was becoming comfortable with the simplicity of Ghanaian life and my heart was slowly becoming centered on what was most essential. I was not poor in the way the ordinary Ghanaian is poor but I did come to experience in small ways the shocks and diminishments of poverty. 1 also learned new meanings of community life and hospitality because African life is lived in common. The extended family of several generations living together in one compound has been the normal pattern in rural areas. Daily activities take place outside, and people are inside only when it is rain-ing, or at night, or if they are sick. The atmosphere in both urban and rural areas is one of physical and psychological openness to friend and stranger. Entering into such a different cultural atmosphere of hospitality and availability also challenged my Western habits. In the West we live inside; people come into our lives generally at our convenience thanks to the cultur-al presuppositions that one lives by calendars and schedules. But in a situa-tion where the culture says "welcome" all that changes. People walk into one's life often unannounced, and the person at the door could bring the unexpected pleasure of a friend coming to visit or someone arriving for a retreat without any previous communication or someone coming to ask for prayer---or the bishop with overseas visitors. 1 learned to be always ready to adapt to people's needs and to realize that my life and my time were really no longer my own, Prayer time was often interrupted; reading and study had to be immediately abandoned to answer someone's need. Privacy became very relative since, although I had my own room and office, my own space and time were now the resources of the people I tried to serve. These demands taught me much about my own selfishness, the need to have my own way, my own schedule, my own plans. I never did become totally comfortable with being physically and psychologically available at all times. Yet gradually I learned to absorb something of the spirit of welcome and hospitality which are so important in Ghanaian culture and to live them in my halting way. Inner Africa: A Journey of Conversion / 687 The first dimension of conversion in my life then was a shift in con-sciousness from being a woman of the first world to one living in the third world and trying to enter fully into life there. My American perspective and cultural habits were turned upside down and inside out. The result was a double-consciousness for I saw, and felt, and experienced first- and third-world realities at the same time. Nothing could or would be the same again. From Idealism to Realism Soon after I came to Ghana I realized what a "good press" the African Church has in the West. The reading I had done before I arrived had given me the overwhelming impression of a "young Church" on its way to real inculturation as a true African expression of the Christian faith, with signifi-cant achievements already made in liturgy and catechesis. It is true that inculturation is happening, theological development and reflection are proceeding, liturgy is more authentically African in some places--but the pace of everything is slow and that is the pace of Africa. Idealism about the Church was gradually replaced by a realism about the Church as it is. To be a "young" Church is exactly that. In the southern part of Ghana modern Catholic

Issue 50.6 of the Review for Religious, November/December 1991. ; Volume 50 Number 6 November/December 1991 Ardent Lover as Pastoral Minister Song of the Groom The Erosion of Faith The Prayer of Stupidity R~vtEw FOR Rt~l.~C~OUs (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at St. Louis University by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus; Editorial Office: 3601 Lindcll Boulevard, Room 428: St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-535-3048. Second-class postage paid at St. Louis MO and additional offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to REVIEW ~'Oa RELIGIOUS; P.O. BOX 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. Subscription rates: Single copy $3.50 plus mailing costs. One-year subscription $15.00 plus mailing costs; two-year subscription $28.00 plus mailing costs. See inside back cover for subscription informa-tion and mailing costs. © 1991 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. David L. Fleming, S.J. Philip C. Fischer, S.J. Michael G. Harter, S.J. Elizabeth McDonough, O.P. 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This order is for [] a new subscription [] a renewal [] a restart of a lapsed subscription MAIL TO: REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS o 3601 LINDELL BOULEVARD ".ST.LOUIS, MO 63108 1.91 PRISMS . For those who take their Christian calendar for granted, the celebration of Christmas day seems more an ordinary part of the secular year than the extraordinary event it is. in the case of the business retailer the days leading up to Christmas become the watershed for a profitable sales year. For those in school the Christmas season marks ihe end of a semester, perhaps a gradu-ation, or at least a holiday time. There are large parts of Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, and Hindu worlds where Christmas remains a Western cultural "playtime" invention. And what is Christmas really for us? Christmas celebrates an almost unbelievable reality: God being born as a human being, as a rather ordinary helpless baby. As usual with the arrival of a baby, Christmas represents jby, and with the magical ingredients of angels singing, shepherds watching, and Magi adoring we seem to hold Life with a gentle and light touch. Yet we cannot ignore the dark side of Christmas and the various struggles present within its story, such as the massacre of the innocent babies and the refugee reality of this young family in Egypt. One continuing struggle we all enter into as Christians is in believing that God loves this tangled human world so much. Another cont(mpo~:ary area of con-flict for us lies in the chosen limitations which God takes on in being human, for example, in being male, not female, in being Jewish, not Irish, Polish, or Japanese, in being an uneducated, itinerant preacher, not a priest, a lawyer, or a successful financier. Certain things will be remembered about Jesus-- this God-man--ways of speaking, the kinds of stories he told, his program for what it means to be blessed. All of this sets up the potential for more conflict and misunderstanding from this Middle Eastern way of approaching life so different from our own. Perhaps in our time we need to enter into Christmas more from God's point of view of our human world rather than fixating on our own conflictual struggles. Today it seems that causes and movements, allegiances and preju-dices, tend to make us small, mean, and even vindictive. Christmas take on new importance for Us Christians when the reality we celebrate allows us to identify with God in smallness and in the mean things of this world. We enter a little more lightly and gently into the conflict of limitations which God so eagerly took on in Jesus--the one we call our Vindicator. God desires to minister to a world out of love even though some forms and 801 [109 / Review for Religious, November-December1991 expressions of love always seem to be the source of so much misunderstand-ing and conflict. As a tribute to John of the Cross as we close the four hun-dredth anniversary celebration, Kevin Culligan focuses upon John's : m~mstry--like God's-~coming from an ardent lover. Always the energy of love which seeks union and draws forth imitation enhances at the same time the differentiation of the ones in love. Teilhard de Chardin's evolution axiom, "union differentiates," restates more secularly the Pauline concept of the glory of differences in hands and feet and eye within the Body of Christ--all united in the love of Christ in God. Our contemporary struggle with our own human sexuality in relating to our Christian God needs to find softer focus within the light of Christmas. Maybe there is a kind of divine humor in speaking and relating to God in masculine and feminine imagery. After all, if sexuality makes no sense in referring to our trinitarian God's life, at least the origins of our own human sexuality--limiting as it is in its male and female forms--stem from our cre-ator God of love. And so in accentuating our masculine and feminine reali-ties we reflect back some kind of reality within God's life. Jesus only makes concrete in his very person the struggle of our human love of God--both towards himself and to the God he calls abba, Father. The paradoxes involved in language about God and in responding to a God so intimately involved with us human beings--"male and female God created them"-~are touched upon by two authors in this issue, Robert Annechino and Nancy Cross, as they consider the experience of our loving God and God's loving us. Hennessy's expansion of the Marian mysteries in the public ministry of Jesus adds balance and fullness to our entering into salvation events. Limits in our loving in the form of narcissism is touched upon by Markham and Sofield. O'Hea looks to its roots in the erosion of faith. Darkness even in our loving response in prayer is considered by Dent and Ostini. Ottensmeyer, with a certain lightness of touch, has us take hold of what we might call our perversity principles. The poem, "Monastic Ruminations," by Auer and the article "Messiaenic Epiphany: '. amidst animals, Love is born'" by Schloesser are intended as two special, and different, love-gifts to our readers. May the God enfleshed for us, celebrated anew this Christmas season, help us touch issues and challenges of our times lightly, gently, and with grace. David L. Fleming, S.J. Ardent Lover as Pastoral Minister: John of the Cross's Lived Example Kevin Culligan, O.C.D. This article is an edited version of a talk Father Kevin gave in December 1990 at the beginning of the fourth-centenary commemoration of St. John of the Cross's death in 1591. Father Kevin was his province's provincial and is now its director of continu-ing education and ongoing formation. His address is Discalced Carmelites; P.O. Box 429; Hinton, West Virginia 25951-0429. A number of years ago, at a seminar on St. John of the Cross and Spiritual Direction for directors of formation in religious communities, one of the par-ticipants told the group that he had come to our seminar in secret: "If my community knew I was participating in a seminar on St. John of the Cross, they would think I had gone off the deep end and would probably remove me from office to protect our novices." For me that remark sadly illustrates the poor image St. John of the Cross has for many clergy, religious, and laity in the United States. In 1926 Pius XI proclaimed him a doctor of the Church precisely because his writings were judged, after three and half centuries of thorough examination, to have universal value for the spiritual formation of Christians. Yet, for most American Catholics today, John is little known and his writings are a closed book. Many think of him primarily a's a mystic and poet, and so have difficulty identifying with him or believing that his teachings have much value for ordinary practical Christian living. Others, like the great American psycholo-gist and philosopher William James, have read his writings but consider him a negative ascetic, admirable in his personal austerities, perhaps, but whose teaching--"to come to possess all, desire the possession of nothing" (Ascent 1.13.11)--is psychologically dangerous. Even the images of John in reli-gious art, where he is usually portrayed embracing a cross, scare people. In Carmel we think of St. John of the Cross differently. He is our spiritu- 803 ~104 / Review for Religious, November-December 1991 al father. We have experienced that his teaching, while challenging, is filled with practical wisdom. We regret that he is so little known and so negatively perceived in the United States because we believe he offers adult Christians a "spirituality with substance," as John Welch, O.Carm., states in his recent book, When Gods Die: An Introduction to John of the Cross. Thus, during the celebration of the fourth centenary of his holy death on December 14, 1591, we challenge ourselves to make his life and writings more accessible to our brothers and sisters in the United States. We hope many will discover him and find in this sixteenth-century Spanish friar a sure guide for our com-mon journey toward union with God. This article, then, considers John less as poet and mystic than as pastoral minister. As an ordained priest he made ministry to others the primary activi-ty and absorbing concern of his adult life. Even as a youngster he cared for others. Years later, his greatest writings on the spiritual life emerged from his ministry of spiritual direction. He wrote his famous diptych, The Ascent of Mount Carmel and The Dark Night, for other Carmelites, both friars and nuns, "since they were the ones who asked me to write this work" (Ascent, prologue, 9). His other two masterpieces in spirituality, The Spiritual Canticle and The Living Flame of Love, were written for two women he served as spiritual director, one a Carmelite nun, the other a widow. By looking at John as priest, as pastoral minister, we may get insights that further the most exciting development in the post-Vatican II Church, the opening of pastoral ministry to all. People have been newly reminded that pastoral ministry is not solely an obligation assumed at ordination or religious profession, but a responsibility that flows from our baptism and confirmation. Specifically, John contributes a fresh way of conceiving a pastoral min-ister, not only a "wounded healer" as Henri Nouwen has suggested,I or a "skilled helper" in the phrase of Gerard Egan,2 but also as an "ardent lover," a phrase which I believe aptly captures John's practice of pastoral ministry. John's Preparation for Ministry In 1567 Juan de Yepes--known then in the Carmelite order as Juan de Santo Matfa or John of St. Matthias--was ordained to the priesthood in the university city of Salamanca. Shortly after, in his home town of Medina del Campo, he met for the first time Teresa of Avila, who persuaded him to forgo his plans to join the stricter Carthusian order in order to assist her in reforming their own Carmelites. John had already been involved in ministry before 1567. From 1556 to 1562, as an adolescent between the ages of fourteen and twenty, he lived in a hospital, where he served the sick as an orderly and begged alms for them in Ardent Lover as Pastoral Minister / 805 the streets. He would continue to serve the sick faithfully throughout his life. But the two major events of 1567--his priestly ordination and his first meet-ing with Teresa~determined the character of his pastoral ministry until his death twenty-four years later, in 1591 at the age of forty-nine. Everything that took place in his life before 1567 was but a preparation for the variety of pastoral services he would perform as a priest and a close associate of Teresa of Jesus. John's remote preparation for ministry began early. He was raised in a single-parent home. His father, Gonzalo de Yepes, died from the effects of poverty and famine shortly after John's birth in 1542 in the small Castilian farming village of Fontiveros, twenty-five miles northwest of Avila. John's father had belonged to a noble Toledo family with a prosperous silk business. He left a promising career in the family business to marry John's mother, Catalina Alvarez, a "poor but beautiful" weaving girl originally from Toledo whom Gonzalo had met on one of his business trips. Because his family dis-owned him for marrying beneath his position in life, Gonzalo