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

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Articles for publication should be addressed to the Editor. Address THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY, GETTYSBURG, PA. 1 "SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER." AS in the world of nature, so in the realm of art and letters, there are varied phases of worth and beauty, different de-grees of excellence. But each separate work of art has its place in the grand whole of earth's literature, its mission to fulfill, just as every part of nature's unity is adapted to meet some one of the many needs, the varying moods of man. In the physical world the valley has a peace, as the mountain peak a grandeur ; the violet a tenderness, as the oak a strength ; the brook ripples ' tighter, while the cataract roars thunder. Each has an individual beauty, each performs its appointed task. L,ethim, to whose soul appeals the awful majesty of nature, stand in wonder at the brink of Niagara, or silent within the shadow of snow-capped Alps. One whose heart responds to a gentler touch may find greater joy in the sunlit meadows, or by a quiet stream. Perhaps he lacks strength to climb the steep mountain I 82 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. path, or courage to face the spray from a dashing torrent. Shall he less enjoy the breath of a forest flower, or the voice of a wood-land bird ? There are times when the soul struggles skyward, and stands with a Shakspere on some lofty summit, from whose height is caught a glimpse of the vast panorama of human history; or times when the soul loses itself in the sublime music of a Brown-ing's mighty thought; but there are also seasons where the mind turns for recreation and refreshment to rest by the laughing brook of a Goldsmith's fancy. So to-day we leave the heights of philos-ophy to spend an hour in the pleasant vale of humor. Someone has classified Man as the only animal having the power of laughter, and while the definition is hardly an exhaust-ive one, it is by no means inapt. And surely there can be no more wholesome sound than the audible expression of a pleasant emotion, the merry, ringing laugh whose spirit is everywhere in-fectious, whose very memory is refreshing, the beneficent effect of which can hardly be overestimated. The ancients recognized the value of a cheerful spirit when they ascribed joy and mirth to the Muse of Comedy, and prepared systematic entertainment for the cultivation of the humorous sense. Modern writers of high ability have deemed it not unworthy of their inspired pens to in-voke Thalia. A keen sense of the comical, a faculty for seeing the humorous side of life and depicting it, is everywhere regarded as a happy gift. Perhaps no author has possessed this gift in greater degree than Oliver Goldsmith, and surely no drama of modern times, in apt illustration of ludicrous situations, in the power to provoke expressions of mirth, can take the place of his comedy "She Stoops To Conquer." From the time of its first production on the stage, when it was unanimously granted by an enthusiastic audience chief place in comedy, up to the present time, " She Stoops To Conquer " has won commendation, both for its literary and its dramatic merit. As a play it is essentially a comedy. For tho' the situations are at times so ludicrous as almost to partake of the nature of a farce, yet the plan of the whole is connected, the conversations, while humorous, are not undignified, the incidents, tho' often ridiculous, are never grotesque ; and these considerations, to-gether with the real literary excellence displayed in skillful delineation of characters, in ready adaptation of words to thought, THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 83 unite in raising it above the level of mere farce to the plane of purest comedy. The plot of the play, while not entirely original with Gold-smith, is nevertheless handled by him in a new and attractive manner. He is not the first writer to conceive the idea of a lady's concealing her identity from a bashful lover, but the de-velopment of the story is marked by the author's peculiar mode of thought and expression. Some have even seen in the com-plication of events as portrayed a reference to some personal ex-perience, but be that as it may, the characteristic wit and humor, the individual style, are undoubtedly Goldsmith's own. Whether or not he himself ever committed the blunder of mistaking a private mansion for a public inn, we are not called upon to de-cide. But from what we learn of the man's disposition, such an error seems quite consistent—as is the plan of the play—with his per-sonal character. Eet us note the different actors as they pass before us on the stage. With the art of the true dramatist our author has given in the first scene the back-ground of his picture—in this case a chamber in an old-fashioned English