joined his wife as a weaver in order to make a living. Into these poor circumstances he and Catalina brought three sons in twelve years, John being the youngest. Undoubtedly, in the years following the death of her husband and also her second son, Luis, who died of malnutrition not long after his father, Catalina repeated again and again the lesson and example of her husband's life to her two surviving sons: "Love," she probably said to them, "demands giving everything, just as your father gave up everything for me." Because of their poverty, Catalina turned to the Church for help in rais-ing her youngest son. She placed John in a residential school for orphans and children of the poor.in Medina del Campo, where she moved her little family in 1551. There John would be fed, clothed, and taught the fundamentals of his religion, and would learn a trade. At fourteen he was placed in a hospital, where he came under the formative influence of its chaplain and administra-tor, Don Alonso Alvarez de Toledo. Don Alonso carefully guided the young John and made it possible for him to study the humanities in the Jesuit col-lege in Medina, where he graduated at the age of twenty-one. Shortly afterwards John entered the Carmelites in Medina. Although formed by the role modeling of a diocesan priest and formally educated by the Jesuits, John apparently chose to enter the Carmelites, a Marian and con-templative order, because of his devotion to the Virgin and to prayer. The University of Salamanca After his year's novitiate, the Carmelites sent him to the University of Salamanca for a four-year course in the arts and theology. In the mid-six- 1~06 / Review for Religious, November-December 1991 teenth century, Salamanca was a leading center of ecclesiastical learning and at the height of a neo-Scholastic revival. Its faculty included great scholars such as Fray Luis de Le6n, the Augustinian poet and translator of Sacred Scripture, and learned Dominican commentators on the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas. There John became proficient in Sacred Scripture, theolo-gy, and Thomistic psychology, three fields of study that would be essential for the years of ministry ahead of him. These three disciplines, together with his own personal experience, pro-vided the solid bases for the treatises on mystical theology he would later write. Almost every page of these writings contains quotations from the Bible. "Taking Scripture as our guide," he writes in the opening of The Ascent of Mount Carmel, "we do not err, since the Holy Spirit speaks to us through it" (Ascent, prologue, 2). His theology training reveals itself in his continual reminders that God is both transcendent and immanent, demanding that our relationship with God be based on faith and unceasing prayer. And in Thomistic psychology he found a conceptual tool to explain God's work in the human soul. For example, he used the Thomistic concept of active and passive intel-lect to explain this mysterious paradox: although we are limited in our intel-lectual ability to actively form adequate ideas of God, we are virtually unlimited in our capacity to passively receive God's own loving knowledge. Therefore, John taught that one of the major challenges of the spiritual jour-ney to union with God is to not allow our finite understanding of God to become an obstacle to receiving God's own infinite loving knowledge which he communicates to us in contemplation. John considered the knowledge of psychology to be of crucial impor-tance for the ministry of spiritual direction. Writing some twenty years later in his Living Flame of Love, he severely criticizes incompetent spiritual directors, not because their knowledge of theology and Scripture is inade-quate, but for their deficient knowledge of the human person. Because they fail to understand the full depths of the human "spirit" and its laws of opera-tion, incompetent spiritual directors hold persons in the stage of beginners in the spiritual life and never permit them to pass into the interior depths of the soul where God is leading them so that he may communicate with them and unite them totally with himself (Flame, 3.30ff, esp. 44 and 54). Preaching Following John's ordination to the priesthood and his commitment, approved by his religious superiors, to assist Teresa in her reform of Carmel, he was assigned by his provincial to the first reformed community of friars. Ardent Lover as Pastoral Minister it was located at Duruelo, a small crossroads in the Castilian plains west of Avila. There the friars lived an austere community life, joined with the min-istries of hearing confessions, preaching, and celebrating liturgies in neigh-boring villages. John was not kriown as a great preacher, although we may assume he preached regularly throughout his years of priestly ministry. None of his ser-mons has come down to us, but he does share his theological reflection on this ministry in The Ascent of Mount Carmel, written some fifteen years later. He says: The preacher., should., keep in mind that preaching is more a spiri-tual practice than a vocal one. For although it is practiced through exteri-or words, it has no force or efficacy save from the interior spirit. No matter how lofty the doctrine preached, or polished the rhetoric, or sub-lime the style in which the preaching is clothed, the profit does not ordi-narily increase because of these means in themselves; it comes from the spirit of the preacher. The profit is usually commensurate with the [preacher's] interior preparedness. It is commonly said that as the master, so usually is the disciple . We frequently see, insofar as it is possible to judge here below, that the better the life of the preacher the more abundant the fruit, no matter how lowly his style, poor his rhetoric, and plain the doctrine. For the living spirit enkindles fire. But when this spirit is wanting, the gain is small, however sublime the style and doctrine. Although it is true that good style, gestures, sublime doctrine, and well-chosen words are more moving and productive of effect when accompanied by this good spirit, yet, with-out it, even though delightful and pleasing to the senses and the intellect, the sermon imparts little or no devotion to the will (Ascent 3.45.1-4). Confessor and Spiritual Guide At Duruelo he also began what was eventually to become his primary ministry, forming souls as their confessor and spiritual guide, a ministry he carried on almost uninterruptedly for the next twenty-four years. He was appointed master of novices for the men who joined the reform. In the years that followed, he was successively master of Carmelite students at Alcal~i de Henares, spiritual director of St.Teresa for five years, regular weekly con-fessor to her 130 nuns in the monastery of the Incarnation in Avila, master of students at the Carmelite college in Baeza in Andalusia, and regular confes-sor to the Carmelite nuns in the convents at Beas, Granada, and Segovia. In addition to these assigned positions within the Carmelite order, he carried on an extensive ministry of spiritual direction with persons outside it. He served large numbers of men and women from every phase of the Christian life, from its earliest stage of conversion to the heights of mysti-cism. These persons included: young people seeking guidance and support in I~0~1 / Review for Religious, November-December 1991 determining their vocation in life; men and women troubled by scrupulosity, excessive guilt, psychosomatic anxiety; profoundly disturbed hysterical and paranoid personalities manifesting bizarre forms of religious behavior; and those with the normal problems in the spiritual life such as temptations against God,s law, difficulties in prayer, and feelings of dryness, desolation, and emptiness. The biographical data indicate that John rendered his spiritual service "without distinction of persons." He welcomed all who came to him for help; both inside and outside the confessional--religious, clergy, laity, young and old, rich and poor. His ministry extended to the entire Christian commu-nity, not simply to an elite few who held positions of privilege in society or who enjoyed a reputation for exalted spirituality. From these historical records, I estimate that during one eighteen-month period in 1587-1588 in Andalusia his ministry as spiritual guide and confessor included nearly a thousand .persons in and outside the Carmelite order. With all he fostered the same goals: union with God; imitation of Jesus Christ; deeper faith, hope, and love; continu~il prayer and mortification 6f every desire not ordered to the love and service of God; transformation of the personality through contemplation. Administration As Teresa's reform progressed, her friars eventually became, in 1580, a separate province within the friars of the Ancient Observance a, nd, in 1588, a separate congregation with their own vicar-general. As these developments occurred, John's fellow friars called upon him to fulfill various administra-tive offices within the reform. In 1578 he was appointed local superior of the community at El Calvario in the Sierra de Cazorla mountains in Andalusia. The following year he o~ened the Carmelite seminary in the Andalusian city of Baeza and served as rector there until i582. In 1582 he began six years as prior of the friars' community in Granada, the last two years of which he also served as vicar-provincial for Andalusia. In 1588 he was appointed to a threeryear term on the order's general council, during which time he was also local superior of the friars' community in Segovia. For fourteen straight years he was deeply involved in the administration of a new and growing order, establishing new communities, building new monasteries, providing for the formation and education of new members, and making canonical visitations of communities of both friars and nuns. His most intense period of administrative activity was the two years from 1585 to 1587, when he was prior of the monastery in Granada and Ardent Lover as Pastoral Minister vicar-provincial of Andalusia. He was thus responsible, not only for his own local community in Granada, but also for seven other monasteries of friars and five convents of nuns scattered over thirty thousand Andalusian square miles, from Caravaca in the east to Seville in the west, and from C6rdoba in the north to M~ilaga in the south. To visit each community at least once a year as his office required meant almost continual travel, by foot or by donkey, frequently under a blazing sun, over dusty, rugged, winding, and at times mountainous roads, spending nights sleeping in open fields or in boisterous roadside inns. Five years later, in June 1591, at the friars' general chapter in Madrid, the burdens of office--both of formation and administration--were lifted from John's shoulders for the first time in thirteen years. He was to prepare for the Mexican missions, a directive that was later rescinded. In September 1591, his leg became seriously infected, leading to the illness which brought his death on December 14, 1591. During the last five months of his life, he had the physica! solitude he craved since his ordination to the priesthood twenty-four years earlier. These few months were the first time since he was ordained, save for nearly a year when he was imprisoned in Toledo on a charge of disobedience to his Carmelite superiors, that~he was without active pastoral care of souls. He wrote to Sister Anne of Jesus Jimena in July 1591: "Being freed and relieved from the care of souls, I can, if I want, and with God's help, enjoy peace, solitude, and the delightful fruit of forgetfulness of self and of all things. It is also good for others that ! be separated from them, for thus they will be freed of the faults they would have committed on account of my misery." Writing John was now no longer in direct service to others, but indirectly he con-tinued his ministry through writing. Living in a small hermitage in the Sierra Morena mountains in Andalusia, he continued to provide spiritual direction through personal letters and worked on revisions of his two spiritual master-pieces, The Spiritual Canticle and The Living Flame of Love. Both of these treatises were written for his directees, the former for the Carmelite nun Anne of Jesus Lobera and the latter for the lay woman Dofia Ana Pefialosa. Writing became for John, not a hobby, but an essential part of his pas-toral ministry. When a Carmelite nun once asked him if his poetic inspira-tions were from God, he replied, "Sometimes they came to me from God and at other times I sought them." John undoubtedly wrote during his early years in college and as a Carmelite. However, the writings we have today begin with his period of 810 / Review for Religious, November-December 1991 imprisonment in Toledo and continue through the last thirteen years of his life, when he was between the ages of thirty-six and forty-nine. The nine-month imprisonment was the tragic result of conflicting jur!sdictions direct-ing the early days of Teresa's reform. This placed John in the. awkward position where fidelity to Teresa's reform, supported by the Holy See through the king of Spain, Philip II, appeared as di'sobedience to his Carmelite superiors, punishable by confinement in the monastery prison. In his prison cell in the Carmelite monastery at Toledo, John began his poem The Spiritual Canticle. Its opening lines sugges.t that poetry provided him a way of coping with the feelings of abandonment by God and spiritual desolation brought on by his imprisonment. He writes: Where have you hidden, Beloved, and left me moaning? You fled like the stag After wounding me; I went out calling You, and You were gone. However, in the years following his dramatic escape from Toledo, John continued to write poetry to express the deepest longings of his heart for God and to capture as best he could in human language his ineffable experi-ences of divine union. More than merely self-expression, John's poetry became pan of his ministry. His pedagogy involved sharing his poems with his Carmelite brothers and sisters and his directees to teach them about the human person's union with God. They, in turn, requested a fuller explanation of these teachings in prose. He responded with three major treatises in spiri-tuality- the prose commentaries on his poems The Dark Night, The Spiritual Canticle, and The Living Flame of Love. Had John not been involved in the ministry of spiritual direction, it is likely that we would still have his poetry, but not the prose commentaries which today, four centuries later, continue to provide reliable spiritual guidance to millions of readers of all faiths for the journey to union with God. A Man on the Move This overview of John of the Cross's ministry hardly leaves us with the image most have of him--a mystic on the mountaintop, with abundant soli-tude to explore his relationship with God and the leisure to write lyric poet-ry. Rather, we see a man on the move--preaching, hearing, confessions, providing spiritual guidance, studying the architectural plans and financial figures of new monasteries, at his desk writing for others; in short, a man deeply committed to pastoral ministry. Ardent Lover as Pastoral Minister / I~'1"1 True, by nature he was deeply introverted. His heart's desire was for solitude. He longed to be a solitary Carthusian before he met Teresa of Jesus, and when finally, after twenty-four years of pastoral ministry, he was free to be in a mountain hermitage, he wrote to Dofia Ana Pefialosa: "I am indeed very happy in this holy solitude." Nonetheless, his first commitment was to God, who called him out of himself to share his many gifts with others in pastoral ministry; in responding to this call, he discovered for himself the power and beauty of his own gifts. And these same gifts continue to be an enrichment for us all today. Jesus Christ, the Motive for John's Ministry John's ministry was not an outlet for an active temperament or a restless personality. It was, rather, his loving response to Jesus Christ, who was his Everything--"a brother, companion, master, ransom, and reward" (Ascent 2.22.5). John's ministry was his response to Jesus' love for him. In ministry he attempted to awaken others to Jesus' love for them. "Now we are telling you," John writes in his commentary on The Spiritual Canticle, "that you yourself are His dwelling and His secret chamber and hiding place . Since you know now that your desired Beloved lives hidden within your heart, strive to be really hidden with Him, and you will embrace Him within you and experience Him with loving affection" (Canticle 1.7 and 10). Jesus, too, was John's exemplar for ministry, especially in his kenosis, his self-emptying on the cross. From this John concluded that effective min-istry arises, not from a multiplicity of activity, but from union with Jesus' life-giving death. When he joined Teresa's reform, this insight prompted him to change his name from John of St. Matthias to John of the Cross. Later it led him to remind "true spiritual persons". "that their union with God and the greatness of the work they accomplish will be measured by their annihi-lation for God in the sensory and spiritual parts of their soul. [For] the jour-ney [to union with God] does not consist in recreations, experiences, and spiritual feelings, but in the living, sensory and spiritual, exterior and interi-or, death of the cross (Ascent 2.7.11). Mary, Model of Transformation John's experience of God's love in Jesus also determined his goal in ministry: to help persons let go of their inordinate attachments to creatures so that they might be free to receive the Creator's love into their lives, the divine love which both heals the effects of original sin and transforms human life into God's life. In this transformation, persons are united with the ~112 / Review for Religious, November-December 1991 mind and heart of God. They respond to events in their lives with the mind and heart of Jesus. They are moved in everything by the Holy Spirit. In John's mind, the person who best embodies this transformation is the Blessed Virgin Mary. She is the "true daughter of God" in the passage quot-ed above. Furthermore, in The Ascent of Mount Carmel, describing the trans-formed Christian, John writes: "Such was the prayer and work of our Lady, the most glorious Virgin. Raised from the very beginning to this high state [of divine union and transformation in God], she never had the form of any creature impressed in her soul, nor was she moved by any, for she was always moved by the Holy Spirit" (Ascent 3.2.10). John's image of transformation was Mary, the Mother of Jesus. In his pastoral ministry he invited persons to imitate her simple faith in God so that they too might be transformed by the Holy Spirit. With this in mind he com-posed the following lyric that summarizes his entire spiritual doctrine: Del Verbo divino The Virgin, pregnant La Virgen prefiada With the Word of God, Viene de camino: Comes down the road: Si le dais posada. If only you'll shelter her. When we, like Mary, let go of everything that prevents us from being totally open to God's word, the Holy Spirit transforms us into her Son, the Word, Jesus. Two Difficulties Modem readers often have difficulty with John of the Cross's emphasis on purification through suffering. "Too negative," they say when they read a passage like this one from his Sayings of Light and Love: "God values in you an inclination to aridity and suffering for love of Him more than all possible consolations, spiritual visions, and meditations" (SLL 14). Yet anyone who has experienced the healing that comes from intense psychotherapy will, I think, appreciate the wisdom of this recommendation. For John, contempla-tion is, literally, psychotherapy--healing the soul. He is not teaching us how to arrive at ecstatic altered states of consciousness; rather, he is telling us how to heal the effects of original sin in our life. Effective psychotherapy demands a willingness to endure the pain that comes from an expanding awareness of our own ego-defense mechanisms and the consequent change of behavior necessary to break the compulsive repetition of self-defeating behavior. Similarly, John of the Cross explains that contemplation requires a readiness to accept the interior pain that accompanies a clearer insight into the disorder of our soul and our natural distance from the incomprehensible goodness of God. Ardent Lover as Pastoral Minister The healing of our souls begins when we open our lives to receive God's loving knowledge. We experience loving knowledge as a light, at times painful, which allows us to observe clearly the disorder that continues to operate in our daily lives. At the same time, this light lets us see as never before God's inexhaustible love for us. In this light we quite naturally let go of disordered attachments to our own self-interest (a letting go that brings the temporary pain of 1 oss and sadness) and become more attached to God's will, which ultimately brings peace to our inner lives, even as we deal with each day's problems. But even granting John's hypothesis that purification is a prerequisite for healing and transformation, many today still believe that his spiritual doctrine is too individualistic and exclusive, meant only for the few who choose an avowedly contemplative way of life. They see little relationship between his spirituality and the pressing social issues of our day, such as those addressed by the American bishops in their recent pastoral letters on peace and economic justice. Obviously, the issues John addressed four hundred years ago are not the same issues we face today, although sixteenth-century Spain was not without its wars and economic injustice. Nonetheless, Richard Hardy, one of John's modem biographers, has suggested new ways of interpreting his counsels on personal mortification that bring out their social significance. Addressing the Institute of Carmelite Studies in Boston a few years ago, Hardy pointed out this country's inordinate appetite for national security and an improved stan-dard of living, even while millions of our people live in poverty. In the face of this poverty, he suggested that John's counsels on the mortification of the emotions in order to dispose one's sensory life for union with God are also a prophetic social challenge to the American Church. Thus, St. John writes in The Ascent of Mount Carmel: Endeavor to be inclined always: not to the easiest, but to the most difficult; not to the most delightful, but to the harshest; not to the most gratifying, but to the less pleasant; not to what means rest for you, but to hard work;' not to the consoling, but to the unconsoling; not to the most, but to the least; not to the highest and most precious, but to the lowest and most despised; not to wanting something, but to wanting nothing; do not go about looking for the best of temporal things, but for the worst, and desire to enter into complete nudity, emptiness, and poverty in everything in the world (Ascent 1.13.6). 1~14 / Review for Religious, November-December 1991 These shocking words, directed to Carmelite religious in the sixteenth century committed by public vows to live in poverty, admittedly demand interpretation for Christians in twentieth-century America. Nevertheless, they challenge us, an affluent Christian community in a world where mil-lions are dying of starvation, to seek, not always the best and the most, but only the necessary, so that others in our world may also participate in their just share of the earth's goods, which God intends for all his children. Moreover, John teaches that when persons are deeply touched by God's love, their entire outlook on life is radically changed. Seeing now with God's eyes and feeling with Jesus' heart, they can no longer maintain racial preju-dices, exaggerated nationalism, or hearts closed to the world's suffering. The fruits of contemplation which John describes in his writings are precisely those which our bishops identify in their peace pastoral when they write: "The practice of contemplative prayer is especially valuable for advancing harmony and peace in the world. For this prayer rises, by divine grace, where there is total disarmament of the heart and unfolds in an experience of love which is the moving force of peace. Contemplation fosters a vision of the human family as united and interdependent in the mystery of God's love for all people" (The Challenge of Peace, no. 294). Conclusions What conclusions might we draw for pastoral ministry today from this review of John of the Cross's life and work? I suggest the following: 1. Preparation for ministry begins early in life, hopefully with baptism. Ministers for the Church will come forward from Christian families, parish-es, and schools where there is deep love, where serving others is a communi-cated value, and where role models and positive mentoring for ministry are present. 2. More immediate preparation for specialized ministries in the Church requires a solid grounding not only in Sacred Scripture and theology but especially in Christian anthropology, that is, a constant study, aided by human sciences, of the mystery of the human person in contemporary soci-ety. 3. Effective pastoral ministry, lay and ordained, depends first upon acquiring the skills necessary for a particular ministry and, second but more important, living daily Jesus' Paschal Mystery, the main source of effective ministry. 4. Christian ministers need clear images of Christian transformation to guide their activity, such as Mary, Mother of God and of the Church, Spouse of the Holy Spirit, Faithful Disciple of Jesus, and Queen of Apostles. Ardent Lover as Pastoral Minister 5. The spirituality that empowers Christian ministry realistically appre-ciates both the effects of original sin in our lives and the presence of God's never failing love to heal us. This spirituality seeks to overcome artificial dichotomies that undermine ministry, such as opposing social action and contemplative prayer, pastoral activity and artistic creativity. It encourages persons to bring forward under the guidance of the Holy Spirit their unique gifts for the building of Christ's Body, confident that such sharing of gifts leads to the discovery and realization of one's total person. Pastoral Minister as Ardent Lover Earlier I suggested that John inspires an image of the pastoral minister as an ardent lover. The Holy Spirit set him on fire with love for God, other persons, and all creation. Fire was John's most comprehensive symbol, as Professor Keith Egan demonstrated in his address to Carmel 200, the sym-posium in Baltimore in August 1990 honoring two hundred years of Carmelites in the United States.3 As a metaphor, fire suggests the purifica-tion of soul symbolized by "the dark night"; it also captures the mutual pas-sionate love of God and the human person conveyed through the erotic images of spiritual betrothal and marriage in the Spiritual Canticle. As a consuming fire slowly transforms a log into itself, so the Holy Spirit, the Living Flame of Love (Flame 1.3), transforms us into God, leaving us on fire with divine love for his people. The Church always needs pastoral ministers on fire with the love of the Holy Spirit, but never more than today in the United States. Archbishop Rembert Weakland of Milwaukee recently underscored the enervating polar-ization in the American Catholic community which hardens us into opposing ecclesiologies, unwilling to dialogue with one another, unable to tolerate dif-ferences, afraid to compromise in order to find a common way together.4 Pastoral ministry obviously must try to resolve our present polarities, not reinforce them. We are not likely to do this without the fire of God's love burning in our hearts, a love that results from a contemplative openness to God. In the Carmel 200 celebration mentioned above, Father Joseph Chinnici, O.EM., historian of American spirituality and currently provincial of the California Franciscans, offered the opinion that the failure since 1700 to cul-tivate the contemplative dimension of Christian life accounts in large mea-sure, not only for "our contemporary groping for a stable spiritual center," but also "for the stridency in today's Catholic community.''5 For years Thomas Merton alerted us to the dangers of this neglect, but only now are we seeing clearly our spiritual impoverishment as a Church and our need I~16 / Review for Religious, November-December 1991 each day for God's wisdom and love, which, as St. John of the Cross teach-es, is contemplation's gift. In 1591, following the general chapter of the Teresian friars at Madrid, a Carmelite nunin Segovia, Maria of the Incarnation, wrote to John deploring the shabby treatment he received from his brothers in the reform who deprived him of all offic~ and planned to mission him to Mexico in return for his outspoken opposition to the policies of Father Nicholas Doria, the vicar-general, regarding Jerome Graci~in and the government of the Carmelite nuns. John wrote back on July 6, 1591: ". do not let what is happening to me, daughter, cause you any g.rief, for it does not cause me any. ¯. Men do not do these things, but God, who knows what is suitable for us and arranges things for our good. Think nothing else but that God ordains all, and where there is no love, put love, and you will draw out love . " Considering the circumstances in which they were written, these words bespeak the effects of contemplation in John of the Cross--a transformed consciousness and a nonviolent heart. They, perhaps more than anything else he wrote, cha.llenge the Catholic Church in the United States today. NOTES I Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society (Garden City, N.Y.: Imag~ Books, 1979). 2 Gerard Egan, The Skilled Helper: Models, Skills, and Methods for Effective Helping, 2nd edition (Monterey, Calif.: Brooks/Cole Publishing Co., 1982). 3 Keith Egan, "The Fire of Love: John of the Cross' Central Symbol of Contemplative Identity." Lecture given at Carmel 200: Contemp.lation and the Rediscovery of the American Soul, sponsored by the Carmelite nuns of Baltimore, held at Loyola College, Baltimore, August 12-18, 1990. 