country-house—and with a few brisk dashes of the pen sketched an outline of each character. In the very first conversation we catch the spirit of the situation. But a few words from the worthy dame of the house suffice to show us her shallow and rather vain, tho' withal good-natured disposition; her fondness for dress, only surpassed by a partiality toward her wayward son. Nor are we long in recognizing, from the stately manner, the testy temper of the Squire, a typical English gentleman of the old school, one who loves everything old, " old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine." A boisterous laugh, breaking iu on the domestic scene announces the spoiled boy " Tony," who throughout the play is destined to be the torment of his indulgent mother, the practical joker and scapegrace generally. The appearance of " Kate " in all the "pretty innocence" of her girlish finery, brings a breath of sweetness into the atmosphere of comedy. Her manner on re-ceiving the news of a lover's early arrival, while showing the dig-nity of her spirit, yet gives us a hint that she is not incapable of playing a dainty trick. In Miss Neville we have a portrait of the ordinary amiable girl of the period, whose love affair, being more conventional than Miss Hardcastle's, lacks the charm of novelty 84 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. attaching to that of the heroine. Leaving the mansion for an ale-house in scene second we catch another glimpse of "Tony's" disposition, and in the joke practised by him upon the two gentle-men who, he learns, are his father's expected guests, we find the clew to all the subsequent "mistakes of a night." Of the characters of the two lovers, thus tricked, enough is gleaned in the short conversation to excite a keen interest as to the outcome of the adventure. The play glides on with an easy, rapid movement, introducing scene after scene full of exquisite humor, ludicrous incident, and startling situations, yet all connected by the smoothness of a con-sistent whole. In the scene at the Three Pigeons one detects a spice of satire on the sentimental school of drama, in vogue at that time, a bit of pleasantry quite justified by the attitude of critics toward comedy. In the second act, the amusing sight of Mr. Handcastle training his awkward servants how to behave " when company comes " causes a ripple of merriment, but the quaint courtesy he employs in welcoming his guests recalls to our notice the dignity of the Squire, and makes it quite natural for him to be imperious enough on occasion, and very impatient, in the course of events. His indignation at the conduct of his visi-tors is not to be wondered at! Marlowe with his double nature of impudence and modesty is admirably drawn. What could be more delightfully ridiculous than his first meeting with the heroine ? His stammering diffidence, his embarrassed silence— but " Kate" with woman's keen insight, discovers the merit in him, and with woman's ready tact, evolves a scheme to bring it out. To match her lover's spirit she, too, assumes a double character, and well does she maintain it. Her sparkling wit, her lively spirit, her clever disguise, make the " conquest " a glorious one. Mr. Hastings with the policy of a would-be suitor flatters the the vanity of his lady's guardian with splendid effect. He also makes a friend of " Tony," who, glad to be rid of the " bitter bargain " of his Cousin Constance, is willing to serve Hastings to the last drop of his blood ! For all his mischief the boy is good-hearted, and his efforts of assistance tho' clumsy and bungling are well-meant. The theft of the jewels is eminently characteristic of "Tony." But the climax of the ludicrous certainly comes in the scene at the back THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 85 of the garden, when, after driving many miles in a circle, sup-posing herself lost and attacked by robbers, Mrs. Hardcastle falls at the feet of her husband, and begs him to " take compassion, good Mr. Highwayman"—within forty yards of her own door. The crisis past, as is usual in drama the closing scenes are given to making up differences and setting everything right, so that all ends " merry as a marriage bell," and we are left to sup-pose— as fairy-tales say—they " lived happy ever afterwards." In relation to its own time '' She Stoops To Conquer '' easily holds first place among dramas of the eighteenth century. For at the time of its presentation, as we are informed in the Prologue, the Comic Muse was on the point of breathing her last, having been almost smothered by the atmosphere of sickly sentimental-ity and affectation then prevailing. But the fresh, healthful air of Goldsmith's delightful humor seems to have revived her. Hence it is but true poetic justice that the " sweet maid " should award first honor to her rescuer. As regards our time, or indeed every time, little need be said of the function of