4 Rembert G. Weakland, O.S.B., "From Dream to Reality to Vision." Address given to the Future of the American Church conference, sponsored by Time Consultants, Washington D.C., Sept. 28, 1990. Printed in Origins 20, no. 18 (October 11, 1990): 289-293 5 Joseph P. Chinnici, O.EM., "The Politics of Mysticism: Church, State, and the Carmelite Tradition." Lecture at Carmel 200, Baltimore, August 12-18, 1990~ Messiaenic Epiphany: . amidst animals, Love is born Stephen Schloesser, S.J. Mr. Schloesser is a transitional deacon studying theology at Weston Co!lege. He resides at 15 Avon Street; Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in their most profound manifestations, are centuries which have tried to live without tran-scendence. How to live without grace--that is the question that dominates the nineteenth century. The question of the twentieth cen-tury., has gradually been specified: how to live without grace and without justice? --Albert Camus, The Rebel (1951) I would like to stress the need for the Church today to be aware of its duty to bring to the world a sense of the sacred and the transcendent., i. In this way we can show to the world that we are a sign of something which is more meaning,ful and more complete than just the daily tragedies that all of us must face. --Rembert Weakland, "25 Years after the Council" (1990) A friend stopped me after class the other day and said, "You like twentieth-century organ music, don't you?" Grateful at last that life had sent a soul partner to accompany me on my solitary journey, I eagerly replied, "Yes! Do you? . No," she answered, "but a friend gave me a CD of Christmas music for the organ. I can't stand it. If you want it you can l~ave it." I took the disc gratefully and set out again on my journey, solitary still, but with a mission-ary's fervor. Twentieth-century music in general tends to distend: for lush romantic strings it seemingly substitutes barbed wire; for pastoral horns the intermit-tent siren. It attempts to speak in language too deep for words those feelings we prefer left unsaid: confusion in the face of chaos; despair over life's daily 817 I~1t~ / Review for Religious, November-December 1991 deaths; horror in the face of human atrocity. Twentieth-century music in gen-eral tends to express our culture's deepest pulses: a world seemingly devoid of grace and justice. And what about twentieth-century church music? The church music composer-historian Erik Routley once wrote that all authentically twentieth-century church music contains within its score a certain measure of "skepti-cism." I think he is right here, but in this Christmastide I suggest a more seasonal term: a certain measure of "scandal"; the "stumbling block" of the manger. For what faced the European church musicians after the Great War was nothing less than the scandal of Christianity: incarnation, cross, grace-- the works. How do church musicians remain faithful both to their experience of violence--this race, this culture, this epoch--and, at the same time, to their vision of confidence in Love's promise to triumph? Many--perhaps most--solve this dilemma (as so many of us do) by simply choosing one or the other, confidence or despair. We--players and listeners alike--are numbed by the banality or bludgeoned by the bombast. Yet, as Archbishop Rembert Weakland said once in an Advent homily, Christian liturgy (and the vision it ritualizes) insists that we always keep in mind both terms of the dialectic. At Christmas, we remember the price in Gethsemane of becoming human; on Good Friday, we remember the promise proclaimed at Easter. When our liturgy expresses joy unbridled by the mem-ory of death-~or grief unbalanced by the hope of resurrection--we have for-gotten the paradox: ¯. amidst animals, Love is born. Whereas the French composer Claude Debussy had painted impression-istic passage.s, conveying the evanescence of time lost with large lush ensembles, the young Parisian Olivier Messiaen turned his attention to the other pole: he attempted time out of time. Messiaen discovered the genius unique to the organ: it can convey the illusion of eternity. The bang of a drum punctuates; the vibration of a piano wire inevitably dies; the singer must come up for air. But the organ, as Igor Stravinsky complained, is "the monster that does not breathe." In the organ, Messiaen and many after him found a new way of inviting the listener to experience the transcendent. On the other hand, these musicians were twentieth-century citizens, very much situated in history. The organ lost a genius when the young Jehan Alain was killed in the defense of France. The German Paul Hindemith fled to the United States under Nazi persecution while choral composer Hugo Distler took his own life under the same. Olivier Messiaen wrote and pre-miered his "Quartet for the End of Time"--beginning with "the harmonious silence of heaven"---while imprisoned in a German POW camp. They knew Messiaenic Epiphany / 8~9 firsthand the human potential for savagery, a fragile culture's collapse, the seeming triumph of death. Thus, they also employed the musical language of our time: barbed wire, screaming sirens, carefully constructed cacophony. Writing church music, they attempted to convey in their medium the experience of Christmas: that, in the midst of life's bleak midwinter, there lives "the dearest freshness deep down things." Their fusion of the languages of transcendence and of skepticism resulted in a radically new musical lan-guage, a nearly hypostatic union. In the midst of scandal (which their music never sidesteps), they stood apart from the aleatoric vogue, firm in hopeful trust, rooted in their vision of the immanent transcendent: ¯. amidst animals, Love is born. I am glad for the gift of the CD, and I plan on listening to it this season. Not, of course, over Christmas dinner or while opening gifts under the tree or while rocking my niece to sleep in front of the crackling fire. For that I will listen to "The Messiah" or to the kids from King's College, or my moth-er will put on Nat King Cole or my father Johnny Cash . And not, of course, when the snow silently piles outside my Cambridge window, weigh-ing down the boughs as books weigh down me, streetlights highlighting Victorian crannies on neighboring homes. For that kind of delicious melan-choly only George Winston's "December" will do. I mean rather when I turn off the lights and light a candle, wrap a blan-ket round and stare into nothing: that is when I will play my new CD. Time and timelessness, scandal and hopeful trust, death and Love. I will think about them--Nazis and world war and concentration camps; and I will think about us---death squads and desert storms and Mount Pinatubo; and I will think about home--grandfather's Alzheimer's and grandmother's grief, a cousin's suicide, a friend's AIDS: "the daily tragedies that all of us must face." And then, I hope, as for magi on a journey to a manger, scanning the midwinter sky, it will light up the night, the sudden onslaught of insight-- the Epiphany--those artists attempted to convey: ¯. amidst animals, Love is born. 820 Monastic Ruminations I. Spring." The Russian Olive Tree in Meditation Park "The affection of love is a delicate plant. " --Gilbert of Hoyland Silver smells whiff past me, into me, Byzantine incense, perfume from a bazaar, a solitary pearled tree in the park odors the mind with deja vued dusty dreams shelved from disuse. Sable Lent fades into resurrected dappled blooms, the Russian Olive shimmers in newborn light, morning dew kisses its hoary-haired branches, while it speaks in hushed tones of hidden presence. II. Summer: Locust Trees along the Academy Entrance "Unity consists in singleness of love." --Bernard of Clairvaux Standing at attention, locust trees reach skyward, stretching limbs into lowlying clouds, each arm delicate, broken by storms, battered by winter's ice, survivors sentineled. Breezes sway the foliage to an unheard melody, rhythmically touching the tips of treed tendons, digits gnarled by seasonal change, each tree soloed, a monk reaching for God, separate, yet partnered, facing each day together yet aloned. 821 IlI. Autumn: The Monastic Cemetery "The treasure of our love is hidden in the field of our heart and lies buried in its very depth." --John of Ford The colors are deep across the valley-- red, burnt orange, yellow. Each vibrant tree grasping my throat and choking my breath away, death is viewed, keeping itself daily before our eyes. Fallen leafs encircle my feet, drawing my eyes to the stones neatly rowed, each with a face, a person I knew, a laugh recalling the past, now silent, earthbound, yet rejoicing beyond the eye. IV. Winter: Leafs Trapped in Collins Court "Love is solid. It may be fretted by annoyance, but it simply cannot be worn away." --John of Ford Leafs trapped within the courtyard beat bird-like against the mirrored windows, trying to escape the battering wind, fluttering desperately, vortexing, rising and falling, yet free. Columns rise, Stonehenge revisited, standing guard over the spectacle, silent seers, mutely observing the abused leafs, hostaged too, but immobile, the stationary monoliths envy the leafs bound nowhere yet unfettered. Benedict Auer, O.S.B. Saint Martin's College Lacey, Washington 98503 Song of the Groom: Spiritual Marriage and Masculinity Robert Annechino Robert Annechino has completed the graduate program in spiritual direction at the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation, Washington, D.C. This article is taken from a paper written for the program. He is married and the father of three children, and is writing a book on masculine romantic spirituality. Correspondence would be wel-come at P.O. Box 14039; Rochester, New York 14614. All Christians have heard God addressed as "Father." Today we sometimes also hear God called upon as "Mother." In our mystical literature there is a long tradition that speaks of God or Christ as the "Bridegroom" of the soul. This article considers something we have heard next to nothing about: a Christian mystical experience that celebrates God as "Bride." Admittedly, such an idea seems peculiar at first, but perhaps its very anomaly is even more peculiar. Why has not Christianity admitted such a tradition when, as we shall see, many world religions have? How might an appreciation of the Divine Bride expand our understanding of God, of religious experience, and of ourselves as spiritual, social, and sexual beings, male and female? The awareness of God as Mother has been a gift and challenge of femi-nist spirituality. This alternate feminine image of God as the Divine Bride derives from the quest for an authentic contemporary masculine spirituality. Reflection by men on our experience as men will free us from the myopic assumption that male experience is normative of all human experience, and will bring the unique features of masculinity into sharp focus. To understand and revitalize the spiritual life of contemporary men, it is important to con-sider how we customarily recognize both maleness and holiness and how these conceptions connect and conflict. Richard Rohr, James Nelson, and John Carmody are some of the teachers who have explored male experiences of Christian faith and values. 822 Song of the Groom / 823 As evident in the work of Robert Bly and Robert Moore, an essential element of the men's movement is the recovery of the archetypes or models of male experience, which typify distinctive themes of male identity. Through the exploration of such heroic figures as the Wild Man, the King, the Warrior, the Trickster, the Lover, the Grief Man, and the Quester (which Robert Bly has aptly called the "Great Joys of Men"), contemporary men are gaining new understanding of their maleness and of the social expectations and personal conflicts which shape them. In Toward a Male Spirituality, John Carmody encourages men to come to God in and through the kinds of relationships that reflect the best of male experience, finding God as buddy, father, brother. He also seeks to open men to the possib!lity of finding God the Holy Spirit as the divine lover, in a spirituality of romancing,l But here, in the attempt to engage male romantic love as a spiritual symbol, we run into a barrier that challenges traditional Christian notions. This barrier has also been noted by Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette in their book on the four major male archetypes, King, Warrior, Magician, Lover. Of these, they feel that the Lover has been the most repressed within Western religion. They describe the giftedness of the Lover so: For the man accessing the Lover, all things are bound to each other in mysterious ways. He sees, as we say, "the world in a grain of sand." This is the consciousness that knew long before the invention of holography that we live, in fact, in a "holographic" universe---one in which every pa~t, reflects every other in immediate and sympathetic union. It isn't just that the Lover energy sees the world in a grain of sand. He feels that this is so.2 The mature energy of the Lover is not exclusively nor even primarily expressed through sexual activity, but as a royal dignity which suffuses the entire person with gladness of heart and warm richness of being. While the Lover has never been articulated well for Christian women or men, I believe that histor!cally there has been a particular reluctanc~ to incorporate male erotic energy into religious expression, and this history needs to be under-stood and redressed. In a recent book on the feminist rhetoric of St. Teresa of Avila, Alison Weber maintains that medieval spirituality systematized two major images of the mystical journey.3 The first was .the sponsa Christi, the bride of Chris.t, an image drawn from the conventional feminine experience of romantic love and marriage. The second image was the miles Christi, the soldier of Christ, derived from the conventional male experience of war. In the sponsa Christi or bridal mysticism, we find that from the time of Origen the Song of Songs was lavishly allegorized as the mystical union of the soul, personified by the 1~24 / Review for Religious, November-December 1991 Shulammite damsel, with the Lord as the shepherd/king. This imagery evolved into the classical descriptions of spiritual betrothals and spiritual marriage. It is certainly true that throughout the history of Christian spiritu-ality such imagery has been evoked by men as well as by women. In fact, most of its known expositors were male (since literature was a male domain). Yet today, when feminist theologians have tightly insisted that we consider the limitations levied by exclusive masculine language in relation to God, we might also ponder what diminishment lurks in the imagery of bridal mysticism. Why have men relied upon the erotic imagery of women to describe their love for God? Why is there no "bridegroom mysticism" call-ing up.on the natural erotic imagery of men? What would it take, and what would it mean, for Christian men to become free to pursue God as their Divine Bride? Bridegroom Mysticism: The Male Mysteries of God and Men At this point it is important to ask: Does it really matter whether we con-ceive of God as Father, Mother, Bridegroom, Bride, or in any of the person-al, transpersonal, or nonpersonal figures that have dawned in human consciousness as we encounter the great Mystery? If we give too much attention to the name, will God cease to be Mystery? I believe that the name only enhances the Mystery. If God is God, then the God of the naming is not different from the God of experiencing. Feminist theologians have wisely recognized that naming God is an act of self-revelation as well as God's rev-elation to us. With this in mind, let us consider what it means for men to name God as Father, Mother, and Bridegroom and then consider the alterna-tives of knowing God as the Divine Bride. Mary and Leon J. Podles, in an interesting article denouncing the "emas-culation of God," protest that the male image of God cannot be dispensed with arbitrarily. God the Father, they say, is a God of transcendence, stand-ing distinct from his creation, having created it in a male act of separation from himself: Why is God the Father a Father and not a mother? Maleness is a symbol of transcendence because the fundamental male experience, thal~ of fatherhood, of reproduction through ejaculation, is one of separation, while the fundamental female experience is one of prolonged and inti-mate union with the offspring through the long months of gestation and nursing. The male experience of the world is one of "either/or," "this, and not that," one of separation.4 The male image of God engages essential aspects of the male identity, which cannot be denied without denying the life quest of men. As many Song of the Groom / 895 writers have pointed out, male identity is usually first discovered in an act of distinction and separation.5 The little girl experiences continuity with her mother, their femininity uniting them (with both positive and toxic bonds). But the little boy becomes aware of his masculinity as being a difference between him and the close nurturing mother, and thus begins the male quest of distinction and separation. With this comes the need for the boy to affirm his maleness by connecting with his father. From here ensues the whole dynamic of dependence, independence, and eventual interdependence that are typical of healthy male development experiences that perhaps figure in the religious motifs of exile and redemption. And yet, while the maleness of God does engage these crucial aspects of men's experience, there is a subtle but clear possibility that it can also limit a man's sense of masculinity before God. The Podles' article, for example, refers to the Father God as "the Creator, before whom all else is female.''6 The inevitable presumption is that, if God is considered male, then all cre-ation, including humanity, is essentially feminine. Ironically, this might leave men castrated before God, their maleness exiling them from the "femi-nine" creation. As James Nelson has said: When God became male, males were divinized, and patriarchy had cos-mic blessing. At the same time we have resisted that one-sided masculin-ized deity, for a male God suggests to men their feminization. Language referring to the Church has long been feminized: "She is his new creation by water and the word." All of us, men as well as women, are "she's" when it comes to being the Church. That feels uncomfortable. Furthermore, a male God penetrates us. But to be penetrated by anyone or anything, even God, amounts to being womanized. It seems tanta-mount to a man's degradation, literally a loss of grade or status.7 Notions of "female submission" toward God have pervaded all of Christian spirituality, from pious popular devotions to the most rarefied con-templation. Even if he has not been exposed to the literature of bridal mysti-cism, consider what it has meant for ~i man; standing amid generations of male Christian mystics, to sense himself in a feminine role in relation to God. What does this imply about his maleness? The lavish descriptions of bridal mysticism, in which the feminine soul is wooed by the celestial Bridegroom, violate his natural desire as a man. Jungians may discern here the emergence of the inner anima, the feminine side of the male. But even if this were the case, what other problems are invoked in such an approach? Arthur Green has asked some important questions along this line: Is it really only women alone who are in need of feminine imagery? Do images of the divine feminine belong only to women? Might they not 826 / Review for Religious, November-December1991 belong to, and respond to the needs of, men as well as women? Or, as a friend posed the question a long time ago, with reference to Catholic spiritual literature, does Teresa of Avila need to be the bride of God more than John of the Cross? Does John need God the Father more than God the Mother? Indeed, is it Mother whom the passionat~ Teresa seeks so boldly? Might one not argue that men need the feminine, as women need the masculine, if religious life involves something like what the depth psychologists call a search for.polarities? In the course of our intense longing for the divine Other, a longing long depicted as having a strong erotic component, might it not be opposite rather than like that needs first to be sought out?8 And, while feminist theologians have contributed an important under-standing of the Divine Mother, the uncritical acceptance of God as Mother still may not fully open the feminiriity Of God to adult men. Robert Bly affirms that a man's encounter with the holy feminine, the "meeting with the gbd-woman in the garden," is a step beyond the parental drama: W~ can't stop the story here, because the feminine has not yet appeared. His mother, as the maternal form of the feminine, he has of course expe-rienced, but that is all. And now he is about to meet the feminine in a nonmatemal form~ in its powerful, blossoming, savvy, wild, instigating, erotic, playful form.9 In God the Bride, we find a fully femii~ine expression of divinity, one who preserves for men the essential Otherness that is so integral to their psy-che. As Bride, God is even more "Other" than Father, yet it is an otherness which is fantastically attractive, and invites the man to participation and union. The Divine Bride welcomes a mal6 spiritual identity that is fully adult and ~ully masculine. Bridegroom Spirituality and the "Way of the Warrior" Now let us turn briefly to Alison Weber's second image of classical Christian mysticism, the image of the miles Christi, the soldii~r of Christ, a mas~tiline image that has found wide expression historically, from the ladder mysticism of John Climacus, through the service mysticism of Ignatius LoyolL Today one might well ask if this militant motif, in an age of nuclear and chemical weapons, terrorism, and environmental desecration, is at all appropriate. But here the expositors of what has been called "the way of the warrior" must challenge, nuance, and explain such imagery. The passionate denial of ~he flesh in an intent focus upon. a goal is a real and necessary aspect of human life, and it is fitting that it find expression in the mystical "way of the warrior." Many men and women relate vitally to God on this path, at least for a good part of their lives. The "call of the King" in Ignatius Song of the Groom / 827 Loyola's Spiritual Exercises presents a spirituality that springs from this rich sense of participation and mission. Some expositors of male spirituality seem to equate it exclusively with the way of the warrior, but the male "way of the lover" (bridegroom mysti-cism) is both a complement and an alternative to the way of the warrior. While it may be important to question the limitations of the miles Christi, it is emphatically not the role of bridegroom mysticism to neutralize or domes-ticate the way of the warrior, but to enhance, inflame, and fulfill it. The way of the warrior celebrates a clearly focused intent to uphold righteousness regardless of personal cost. This fervent passion unites the way of the war-rior with the way of love. But the miles Christi can become morbid if it arbi-trarily divorces itself from love, in any of its forms, including the erotic. Such denial inflicts a cramped, neurotic quest for control, a pseudospirituali-ty that is myopically fixated and incapable of the panoramic awareness exer-cised by the true warrior. Sadly, such diminishment has all too often been the conventional model of holiness, reflected in a celibacy that is sterile rather than full, in the collapsed mentality described by Alan Watts: The opposition of spirit to both nature and sexuality is the opposition of the conscious will, of the ego, to that which it cannot control. If sexual abstinence is, as in so many spiritual traditions, the condition of enhanced consciousness, it is because consciousness as we know it is an act of restraint . This is clearly the reaction of one for whom the soul, the will, the spiritual part of man, identified with that form of conscious-ness which we have seen to be a partial and exclusive mode of attention. It is the mode of attention which grasps and orders the world by seeing it as one-at-a-time things, excluding and ignoring the rest . Obviously, '~he sexual function is one of the most powerfu| biological manifes'ta'tions of biological spontaneity, and thus more especially difficult for the will to control . But this mode of control is a peculiar example of the proverb that nothing fails like success. For the more consciousness is individualized by the success of the will, the more everything outside the individual seems to be a threat--including not only the external world but also the "external" and uncontrolled spontaneity of one's own body. ¯. Hence there arises the desire to protect the ego from an alien spontane-ity by withdrawal from the natural world into a realm of pure conscious-ness or spirit.~° The Divine Bride brings men the gift of seeing the totality within the par-ticular, and the particular within the totality. She wards off all brittle reduc-tionism. Nor does She allow the will to sink into a quietist slumber. Rather She preserves full intentionality of the will, but in a mode that Gerald May aptly describes as open "willingness" rather than compulsive "willfulness.''11 While the impulse to relate to God as Bride has not been entirely absent t~91~ Review for Religious, November-December 1991 in Christian mysticism, it is certainly not in the mainstream of our tradition. For historical models we must turn to its expressions in other religious tradi-tions, and explore some out-of-the-way territories in our own history. But the love-quest for God the Bride is worthy of our attention. The Divine Bride in Non-Christian Traditions In the Jewish writings we meet the evocative figure of Wisdom, as expressed in the book of Proverbs and throughout the Scriptures. Wisdom emerges not as an abstract attribute of God, but as a mysterious and primor-dial Woman. In Proverbs, she boasts her own preeminence in her dalliance with Yahweh: "When He laid down the foundations of the earth, I was by His side, a master craftsman, delighting Him day after day, ever at play in His presence, at play everywhere in His world, delighting to be with the sons of men" (Pr 8:29-31). In the Wisdom literature we read how those who love the Lord also take Wisdom as their own: "She [Wisdom] it was I loved and searched for from my youth; I resolved to have her as my bride, I fell in love with her beauty" (Ws 8:2). In Western Christian exegesis, Wisdom was identified with the Logos, or as a personification of an attribute of God. But within the Jewish tradition the figure of Wisdom evolved into Shekhinah, the Presence or Dwelling of divinity. Among the Kabbalistic Jews in the thirteenth century, She was esteemed as no less than a divine hypostasis, the feminine consort of the . Lord. The eminent Kabbalistic scholar Gershom Scholem regards this as one of the most powerful and far-reaching insights of Jewish mysticism.12 The recognition of Shekhinah was not only an intellectual triumph, but also ennobled human sexual love as an emanation of and participation in the divine love between the Lord and His consort Shekhinah. The Christian father Clement would idealize the forty days of Moses on Sinai as time of continent chastity and use this example to justify detailed restrictions on sex-ual expression within marriage.13 But, in the Kabbalistic literature, Moses was said to have joined with Shekhinah, the very consort of God, on Sinai. According to Kabbalistic teaching, in the course of creation the Lord became mysteriously and redemptively alienated from Shekhinah, but sexual inter-course within marriage helps to reestablish God's unity, as men and women participate in the divine harmonic interplay of male and female. The Jewish wife and husband were invited to enjoy their Sabbath lovemaking as a con-templative act, their delight ever expanding to embrace them, their progeny, and their ancestors and continuing as blessing to all the Jewish people, to all of humanity throughout creation, ultimately bringing healing into the very Song of the Groom / 829 heart of a wounded, yearning God. Speaking of the Sabbath celebration, a celebration that was climaxed by sexual intercourse between husband and wife, Scholem has said, "A strange twilight atmosphere made possible an almost complete identification of the Shekhinah, not only with the Queen of Sabbath, but also with every Jewish housewife who celebrates the Sabbath.'q4 In the spirituality of Islam, the beauty of Allah has been identified with the charm of women. The Islamic mystics, or Sufis, could be quite ascetic, and sometimes shared with other Muslims a marked suspicion towards women (although at least one contemporary scholar of Islam, Annemarie Schimmel, has stated that such notions never reached the pitch of medieval Christian misogyny~5). But this did not deter the Sufis from also recognizing femininity as a revelation of God. A notable example is the illustrious Sufi master Ibn ai-'Arabi (1165-1240), perhaps the greatest mystical expositor of Islam. As a youth he had two women saints among his teachers. On his pil-grimage to Mecca at the age of thirty-six, he became enamored of an intelli-gent and beautiful Persian maiden. Recognizing the love of God suffused within the thralls of his human passion, he composed The Interpretation of Desire (Tarjuman aI-Ashwaq), an ode addressed to Allah as his beloved Lady. A few lines of one of his love songs to God display this eloquently: O, her beauty--the tender maid! Its brilliance gives light like lamps to one traveling in the dark. She is a pearl hidden in a shell of hair as black as jet, A pearl for which Thought dives and remains unceasingly in the deeps of that ocean. He who looks upon her deems her to be a gazelle of the sand-hills, because of her shapely neck and the loveliness of her gestures.~6 In a later work, The Bezels of Wisdom, Ibn al'Arabi taught that a man sees the divine most perfectly by contemplating the feminine. The man who enters sexual embrace in this knowledge finds much more than the satisfac-tion of a fleeting lust, but enters the play of divine pleasure. "If he knew the truth," Ibn al-'Arabi wrote, "he would know Whom it is he is enjoying and Who it is Who is the enjoyer; then he would be perfected.''17 Notice that here, as in the Kabbalah, erotic experience has been evoked both as a simile of divine love and as a sacrament divinizing the love experienced between a man and a woman. The Tantric schools of Hinduism and Buddhism view the world as a liv-ing matrix of divine energy. "Tantra" literally means continuity or inter-weaving, and the Tantric teachings skillfully reveal the existential and mystical consistencies that pervade the seamless but diverse fabric of life. 8~0 / Review for Religious, November-December1991 Even our neurotic bewilderments and obsessions contain seeds of transform-ing energy.18 Tantric contemplation enrolls all facets of human experience as skillful means to spiritual freedom, and the sexual faculty is not excluded. In the higher Tantras the Buddhas are imaged in intimate sexual embrace with their Prajna or Wisdom consorts, the female Buddha embodying authentic multidimensional vision and the male Buddha incarnating compassionate action. For those with the right preparation, initiation, and guidance of a qualified guru, the energy of sexual union is evoked in an explosive revela-tion of divine creative potential. 