comedy. All the world enjoys a laugh, and as long as this '' touch of nature '' remains to humanity the pure fun in Goldsmith's play will be appreciated. There is a permanent place—not only on the shelves of the world's library, but also in the hearts of earth's people, for " She Stoops To Conquer." " Sharan." —ANNA R. WBI,TY. Edition Consulted—Harold Littledale-s, with Introduction and Notes. The voice of one who goes before, to make The paths of June more beautiful, is thine, Sweet May! -Helen Hunt. Now the bright morning star, day's harbinger, Comes dancing from the east, and leads with her The flowery May, who, from her green lap, throws The yellow cowslip, and the pale primrose. Hail bounteous May, that dost inspire Mirth and youth, and warm desire! —Milton. ■ 86 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. A LESSON FROM AN INSCRIPTION. EARL,Y in June of their Junior year in Pennsylvania College, Will Gray and Harry Brane, as was their custom, left their boarding house immediately after supper for a stroll on the Battlefield. A shower, during the afternoon, had cooled the air, though it did not make walking unpleasant on the avenues. They walked leisurely past the National Cemetery, seemingly unconscious of their surroundings,—they had become accustomed to historic en-vironment,— and soon found themselves on Culp's Hill; where, partially hidden from the slanting rays of the sun by the foliage of the trees, they sat down for a little rest. They were somewhat warm by study, and especially by an ex-amination during the afternoon ; but as they sat here, thoughts of the examination were driven from their minds by the panorama that presented itself to their gaze. Eagerly they looked at the surrounding scenes: before them was that magnificent equestrian statue of Gen. Hancock and the group of monuments that sur-round it, all marking the spot where contending forces struggled. Farther in the distance they could but dimly distinguish the shafts on the field of the first day's fight; through the gathering haze of evening they could yet see the observatory on Big Round Top, and while looking in that direction they saw the emblem that waved in triumph there during the battle lowered over Meade's Headquarters. Feeling the need of more exercise and being somewhat rested, Will suggested that they go to Spangler's spring. Harry con-sented and soon they were descending the eastern slope of the ridge, shut off from the rays of the waning sun but enjoying the cool, invigorating breeze. As they proceeded Harry broke the silence. '' Will," said he, "the inscription on yonder stone fills me with sadness whenever I look at it, or even think of it; it seems too bad that the state of Maryland should have to make the distinction." They stopped and looked at the stone; its peculiar shape had attracted their attention before, but on no previous occasion had the inscription struck Will so forcibly, if, indeed, he had ever thought of it at all. Now he read aloud, '' Maryland's Tribute To Her Loyal Sons." THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 87 I Having passed a few comments on the great evil of holding human souls in subjugation, and on the great misfortune that it was started in this "Land of the Free," they walked leisurely on, little dreaming that at the end of their journey their attention should be called to the same inscription on another monument. As they proceeded they commented on the artistic design, the classic figure, the coat of arms, the corps badge, or whatever was particularly attractive about the several monuments along the avenue. Soon they arrived at the spring where they beheld a man sit-ting at the trunk of a large tree near by. As they advanced, the gentleman raised his head from a posture of meditation and said, "Good evening, young gentlemen." The boys returned the sal-utation, observing at the same time that his eyes were full of tears. He presented the general appearance of sadness. Will, extending a glass of water, addressed him, "Do you care for any?" "Thank you," said he, as he rose to his feet and took the glass in his large but pale hand. He was tall and well proportioned, though his face was some-what wrinkled and his hair and beard were gray with advancing years. The thirst of all having been satisfied, the stranger asked, "Are you students at Gettysburg?" Simultaneonsly they replied, "We are." "I assumed as much," said the gentleman, "for my long expe-rience and association with young men has led me to think I can tell students when I see them." "Then you are a teacher, I infer," said Harry. "Yes, I have taught in a North Carolina College since'68;" he replied, and continued, "I find delight in dealing with young men, I enjoy seeing the mental unfolding and the development of man-hood and character, but I shudder when I think of the possible course of each—excuse me, joung gentlemen, I do not wish to— I forget myself sometimes." Here the gentleman was filled with emotion by some thought that we were curious to know because of its effect upon him. While he thus struggled with some inward force there was a profound silence. The shades of night had already begun to settle, and through the leaf-latticed windows of the sheltering foliage we 88 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. could see scattered stars. The pale moon was also visible, for the sky had cleared and was without a cloud. The song of the whip-poorwill, mingled with the chirp of crickets and the croaking of frogs made it all the more dismal. As the boys looked upon the struggling man, many thoughts came to their minds, and finally Harry said, "My dear sir, you need not hesitate to point out to us anything that you, with your broad experience, have found detrimental." "Your observation may save us much trouble," added Will. "My story, boys, is the burden of my own heart; and this is, in many respects, the most impressive spot in the world to me. On yonder monument is an inscription that tells the sad story. '' My father owned a few slaves in southern Maryland at the break-ing out of the Civil War, and naturally, he favored the South. My mother, a Northern lady by birth, was opposed to slavery and had long plead with father to free those he then owned. This he would not do. She constantly prayed that her sons would not take up arms against their Nation's flag and fight for a 'curse' to humanity. Her only children, Charles and myself, had frequently during family worship, heard her offer this petition: in fact, we had promised that we would not do so. ' 'To avoid being pressed into the service both of us left home to visit mother's parents in Massachusetts. Before leaving, while on our knees, our mother asked God to give us strength to carry out our purpose. Both of us had graduated at Harvard, my brother in the class of '58 and I in in the class of '59. Charles responded to the President's call for troops and, by request, was assigned to a Maryland regiment. A few days after he left, I received a letter from a former associate of mine stating that I could have a Captain's commission in the Confederate army if I would ac-cept it. At first I spurned the idea, but I could not drive it from my mind. Later, I begati to consider that during the disturbance I could not engage in business, that father's property might be con-fiscated or destroyed, and I would be penniless in the world. These thoughts I could stifle, but when I would picture to myself the officer drawing big pay, and above all wearing epaulets, and holding a commission, I could not resist. I went south and joined the Confederate army ! O, why did I do it! I had gone through the great University and withstood all THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 89 temptations : I had abstained from the use of liquor in all forms ; I had done all my work honestly; in short, I had led a practically pure life throughout my college course, and now could not con-quer my desire for vain glory and aggrandizement! I had forgot-ten my mother's prayers and my promise to her. I was deaf, dumb ! I loved the 'Stars and Bars,' because under that emblem I received my honor. O delusive phantom !'' Here he sobbed as a child. Presently he continued,' 'The war progressed; my brother and I both fought here ; I as a captain un-der an unjust flag, a rebellious emblem; he as a private, under the Stars and Stripes of Liberty. He fell here on that fatal day of July '63; I retreated with the army to Virginia, not knowing that, had I listened during the night I might have heard him in his death agony ! He died a hero and a patriot; I lived a rebel. Yonder inscription, 'Maryland's Tribute To Her Loyal Sons,' in-cludes him, but oh! it condemns me ! Mother died during the war and father, a Confederate Colonel, was killed at Antietam. I alone remain, and I often wish I too had fallen on the field of bat-tle in the height of that vain glory and enshrouded in that uniform —wearing those gilded epaulets, that allured me from the path of duty and right. Young men, I came to a realization of my mis-take too late, but I endeavor by my experience to lead others to see the folly of worldly praise." During the recital of these events, their companion spoke with an impressive earnestness. At the conclusion they walked to town together. He gave them his card in exchange, and they left him at his hotel. Deep and lasting was the impression made by this sad story on the students ; so deep and permanent was it that after fifteen years, they refer to it as if it were lately heard. The impression made entered into and influenced the lives of the boys, and the good results are now visible in their ministry. The new-born May, As cradled yet in April's lap she lay. Born in yon blaze of orient sky, Sweet May ! thy radiant form unfold, Unclose thy blue voluptuous eye, And wave thy shadowy locks of gold. ■—Erasmus