19 Those who enter this path encounter the divine feminine principle as the Dakini (Sanskrit--or, in Tibetan, khandro--literally "sky-dancer"). The Dakini is lovely, enticing, and challenging and sometimes comes in a horrif-ic guise, exercising a startling energy that cuts through behavioral obses-sions. The Dakini, who may become manifest as an archetypal figure or an actual woman of wisdom, avails Her fully realized femininity to move the contemplative beyond his exclusionary mode of consciousness toward one that is panoramic and involved in the full potentiality of life. To disengage him from habitual values, She may sabotage the yogi's self-righteousness. In several tales, an abstemious, scholarly monk enters the higher Tantric path when the Dakini approached with wine, meat, or the offer of sexual rela-tions, all of which are of course forbidden in the lesser path of renuncia-tion-- a fascinating rendition of the "female temptress" motif in that the male is tempted toward fuller life. To obtain the blessing of the Dakini, the con-templative needs to revere, court, and withstand Her, in short, to fully romance Her. As a contemporary Tibetan teacher said: The playful maiden is all-present. She loves you. She hates you. Without her your life would be continual boredom. But she continually plays tricks on you. When you want to get rid of her she clings. To get rid of her is to get rid of your own body--she is that close. In Tantric literature she is referred to as the dakini principle. The dakini is playful. She gam-bles with your life.2° In Taoism, also, the universe is seen to function according to the inter-play of male and female energies, the yang and the yin. A loving relationship between a man and woman serves to integrate the body-mind continuum of each with the universal dynamic of life. The Taoist texts give men explicit and detailed instruction on the encounter with the feminine, and a yogic approach to sexual experience that engages these profound energies. Christian Expressions of Bridegroom Spirituality In the gospels Jesus is proclaimed as Bridegroom, and one would hope Song of the Groom / 831 that the apostolic Church would have cultivated a view of marriage as a way of the Spirit, with an appropriate bridegroom spirituality. But a search here is somewhat disappointing. In The Body and Society, Peter Brown surveys the place accorded to marriage in early Christian thought, in context with the developing ideal of virginity.21 Rejecting the Jewish and Roman ideals of marriage, some of the more far-flung Christian bodies in apostolic times expected that all sexual activity, even within marriage, would cease upon baptism. Even the authentic Pauline writings, particularly 1 Corinthians, favor the ideal of celibacy, allowing marriage as a concession to the weak. Perhaps in reaction to the havoc created within families by the more ascetic model, the later Pauline corpus, particularly the pastoral letters, domesticat-ed this view, giving a conventional nod to the probity of marriage. Surpassing all of these is the notable passage in Ephesians 5:25-33, which is remarkable for its strong affirmation of male marital love: in the love of his wife, a man conforms himself to Christ as the Bridegroom of the Church. The marital eml~race is depicted as not only pure but purifying, a self-giving that ennobles both partners. Here was a wonderful foundation for the growth of a future bridegroom mysticism. However, the patristic era did not see the unfolding of marriage as a way of the spirit, but preferred celibacy as the ideal for a perfected life. By the close of the patristic period, the celibate ideal was firmly settled, and an allegorical bridal mysticism began to bloom. Doubtlessly, the sterling figure of Mary often came to stand in for the feminine aspect of the Divine. Her perpetual virginity was a rapt model of chastity, yet occasionally her devotees have found stirrings of a tender, more sensual love toward her. Bernard of Clairvaux, for example, was an eloquent and profound expositor of bridal mysticism, yet he also reported that the Virgin would come and embrace him warmly, as words of love would pour forth to her: "My Love! My Love! Let me ever love thee from the depths of my heart!''22 Later, in the time of Henry Suso (1295-1366), it was the custom of the young men in his native German town to serenade their sweethearts at the New Year. Henry reportedly followed suit by singing stirring love songs to the figure of the Madonna in the town square.23 One thinks, too, of Francis of Assisi in his romance of Lady Poverty. In fact, by adopting the mission of "troubadour of the Lord," Francis drew upon a movement that fostered bridegroom spirituality at a time when the Church would not recognize it: the emergence of courtly love and romance. In Love in the Western World, Denis de Rougemont traced the close development between the emergence of romance and the heterodox spiritual movement known as Albigen-sianism. 24 The troubadours were evangelists of the movement, and through 1~2 / Review for Religious, November-December1991 their odes of love and honor, human and divine love were integrated, so that spiritual love was given a human face and human love was elevated to a divine dimension. The Provenqal troubadours courted God as the divine fem-inine, dazzled by Her beauty and charm. The movement found expression in chivalry, literature, and the arts, making amorous love a respectable topic for prayer. One thinks, for example, of the tale of Tristan and Iseult and of the ~vorshipful manner~ 6f courtly love. It is curious that during this time, too, interest arose in spiritual friendships between men and women, such .as the chaste love of Francis and Clare or the more ~ultry and tragic affair of Abelard and Hrlolse. In his love of Beatrice, Dante fotind a revelation of divine mystery. Later the heritage would still be alive in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet: the young lovers meet at the masqu.e and express their love in an extended metaphor of worship, pilgrimage, and liturgy. It was during the medieval period, too, that the art of alchemy was intro-duced from northern Africa and taken up by Christian scholars. As Carl Jung's colleague Marie-Louise von Franz has exhaustively discussed,25 Western alchemy did not emerge as a primitive attempt at chemistry, but as a comprehensive map of inner transformation. Alchemy preserved psychologi-cal symboli.sm that was excluded from mainstream Christian mysticism, ificluding a sophisticated contrasexual integration. By the time of the Renaissance, interest in the Kabbalah was also respectable in learned Christian circles and doubtlessly coritributed its own sexual spirituality.26 For all of this, there was still no contemplative imagery in the mainstream of Christian spirituality that would represent male sexual longing as a paradigm for the love of God until the unique voice of Jacob Boehme broke the silence. Jacob Boehme (1575-1624), the German Lutheran lay mystic and teach-er, was doubtles.sly the boldest expositor of bridegroom imagery to emerge in the history of Christendom. Largely self-educated, Boehme worked as a shoemaker, and lived as a faithful husband and father of six, involved in the affairs of his guild and community. From an early age he had a remarkable series of revelations concerning the nature of God, creation, and the inter-play of good and evil. Iia his time alchemical and Kabbalistic ideas had per-colated well into learned spirituality, alongside the more official theologies of the churches. The Wisdom tradition, which had continued in Eastern Christian thought,27 had long lain dormant within Western Christian spiritu-ality, but in an intricate trinitarian theo.logy Boehme spontaneously and inde-pendently recovered it. Briefly and loosely stated, in Boehme's theogony Wisdom (or Sophia) was regarded as the consciousness of God. Wisdom was spoken of as the body of the Trinity and the bride of Christ. She infused all Song of the Groom the persoias of the Trinity in their knowledge of one another, and thus could draw human corisciousness into God. Accordingly, in the devotional works of Boehme, spiritual marriage was not between the bridal soul (the anima) and the bridegroom Christ, but between the animus and the Lady Wisdom. In The Way to Christ Boehme exhorts the reader to court the noble Virgin Sophia to become Her bridegroom just as Christ is Her bridegroom, and gives a stirring dialog between Sopfiia and the bridegroom soul.28 The Promise of Bridegroom Spirituality Let us return to the questions raised at the beginning of this article: What is th~ importance of male erotic mysticism? What does it contribute to our understanding of God? Does it open any new ways of thinking about who we are, in relation to God and in relation to one another, as men and women? The following common themes certainly are not exclusi~ie to bride-groom mysticism, but suggest themselves with enough ~orce to call for par-ticular notice: The Healing of Male Grief. Robert Bly has said that the male mode of feeling springs from a primal "grief," a grief related to the male experience of sacrifice and self-denial.29 In their conventional roles as providers and protectors, men have experienced a crushing burden of responsibility and "have-to's," wearily measuring up to others' expectations, just as they con-tinually size up other men. From the tenderest age, male ideritity is won in an act of separation and distinctioh from the mother, urilike the female identity that is secured through inclusion and similarity to her. Even the sexual act involves for the male a separation, a sundering and yielding of his very essence. Bridegi'oom mysticism exposes his deep grief to the healing work of the Woman. She, who is desirable pureiy by nature rather than by merit, brings forth what is best in a man. When a man first feels the stirrings of love toward the Divine Bride, the experienc6 is overwhelming, reminiscent of the first time he became attracted to ~ girl. Many men remember their initial sex-ual attractions as fresh and frightening and raw, but at the same time oddly pure. Later on, the sexual lives of men often become just another conquest or achievement, but the love of the Divine Bride never seems to lose its surprise and purity, giving the sacrifice of the man a worthy end and resting place. The Healing of Female Pain. Robert Bly calls the female mode of feel-ing an experience of "pain," the pain of being devalued. If nothing else, an awareness of God as Bride, at this juncture of our history, indicates mutuali-ty between men's and women's spirituality in contemporary faith, an acknowledgment by men that the divine feminine is as important to them as it is to women. One of the precepts of Tantric Buddhism states that "to dis- 834 / Review for Religious, November-December1991 parage women is a mortal offense, for woman is the source of Wisdom." Bridegroom spirituality accords the deepest respect to woman, in an act of affirmation that woman cannot give to herself, any more than man can heal his own grief without the love of the Woman. The Healing of God. In the wholeness of God as Woman, we worship Her as the matrix of mystery, comprehen.ding all within her, evil as well as good. In the year 1600 Jacob Boehme first had i.nsight into the activity of Divine Wisdom, and in this same revelation he said, "I saw, too, the essential nature of evil and good and how the pregnant Mother--the eternal gen-etrix brought them forth.''3° Bridegroom spirituality has much to offer our Understanding of what has been called the redemption of God.31 Warrior spirituality rouses to the Lord's clarion to wage battle against evil, but the human heart also seeks the why and wherefore of suffering, an intimacy in which the pain of God can be disclosed and, if possible~ healed. In Kabbalistic Judaism, humanity's separation from God also entails the sepa-ration of masculine and feminine principles within Godhead, and erotic spir-ituality participates in ttieir reunion. As Gershom Scholem writes: The reunion of God and His Shekhinah constitutes the meaning of redemption. In this staie, again seen in purely mythical terms, the mascu-line and feminine are carried back to their original unity, and in this unin-terrupted union of the two the powers of generation .will once again flow uhinterrupted through the worlds. The Kabbalists held that every reli-gioias act should be accompanied by the formula: this is done "for the sake of the reunion of God and His Shekhinah.''32 The Healing of Creation. This is the necessary and obvious corollary of the healing of God. Bridegroom spirituality implies human participation and co-responsibility for God's creative purpose. We relate to God the Father/Mother as children, but the relationship with God as Bride is an adult relationship, enrolling the man fully into God's ongoing creative actions. Wisdom. Quite consistently--in the Hebrew Scriiatures, in Buddhist Tantra, and in the teaching of Jacob Boehme--the divine feminine is named "Wisdom." Wisdom is the fulfillment of the defiriing male consciousness, not in an ever-escalating acquisition of knowledge, but in "knowingness," with its distinctly feminine quality. It is akin to the Hebrew yada, which is "to know" as well as "to make love to." Robert Bly says that ~i father must impart two gifts to his children: his temperament and his teachings. In con-temporary society, Bly says, childreh may ~till have a brief opportuhity to be exposed to their father's temperament, but they have been almost completely deprived of his teaching, of acquiring practical prowess from him. And (it seems to me) just as children need to receive the father's teaching, s6 the Song of the Groom male psyche needs to give teaching, for its own health. "Even mean men," Bly says, "are often sweet when they're teaching." The Buddhist scriptures describe the interplay of female Wisdom, or Prajna, with the male principle, which is alternately called Compassion (Karuna) or Skillful Means (Upaya), the ability to utilize any situation appropriately for the welfare of others. The implication is that the male capacity for action, know-how, and mastery must be thoroughly suffused with wisdom if it is to find fulfillment. Think of the master workman, mechanic, or cabinetmaker, who after years with his craft does not have to shout or trumpet his ability. His mastery is unarguably evi-dent in his work. He can be patient, gentle, and sure. He has seen it all before. In the same way, for the man to exercise Skillful Means, he must deeply see the potentials for good and evil in each situation. It is only Wisdom which brings this seeing. The Centrality oflntent. When the male spirit encounters God the Bride, She calls forth a unique pledge of fidelity, a resolve that endures beyond all appearances. When words fail, when understanding crumbles, when all our religious ego projects are shown for the games they are, only the kernel of bare intent remains. In such a contemplative vision, we pray not to "get somewhere," but enter prayer as itself an expression of desire or intent, in the faith that just in "being there" we give and receive everything. In the power of this intent we pray not to get close to God, but because we are close, and beloved, to Her. For the man who finds inklings of his own experience here, are they ways to enter more deeply? As masculine spirituality emerges, men will find ways to celebrate God the Bride if they are willing to do so. But here are some preliminary ideas for Christian men: ¯ Simply open the Song of Songs, and pray the words of the groom to God as your Bride. Notice what happens. ¯ Try the same thing with Jacob Boehme's dialog with Sophia, or with Ibn al-'Arabi's poem. ¯ In male gatherings of worship, sing Her praises, just as Jewish men would gather at the edge of town at sunset on Friday, to welcome their Bride as Queen of Shabbat. ¯ We learn about the divine feminine by honoring the femininity of women around us. In Tilden Edwards's book Practicing the Presence, there is a simple, prayerful exercise that a man and woman can enter together.33 The book The Shared Heart by Joyce and Barry Vissell also has some sug-gestions, for committed couples. ¯ Christian celibates who want to bring sexual energy into prayer might wish to consult The Radiant Heart by Linda Sabbath. This does not deal [136 / Review for Religious, November-December 1991 specifically with male sexuality, but perhaps the exercises could be adapted toward this direction. In the Song of Songs, the awaiting bride leaps to the door at the approach of her groom, only to find that he has vanished. The bride is ready for love, but it is the groom who is timid and unsure. Is humanity only to be the hearer of the song of the groom? Might not that song also be meant to pour forth from the hearts of men? Might not the Bride be yearning to hear it? NOTES ~ John Carmody, Toward a Male Spirituality (Mystic, Conn.: Twenty-Third Publications, n.d.), pp. 31-32. 