Darwin. go THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. AMERICA IN THE 20TH CENTURY. THE history of the world is the sum of the histories of nations. Some have come into being, and like the mist of an early summer's morning, have passed into utter obli-vion ; others into comparative insignificance, yet each working out its own destiny. The story is one; the nations are but chap-ters. The story of the world is the story of a progress which had its beginnings, its marvelous advancement, but which has not yet attained its end. Each century is not only the heir of the past, but the past repeated in an ever enlarging horizon. The nineteenth century has gathered up into itself all that was of permanent value in the eras that have gone ; but is at the same time only the last expression of an impulse that has been strengthening from the beginning. At the dawn of the twentieth century we look out upon a new era in which not might but love shall be the dominant principle. The early stage of humanity made warfare and strife a neces-sary characteristic of the race. The survival of the fittest seemed to be the ruling spirit. But with the evolution of society the pre-texts of war have changed. The stream of history which had its origin on the coasts of the Mediteranean and is fast reaching the remotest parts of the earth, reveals human warfare in an entirely different light. It is the struggle of civilization against the modes of barbarity, each chapter describing its own influence upon society. May we not believe that the brightest chapter of the world's history is the history of America. Our political family is a pecu-liar one. Its citizens are representatives of almost every nation of the world. Men of different languages, manners and aptitudes are here thrown together, the result of which must be a new man. As the florist crosses and recrosses the various species of the lower order until there is developed a new plant of surpassing growth and beauty, so this silent yet continuous process of mixing is de-veloping in the American people a new race which promises to be the greatest factor of the 20th century civilization. I can not conceive that our government is only a fanciful creation of the mind, which like a bubble, floats gently and majestically on the placid bosom of the stream of history only at last to be seized by the swiftness of the tide and hurled against the rock of destruc- THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 91 tion. Rather is it the beginning of a realization of the Utopian dreams of the ancient philosophers. We are accustomed to censure the nations of Europe at whose hands our fathers were driven forth to the wilds of America, but we must not forget that such persecution was neces-sary to the ethical evolution of the race. Character can be formed only under freedom from political coercion. Such freedom was guaranteed by the constitution which united the American colo-nists into a great government '' of the people, by the people and for the people." The flower of character is love, which is only another name for altruism, the impulse which makes a man seek for his highest happiness in the welfare of another. And it is with a view to this altruistic spirit that we look for the future greatness and integrity of our land. Do you ask what we have done to merit such high claim. Is it nothing, then, that from the beginning of our existence as a government we have afforded a refuge for the oppressed and wretched of all lands ? Is it nothing that we have sent of our substance to the starving and distressed of far off India, China, and Africa? Is the justice and humanity which we have ex-hibited in our warfares only the passing dreams of a sleeping na-tion ? What was it that caused us to permit those who in our late Civil War wantonly caused the death of so many thousands of their fellowmeu to live in safe obscurity beneath the shelter of a government they sought to overthrow? For shame to those, who in our late war with Spain, could use the revengeful battlecry, " Remember the Maine." This was not the spirit of the nation. I,ove! Eove! was its motto. The great powers of Europe boast of their twentieth century civilization, yet before their very thresholds they permit the per-petrations of atrocities that can be compared to those of the Mid-dle Ages only. Humanity and justice are sacrificed for selfish interests. Not so with America ! The cry of the oppressed for liberty rings across the sea, and like a flash the answer flies back, "In the name of Humanity receive thou it." In the name of Humanity we have taught the world that here the progress of civilization has reached that stage of development where it can no longer permit the rude barbarism of the past ages, but will hurl itself before the iron tread of the oppressors, and having smit-tem them to the earth will yet look upon them with compassion, 92 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. and in the face of a glorious victory utter the tender admonition : " Boys, don't cheer, the poor fellows are dying." What though the arts have reared few monuments among us, and scarce the trace of the muse's footstep is found in the path of our forest, or along the banks of our rivers, yet our soil has been consecrated by the blood of heroes, and by great and holy deeds of peace. This the Goddess of Liberty is proclaiming to the very isles of the seas. A government standing on such principles can rightly claim the favor of the God of nations ! There are those who look with apprehension upon the newly proposed policy of the United States. They point us to Greece, whose very hills resounded under the eloquence of a Demos-thenes, to Rome who held the nations of the world spell-bound un-der her material powers. Yet, say they, to-day there is no Greece ; there is no Rome. It is not alone art and philosophy, nor politics and jurisprudence that form the safeguard of a nation. These are only the pharaphenalia of Government. Its true splendor is em-bodied in its ethical character, the ideals which it seeks to realize. It is this which has placed America on its proud eminence. It is this which at the end of the nineteenth century, we offer as our tribute to the new era upon which we are about to enter. Because America is the incarnation of this altruistic impulse, her integrity and stability are assured, and in the coming century she will direct the world's progress toward that far off period to which the human mind looks for the fulfillment of its vision of a perfect social state. —T. J. R., '99. WAGES OF MASSACHUSETTS AND PENNSYLVANIA. IT is surprising to note how that a state so heavily handicapped in the race for prosperity as Massachusetts is, may by good management and good political economy be placed in that en-viable position of being as is claimed, the state that pays its labor-ers the highest wages in the Union. Think of the various difficulties that she has to grapple with. She is compelled to bring all her raw materials, food and fuel vast distances, thus adding greatly to the cost of production, and hence necessarily subtracting from the wages; yet, notwithstand-ing these drawbacks, she stands at the head in the amount of wages paid to laborers. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 93 Of course we must take into consideration the fact that the laborers of Massachusetts are of a comparatively high state of in-tellectual capability, and are as Walker says, "so gifted with mechanical insight and aptitude as to acquire the rudiments of any art in an astonishingly short time," thus by their very con-stitution helping in the race for prosperity. In the case of Pennsylvania, we have a state directly opposite to Massachusetts in many respects. She is not compelled to haul her raw materials, food, fuel, any great distances, for her soil amply supplies the wants of the people. To gain an adequate idea of how the two states compare in the wages paid to laborers, it is pertinent to give some data for the average individual wages of various occupations. The average number of laborers em-ployed in the particular industry and the average amount of wages paid per man per annum are given: ♦INDUSTRIES. Agricultural implements Baskets, rattan and willow ware Blacksmithiug and wheelwrighting Book-binding Man. boots and shoes Boxes, fancy and paper Bread and other bakery products Brick and tile Carpentering* Cotton goods, + Cutlery Foundry, machine and chop products- Hosiery and knit goods Iron and steel Masonry Painting and paper hanging Plumbing and gas-fitting Printing of newspapers Silk and silk goods Tobacco, cigars and Cigarettes S S 2 a d p.- a a & w 787 932 3,257 1,829 69,934 2,710 4,479 3,261 17,092 76,213 1,784 25,027 4,675 1,604 10,384 6,145 4,532 5,996 3,216 2,835 1,895 172 4,773 1,962 7,952 2,503 6,915 1,361 12,727 12,960 1,047 40,635 15,941 86,437 13,854 6,558 4,205 10,658 9,522 18,969 t»a o $570.17 $474.16 $96.01 387.07 422.56 641.29 507.76 133.53 445.67 440.65 5.02 499.75 421.20 78.55 354.94 279.60 76.34 553.96 495.06 58.90 334.39 342.67 707.29 683 51 23.78 344.16 369.29 509 53 484.61 24.92 619.04 592.29 26.75 319.84 296.89 22.95 491.31 563.13 701.75 665.85 35.94 667.33 660.06 7.27 665.73 642.22 23.51 691.19 616.21 74.98 403.10 313.09 90.01 517.63 341.19 176.44 0 K'n 135.49 8.28 25.13 71.82 * Statistics from 11th commercial census. X The difference may be accounted for by the fact that Massachusetts employs six women to one man. The Massachusetts data are obtained from the average reports of 26,923 industries, those of Pennsylvania from the averaged re-ports of 39,339 industries. In Massachusetts the average number of people employed is 485,182 receiving $239,670,509 in wages;in Pennsylvania the average number employed is 620,562 receiving $305,590,003 as wages. The average amount of wages paid a Massachusetts laborer is $494 per annum; average amount paid a Pennsylvania laborer is $492.44 per annum. 