2 Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette, King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine (HarperSanFrancisco, 1990), p. 121. 3 Alison Weber, Teresa of Avila and the Rhetoric of Femininity (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990), pp. 109-122. 4 Mary and Leon J. Podl6s, "The Emasculation of God," America, 25 November 1989, p. 373. 5 See, for example, James B. Nelson, The Intimate Connection: Male Sexuality, Male Spirituality (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1988), p. 31. 6 Podles, p. 374. For a thorough treatment of the fatherhood of God, see also John W. Miller, Biblical Faith and Fathering: Why We Call God "Father" (New York: Paulist Press, 1989). 7 Carmody, p. 45. 8 Arthur Green, "Bride, Spouse, Daughter," in Susannah Heschel, ed., On Being a Jewish Feminist (New York: Schocken Books, 1983), pp. 248-249. 9 Robert Bly, Iron John: A Book about Men (Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1990), p. 123. l0 Alan W. Watts, Nature, Man and Woman (New York: Pantheon Books, 1958), pp. 143-145. ~ Gerald May, Will and Spirit: A Contemplative Psychology (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1982), pp. 5, 6. ~2 Gershom G. Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York: Schocken Books, 1965). ~3 Referenced in Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), pp. 122-138. ~4 Gershom G. Scholem, On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism (New York: Schocken Books, 1969), pp. 140-141. ~5 Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions oflslam (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975), p. 429. Song of the Groom 16 In Reynold A. Nicholson, The Mystics oflslam (New York: Schocken Books, 1975), p. 102. 17 Ibn al-'Arabi, Bezels of Wisdom, trans. R.W.J. Austin (New York: Paulist Press, 1980), p. 276. 18 Daniel Cozort, Highest Yoga Tantra: An Introduction to the Esoteric Buddhism of Tibet (Ithaca, N.Y.: Snow Lion Publications, 1986). 19 See the works of Herbert Guenther: Yuganaddha: The Tantric View of Life (Varanasi: Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series, second edition, 1964) and The Life and Teaching of Naropa (Boston: Shambala, 1986). 20 Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, as quoted in Tsultrim Allione's remarkable work Women of Wisdom (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984), p. 38. 21 Brown, The Body and Society. 22 B.Z. Goldberg, The Sacred Fire: The Story of Sex in Religion (New York: University Books, 1958), p. 199. 23 Ibid. 24 Denis de Rougemont, Love in the Western Worm (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983). This revised edition has valuable appendices. 25 Marie-Louise von Franz, Alchemy: An Introduction to the Symbolism and Psychology (Toronto: Inner City Books, 1980). 26 loan P. Culianu, Eros and Magic in the Renaissance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987). Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross are also believed to have been influenced b~, the Kabbalah. See C. Swietlicki, Spanish Christian Cabala: The Works of Luis de Le6n, Santa Teresa de Jesfis, and San Juan de la Cruz (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1986). 27 See Sergius Bulgakov's interesting and controversial works, particularly The Wisdom of God: A Brief Summary of Sophiology (New York: Paisley Press, 1937), in which he presents an Eastern Orthodox sophiology quite consistent with Boehme's theogony. 28 Jacob Boehme, The Way to Christ (New York: Paulist Press, 1978), pp. 59-62. 29 These comments from Robert Bly are from a televised interview with Bill Moyers, A Gathering of Men. A videotape and transcript are available from Mystic Fire Videos. 30 Ann Liem, Jacob Boehme: Insights into the Challenge of Evil (Wallingford, Pa.: Pendle Hill Publications, 1977), p. 8. 31 See, in particular, I. Carter Heyward, The Redemption of God: A Theology of Mutual Relation (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1982). 32 Scholem, On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism, p. 108. 33 Tilden Edwards, Living in the Presence: Disciplines for the Spiritual Heart (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987), p. 74. 1~38 / Review for Religious, November-December1991 ADDITIONAL WORKS Bolen, Jean Shinoda. Gods in Everyman: A New Psychology of Men's Lives and Loves. New York: Harper & Row, 1989. Davis, Charles. Body as Spirit: The Nature of Religious Feeling. New York: Seabury, 1976. Donnelly, Dody H. Radical Love: An Approach to Sexual Spirituality. Minneapolis: Winston Press, 1984. Eliade, Mircea. "Masculine Sacrality" (vol. 8, pp. 252-258) and "Feminine Sacrality" (vol. 5, pp. 302-312). In The Encyclopedia of Religion. New York: Macmillan, 1987. Ibn al-'Arabi. Tarjuman al-Ashwaq. Translation and commentary by Reynold A. Nicholson. London, 1911. Johnson, Robert A. He: Understanding Masculine Psychology. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1977, 1986. Sabbath, Linda. The Radiant Heart. Dimension Books, 1977. Stoudt, John J. Jacob Boehme: His Life and Thought. New York: Seabury Press, 1968. Vissell, Joyce, and Vissell, Barry. The Shared Heart: Relationship, Initiations and Celebrations. Aptos, Calif.: Ramira Publishing, 1984. Incense What sense this incense, Questions common sense? This burning, this waste, Like fragrant perfume, Aromatic nard on the Lord? Like love freely given-- For sheer delight! A gift--this incense-- Sweet savor of benevolence. Walter Bunofsky, S.V.D. 1446 E. Warne Avenue St. Louis, Missouri 63107 The Bible's Use of Sexual Language Nancy M. Cross Mrs. Cross's article on Blessed Edith Stein's feminism appeared in our issue of January/February 1989. The mother of twelve and now the grandmother of twenty-five, she entered the Catholic Church twenty years ago along with her Protestant-minister husband and their entire family. A wideiy published writer, she cofitinues to have this address: Box 55; Tayiors Falls, Minnesota 55084. [~lore and more Christian publications are saying what Arthur Shaw said in the National Catholic Register: that addressing God as male or female is "not only sowing confusion, but teaching heresy.''l Inasmuch as God is pu~e spirit and has no physical body that is male br female, the statement is, of course true. Yet a reply to this assertion about gender language used for God is demanded if some critical truth is not to be totally obscured, because the assertion is simply not clear enough. Addressing God with gender language exclusively of one sex is neither confusing nor heretical, but correct and true, and is first to be found in the Bible. Genesis 1 describes God's creation of man and woman in tiis image: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness . So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them" (Gn 1:27). About tliis passage Pope John Paul II, in the encyclical Dominum et Vivificantem, asks, ."Can one hold that the plural which the Creator uses here in speaking of himself already in some way sug-gests the Trinitarian mystery, the presence of the Trinity in the work of the creation of man?''2 His logic, which in every particular fits the unfolding story of man and woman in the Bible, brings us to some clarifying insights about the meaning of sexuality. In his pastoral letter "Do This in Memory of Me," Cardinal Carter of Toronto presents the deep covenantal the61ogy based on the Trinity from which we understand relationships on all levels of being: God and 839 840 / Review for Religious, November-December 1991 humankind, man and woman, priest and laity. The cardinal archbishop's teaching ranges from deductions based on the nature of the Trinity and the incarnation of Christ to anthropological considerations drawn from the nature of human sexuality. He begins with an analysis of the Trinity, a com-munity of diverse persons which implies neither lordship nor subjugation of one Person to another, yet with distinct roles, irreducibly different in what concerns their being as distinct Persons.3 Triune Relationship Within the relationship of the triune Persons stand revealed an initiator, the Father, and a dependent responder, the Son; unifying these two polar Persons (initiation and response are ob-positioned) is the Holy Spirit, who is, as St. Bernard said, "the kiss between the Father and the Son." Each has all the attributes of the one nature, but some are more to be said of one than the others-~"neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the substance," as the Athanasian Creed puts it. From the union of Father and Son in the Spirit come creativity and ecstasy. In creating man and woman, God shares that creativity and ecstasy of his own being by enfleshing, materializing these awesome principles of personhood in a male who initiates and a female who is dependent and responds. Cardinal Carter writes: "This qualitative sexual differentiation is rooted not in physiology but in the created human imaging of the Trinity, and is indissociable from the revelation of the Trinity in Christ, as his Incarnation bears witness.''4 In the perfection of the original plan, these two (humankind) are made in this image: two polar persons sharing one nature-~one the initiator, one the responder, both united by a third, the Holy Spirit, who condescends to share himself and unify these opposites with divine love. Therefore, the sexuality that appeared in physical form expresses in a creaturely way something utterly spiritual at the very heart of things. The Trinity Imaged God is saying something about his very self in the creation of man and woman; he is sharing the dynamics of the personhood in the Trinity with the creature he makes in his image. Therefore maleness, though not found in the Trinity, of course, speaks nevertheless of what we would intrepidly say is the masculine principle among the Persons of the Trinity. How do we come to the idea of "masculine"? By observing the action of the male. But the male is picturing for us something far beyond himself. Although it may be anthro-pocentric to describe the First Person as Father, nevertheless, because the The Bible's Use of Sexual Language / 1~41 male generates (in a secondary way) new life and because God has revealed himself as generator of everything that is, it is clear that the very idea has come from God down, not from man up. God has spoken about himself in real terms by creating male and female bodies. Therefore, what has visible form as male imperfectly incarnates a masculine principle in the Trinity. We call the principle "masculine" because of our human experience with male-ness- but it precedes maleness and lies at the heart of things. What has visi-ble form as female imperfectly incarnates a feminine principle in the Trinity. We call the principle "feminine" because of our human experience with femaleness--but it precedes femaleness and lies at the heart of things. Accordingly, the second person in both the Holy Trinity and in humankind is the responder. This role for both the Son and the woman is in response to the First/first person. Do the Son and the woman have the attribute of initiation? Do the Father and the man have the attribute of response? Of course they do, because the polar persons share all attributes of each other; but certain attributes are more to be said of one than the other-- which makes the persons' positions polar and nonexchangeable. As Cardinal Carter says, "the absolute unity of God is not monadic but trinitarian. This eliminates the necessity o.f placing antagonisms between unity and multiplic-ity, because the Triune God, who is Unity itself, is also three Persons, quali-tatively differentiated and irreducible to each other, yet without antagonism." 5 Equality In perfection the Second/second person is completely equal in worth to the First/first person. It is a result of the Fall, the takeover of the scene by an enemy's values, that "response" and "dependent" have become despised concepts. In the perfect plan, re.ceiving and responding are values equal to governance and generating. The Second Person is coequal and coeternal to the First. Man and woman, created to image that relationship in human flesh, \ were created with the same polar roles inherent in their flesh and psyche, yet they stand eye to eye as total equals. As in the Trinity, initiation (or authori-ty) and response (or obedience), indicative of man and woman, are not prin-ciples unequal in their value and worth. They are the stances of wholly equal beings, who enjoy an equality like Father and Son. The very idea of the inequality of the role of response came from an alien consciousness, one who had already envied the role of authority and spread that envy to the perfect creation. When the woman accepted his defi-nition, eventually believing his lies, his value system was established, which is the Fall, a value system that still is modus operandi. It took this alien con- 1~49 / Review for ReligiouJ, November-December 1991 sciousness to cast doubt on that equality and to substitute a value system which contaminates everything since the Fall. The antiword (Pope John Paul's term) corrupts the world with the lie that to initiate and order is power and power is "where it's at." As a corollary, the same antiword insists that to heed and serve, to receive and. respond, is for lackeys and nitwits. Jesus restored the value system of perfection. In bridging this abyss he restored the values of the original plan: to be obedient is not the least important role, to be authority is not the most important role. But almost no one believes it to this day--least of all the one who most purely is created to model obedience and service, the woman. Archbishop John Roach, speaking to the National Council of Catholic W~omen, recently cast light on this as it refers to laity and clergy: The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are one, but very different. The Father does not do what the Son does, the Son does not do what the Father does and neither does what ~he Spirit does. Jesus spoke often of doing the Father's will. He was not obsequious; that was his role and he recognized the Father's role. The Father did things unique to the Father. He initiates, governs, presides, creates in a very distinctive way. The Son's role is to respond, to be the word for the Father, to reflect the Father, to be the splendor and glory of the Father. The Spirit is the bond of love animating the Father and the Son. He is the comforter and consoler and paraclete and inspiration. That may seem to be a kind of lofty ideal for us, but I think it is what we have to aim at. Our roles are different, but that ought to be a source of rejoicing, not resentment. There are things that you do as laity that I should not do. There are things that I do as bishop and priest that you should not do . There is no inferiority or super-superiority in the Trinity. There cannot be any among us. I must exercise a kind of leader-ship and a kind of authority for the good ofth~ Church which is not your responsibility. To do that, however, I must recognize not only th~ dignity of you as persons and children of God, but as people in whom the Spirit speaks . In a collegial gathering all bring gifts. The leader becomes ser-vant and the last rises to full dignity . 6 Revaluing Roles in Tr!nitarian Light In .order for this vision to catch on, it takes the woman first (beginning with the Blessed Virgin Mary, but with us women too) to revalue her role and meaning in light of the Second Person of the Trinity. This is because woman first accepted Satan's false definition and evaluation of her role, that is, as less worthy than the role of authority her husband held in their rela- .tionship by divine command. Edith Stein says, "The nature of the temptation was in itself of more significance to her."7 The woman must begin the unraveling of the knot by not choosi.ng again the values of Satan, not accept- The Bible's Use of Sexual Language ing again the lie that ordering/authority/governance has a higher prestige, is more worthy than service, and is, therefore, an object of envy. She must claim her role and love it; and if she must fight, it is to have that role of obe-dience recognized as fully equal to the opposite role of authority. She is nei-ther a lackey nor a nitwit. Authority will not talk down to her if she talks straight with it, respectfully, but eye to eye. In order for the value system of perfection to be restored, woman must accept obedience as fully worthy, fully equal to the opposite role. The Virgin Mary has done it. Women have rarely done it, and the very idea is being washed away in our day. Not only has obedience (submission) been deval-ued as the feminine role, but authority has been falsely elevated (Satan's val-ues are intact). Therefore, the man considers his role as prestigious and powerful; and this worldly, not to say carnal, evaluation is widely endorsed by women. Authority, which is another word for ultimate initiation and governance, must take its cue from the First Person of the Trinity--that is, it exists to put all at the service of those who are receivers/responders. Pope John Paul's insistence that Ephesians 5 speaks of "mutual submission" of wife to hus-band and husband to wife underlines this.8 But the submission of both, the total giving of self9 that both experience, is done differently. The woman submits to the husband's governance and ordering (the role of headship) of their life together, making one will of two; and the husband submits to the woman's need for protection and provision, and this whether he feels like it or not. In the Christian community, males have authority, and women model obedience. But both live lives of self-giving service in mutual submission. The laity (feminine though consisting of males and females) submits to the clergy's (masculine) governance, the clergy submits to the laity's need for headship, spiritual and material, whether convenient or inconvenient. Further, the Christian community forms the people of God (the bride) whose relationship to God is as feminine to masculine. The model? Again, man and woman in marriage;t just as man and woman in marriage are the image of the Holy Trinity. This imaging of the meaning of sexuality is not deviated from throughout the Bible despite the different pressures of time and culture in the two thousand years of its formation. We see the model for both roles within the Holy Trinity. There is no pres-tige in the role of authority, and no servility in the role of obedience--such is the peculiar Christian ~,ision of relationship. Says Jesus who was sent: "I do nothing but what I see the Father doing"; "I have not come of my own accord"; and so forth. Such statements are the core of the gospel of John. l0 844 / Review for Religious, November-December 1991 Anthropomorphic, yet True What does this mean? That maleness and femaleness and the roles inherent in the bodily form speak of ultimate truth about relationship origi-nating in the Holy Trinity. God knows that this creature will develop a lan-guage according to information received through the senses. That language will necessarily be anthropomorphic, but because the sexual body, male and female, is created to image the truth, the words developed can be used to express that truth truly. C.S. Lewis masterfully investigates the meaning of sexuality in his space-fiction trilogy Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength. In the latter he writes: "Yes," said the Director. "There is no escape. If it were a virginal rejec-tion of the male, He would allow it. Such souls can bypass the male and go on to meet something far more masculine, higher up, to which they must make a yet deeper surrender. But your trouble has been what old poets called Daungier, we call it Pride . The masculine none of us can escape. What is above and beyond all things is so masculine that we are all feminine in relation to it . ,, I I The inspired writers of Holy Scripture, where Lewis gained his insights, speak truly when they reveal God as forever masculine, and humankind in relation to God as forever feminine. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they never deviate from this form of expression, not once! Examine careful-ly those Scriptures used to present God as mother and you will not find them asserting God's motherhood. The importance of God in his triune Persons always being considered masculine to us human beings is so overwhelming that in every case in Scripture the truth of this is rigorously guarded. For this reason, also, the Second Person of the Trinity came as male--all Persons of the Trinity are to us as masculine to feminine whether we are male or female humans. Isaiah and Hosea Isaiah 66:12-13 is the favorite of the misquoted Scriptures and is always used in this way: "As nurslings, you shall be carried in her arms, and fondled in her lap; as a mother comforts her son, so will I comfort you." This, how-ever, is the fuller text, more closely translated: "Behold, I will extend pros-perity to her like a fiver, and the wealth of the nations like an overflowing stream; and you shall suck, you shall be carried upon her hip, and dandled upon her knees. As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem?' Obviously God does not present himself as the mother in this passage. The Bible's Use of Sexual Language The distinction he places between himself and Jerusalem is very clear. The same holds true for Isaiah 49:15, another favorite to substantiate God's motherhood. "Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you." The speaker is Yahweh, the LORD, who in the entire text of Isaiah presents him-self as enduringly masculine though with a depth of compassion that sur-passes all earthly love, even the love of a mother. Mothers may forget, it is possible, but the Lord will not forget. This Lord continues, "Then all flesh shall know that I am the Lord your Savior, and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob" (Is 49:26). Chapter fifty continues the theme, with God iden-tifying himself as husband and father. Isaiah 46:3-4 is also a standby text for the Mother-God argument, yet there is nothing necessarily maternal in the picture of God carrying the heavy burden which Israel has become. In fact it is explicitly stated in this passage that the one who carries is masculine: "Hearken to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been borne by me from your birth, carried from the womb; even to your old age I am He, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save." Next to Isaiah, Hosea is most often called on to bolster the femininity-of- God argument. Such a twist of Hosea's intent cannot be supported by the text, in which God speaks throughout as a betrayed husband and deserted father. There is no plausibility for assuming that the speaker in Hosea 11 is maternal. The Father is expressing the warmth and concern we expect from either parent, mother or father. Nothing maternal is stated here. The actual text, with irrelevant passages deleted, reads: When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more I called them, the more they went from me . Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them . How can I give you up, O Ephraim!. My heart recoils within me, my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come to destroy. Can this be considered to be the Mother-God talking? The context is quite the contrary. Neither does Sirach 4:10, "[God] will love you more than your mother did," say anything tb conclude the femininity of the One who loves more than human mothers. The full wording is: "You will then be like a son of the Most High, and he will love you more than does your mother." The Holy~Trinity, of course, has within itself all the positive expressions 846 / Review for Religious, November-December 1991 of relationship that there are. This means that mother-love has its origin in the Holy Trinity. What from humankind's point of view would be called fem-inine love is present within (intra) the Trinity; it has been enfleshed by the Creator in the woman--the Son is the Person imaged by the woman. Yet, despite the obvious full measure of what we humans call "femininity" inher-ent in the Trinity, God never approaches his people as mother or as feminine. To humankind (ad extra) God is consistently husband, father, lover, and not wife, mother, or beloved, because Godhead is to humankind the initiator, the author, eliciting humankind's response and obedience, and the roles cannot be reversed. Children, Church, Bride His people are polar to himself, and though they are intended to be, in a certain sense, his equals ("bride without spot or wrinkle," Ep 5:27), they can never be God despite Satan's words to the contrary. Yet they are meant to be joined in union with him; the Holy Spirit will condescend to his mysterious work, but only after Jesus has come to forgive otherwise indelible sin. His people cannot initiate anything with God; he is the initiator. They cannot work their way back to union with him; they are wholly dependent on his action. In relationship to him they can only receive and respond, as they were created to do: to think God's thoughts after him and to obey his Holy Will, or if they prefer to exercise their freedom the opposite way, they may think Satan's thoughts after him and do his will. If God can be presented as mother or as feminine, that is, as receiver and accepter in the God/humankind relationship, where does that place his polar people? They are his children, of course, but they are growing into his bride, not his groom. A feminine God would make them the masculine pole-- exactly what Satan tempted them to think in the beginning--that they should envy and seize the authority side of the equation and "be like gods." Already the value of the role of willing obedience has been totally disparaged. In its place is the Satanic concept that Godhead is merely dominating authoritari-anism lording it over lackeys and nitwits. Thus, the significance of masculine and feminine runs very deep indeed. There is no mother in heaven other than the Blessed Mother, and she is given to us as all the mother we need. There is another heavenly mother, the Church, in that mystical dimension of her that is holy. It is her overflowing breasts that feed us (Is 66) and her warm lap that holds us. The only consort of the God who presents himself as masculine to us is ourselves. Another aspect of the gender-of-God question that appears more and more frequently in periodicals is the matter of history--the assumption The Bible's Use of Sexual Language grows that the Hebrews somehow messed up things and imposed upon the world their perverse patriarchy which they expressed in their sacred writ-ings. Their patriarchal prejudices, declare this reasoning, overpowered the more gentle goddess-religions.~2 We need to look again at that claim in light of the above and also in. light of the goddesses themselves, who were not gentle and approachable at all. Tanit, Astarte, or Astaroth demanded child sacrifices; a very bloodthirsty goddess she was, depicted with a lioness's head! The others do not stand any kind of scrutiny either. They are projec-tions from the fallen psyche of humankind and cannot stand comparison with the Holy One of Israel, I AM HE. Language and Reality It is legitimate, therefore, to object to much current writing against tradi-tional God and gender language: 1. It twists Scripture, theology, and history, even when done innocently. 2. Scripture is not just a human book--it is far too profound for that, often speaking more than the human author knew or intended. Dei Verbum says, "Since, therefore, all that the inspired authors, or sacred writers, affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Sp!rit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture, firmly, faithfully, and without error, teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the sacred Scriptures" (DV, no. 11). Often those who adhere to this definition are pejoratively called fundamentalists, a word many who are unwilling to take Scripture wholly and seriously use much too freely in order to quiet their questioners. It is necessary to heed literary forms, the times addressed, the exact meaning of words in their contexts, and ways of perception of the times. But none of this negates the truth of the quotation above (which tran-scends all of the human aspects of Scripture), namely, that God has seen to it that this book speaks what he wants us to know: "sacred Scripture must be read and interpreted with its divine authorship in mind" (DV, no. 12). 3. In the matter of sexuality in Scripture, we are not working with mere metaphor; we are working with an analogy. An analogy points up a relation-ship between two things--a real parailelism of character or attributes. Therefore, to say that man and woman and their relationship are an analogy of God's relationship to humankind is to say that there is a real parallel in the comparison that rests in verity--in this case, because God has created the one (humankind) to be a sign of the other (God). A metaphor, on the other hand, merely suggests a likeness in some particular about two very unlike things, for instance, "That dog walks like a turtle." Feminine references to Godhead in Scripture can be seen with little effort to be sheer metaphors. ~i4~1 / Review for Religious, November-December1991 When Jesus said that he was like a hen wanting to gather his chicks, he was speaking !n metaphor he did not resemble a chicken in any regard other than this one particular. But when he said he and the Father are One, he was not speaking metaphor at all--either about Father, which I have explained above, or about their oneness. In this matter of gender language for God and of the meaning of male and female, many people are being swept along by something that they do not understand, and are taking up the mistaken values of feminism about authority/submission. Thus they .are constantly tempted to envy the mascu-line side and thereby cast aside the beauty and wholeness of Jesus' way of abject obedience, saying it does not behoove women to be obedient or to have anything to do with submission. All of this is a serious concern to the Church as we enter the third millennium, for it lies at the center of what it means to be a Catholic Christian. It is sifting those who have the heart for it from those who do not, and will eventually be seen to vindicate the Church's assertion that the Holy Spirit "leads her to perfect union with her Spouse.''~3 NOTES l Arthur Shaw, "Gender Language for God," National Catholic Register, November 12, 1989, p. 4. 2 John Pau! II, Encyclical Dominum et Vivificantem (pentecost 1986), no. 12. Italics mine. 3 Cardinal Gerald Emmett (~arter, "Do This in Memory of Me," 8 December 1983. 4 .Ibid, p. 24. 5 Ibid, p. 11. 6 Archbishop John Roach, Archbishop of Minneapolis/St. Paul, Eucharistic Celebration, November 9, 1987, National Council of Catholic Women. 7 Edith Stein, The Collected Works of Edith Stein, Volume Two, Essays on Woman (Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, 1987), p. 62. 8 John Paul II, Pastoral Letter Mulieris Dignatatem (1989), pp. 91, 92, 98. 9 Ibid, pp. 67, 78, 84. ~0 See, among many other verses, 5:19, 26, 30, 37, 43; 6:44; 8:28. ~ C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength (Macmillan, 1946), p. 315. 12 See Virginia Ann Froehle, R.S.M., "Feminine Images of God Can Enhance Your Prayer and Change Your Life," St. Anthony Messenger, May 1989. This article blatantl