94 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. I say we wonder how it is that Massachusetts, destitute of agreeable climate, of navigable rivers and lakes, of iron and copper, silver and gold, cotton, wool and other raw materials, of coal, oil, wood and other fuels, wheat and corn, cattle, rice, sugar, fruit and other foods,—is able to pay more to her laborers than is Pennsylvania, which is admirably situated, plentifully supplied with the necessaries of life, with fuel and metals. How is it that Massachusetts being compelled to transport com-paratively all of her raw material can pay these wages ? Let us take a look at the people, at their qualities, and I think we can read our answer there. The people are intelligent, therefore are able to work to their best interests; are, because of their intelligence, capable after a short apprenticeship able to manipulate the most intricate machin-ery ; they are not strongly attached to any given community, but are ready to move about if their best interests call for it; are alert, aggressive, inquisitive, all of which qualities are essential to a la-borer in order that he may get what is properly his. The people of Massachusetts coming the nearer to having these qualities from the theoretical standpoint, obtain the larger wages, as must inevita-bly follow. Seeing now that the Massachusetts laborer obtains the more wages, it is pertinent for us to inquire whether the wage earner of Massachusetts has so much more left over from his earnings after his expenses have been paid than has the laborer of Pennsyl-vania. As has already been mentioned Massachusetts has prac-tically no raw materials, no fuel and no food. She is compelled to bring her raw materials, food and fuel vast distances, and it is undoubtedly true that this necessity of her's to transport her supplies, increases the prices of the things greatly. On the other hand Pennsylvania produces, within her own boundaries, all the raw materials that she needs, hence the retail price of goods is less than in Massachusetts. It is an acknowledged fact that the cost of living is higher in Massachusetts than in Pennsylvania. And since the average wages of the two states differ but by $1.56 in favor of Massachu-setts, we are justified in concluding without further demonstration, that the difference in the wages is not as great as supposed, and that the balance is in favor of Pennsylvania. —H. C. R. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 95 MORAL GROWTH IN COLLEGE. TO those who have had the privilege of spending four years at college the affirmation of "moral growth in college" may-seem somewhat inconsistent with what they experienced. In regard to the individual, as a rule, the opposite is noticeable. We have seen young men, who came from Christian homes and were known to have been active in Christian work before entering college, from the beginning of their course, begin to decline mor-ally and ere long behaving in a manner unbecoming to any pro-fessed follower of the Master. The reason why it is so easy for students to become careless during their college course is obvious. Students in general live in a little world of their own. Many of them are completely iso-lated from society and all are free from the responsibilities of ac-tive life. Those with whom they come in contact, are young, hopeful, and vivacious. The jests and laughter of merry com-panions oftentimes cause them to forget the wise counsel of loving parents and drowns the sound of the still small voice." Other things being equal, our college days ought to be happy days in our life's history. We know, however, that many by forming a wrong conception of what their college days are for and by not heeding the obligations and responsibilities that are in-volved upon them as students, have turned the joy into sorrow, the blessing into a curse, and blighted the hopes of those who loved them best. The failures, that are made in college, are generally due to bad influences that are brought to bear upon students on entering col-lege. Some are very susceptible to the evils that are usually lurking around college and they become contaminated imme-diately. It is very seldom, if ever, that a student, who entered college without conditions, is dismissed for not being able to keep up with his class. If a student has been sick, he is treated very leniently by the professors, and when it is hard for a student to grasp his studies, if his instructors know that he is an honest, hard-working student, he is generally marked so that he can get along with the class; when a student has been expelled, it is quite likely that he has been careless and mischievous and al-though, at times, it may seem hard to do it, still in the end it may be best, for all concerned, that such severe measures are 96 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. taken. There is an evil idea that is prevalent in college: the notion that one is not held accountable for what he does morally. Students have been guilty of doing things, that outside of college, would have branded them as criminals. When we consider the matter thoughtfully we can readily see how misleading that feel-ing is. The fact, that what we do during that period is going to influence our future usefulness, ought to weigh heavily with us ; besides we owe it to our friends, to society, and to God, to make the most out of our opportunities and to remember that it is not only a preparation for life but that it is an important part of our lives. Among the different agencies, in college, that are intended to develop the moral side of the student, that of the Young Men's Christian Association is without doubt the one most potent in either preventing him from neglecting his Christian duties, or if he is not a Christian in leading him to accept his Master. The organization stands for all that is noblest and best in elevating the lives of the students to a higher plane of Christian manhood, and judging by the marked success with which it is meeting, it is deserving of the encouragement and prayers of all interested in higher education. For the benefit of the alumni and others who may be inter-ested but unacquainted with the work of the Y. M. C. A. in our own college, we can truthfully say that it is flourishing at pres-ent and the spiritual condition of the institution is considered to be at a high standard. The society has enthusiastic officers and leaders in the different departments of the work, who, we feel sure, will carry on the work very efficiently during the coming year. The improvement, in the moral condition of the college dur-ing the last few years, is recognized by all the older students of the institution, who are interested along the line we have been indicating. There are more students in college to-day with the idea, that to have a good time during their college days does not consist in disobeying divine and college laws, which would be likely to bring them into trouble and disgrace, but that there are innocent enjoyments to participate in, the validity of which is not questionable. Since we have been engaged in writing this article, it has given us pleasure to see the enthusiasm of those taking part in the THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 97 different college sports and manifesting what we consider to be true college spirit. The track team men are practicing hard and a good showing for the team can be expected. The baseball team is doing fairly well this spring and gives promise to be an honor to the college. The musical talent of the college has been gath-ering in front of the dormitory during the beautiful spring even-ings and the campus has rung with songs and merry laughter. If you were to have the pleasure of witnessing these scenes, it is not likely that you would have your ears insulted by bad language. We do not wish to create a false impression and have you think that profanity is obsolete around the college, for it is not; but we do not mean to intimate that it is not encouraged but rather is looked upon as detracting from the popularity of those who are guilty of it. We believe that all who are interested in the col-lege will agree with us that its moral condition is very essential, and our desire is that it may have its proper place in college in-terest. Alumni when inquiring about the college affairs ought to remember it, for perhaps the fulfillment of many of your hopes that are centered here is conditioned on the moral influence of the institution. Shall we not encourage and pray for all the agencies that are helpful in promoting it ? c*p The daisies peep from ev'ry field, And vi'lets sweet their odor yield'; The purple blossom paints the thorn, And streams reflect the blush of morn. —Peter Pindar. Among' the changing- months, May stands confessed The sweetest, and in fairest colors dressed. —Thomson. 98 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. A BICYCLE EPISODE. ALBERT LATIMER was a young man from a small town of Pennsylvania, who came to college when seventeen years old. Albert's father though not wealthy, was able to send his son to college with a modest allowance for pleasure and comfort. But when Albert left home his father said among other parental advices, " Now Albert be careful of your money, don't spend it foolishly." And I think his words were heeded. Young Latimer was a youth of ordinary ability, he had very good chances of making a scholar of himself, for he was ambi-tious. He had a strong, healthy body, a little above the average build and weight, and, as he grew older, he thought he would de-velop and perhaps become guard or tackle on the "Varsity" eleven. He had other ambitious, however, besides football. He was a plodder and hoped to become a professor upon receiving his degree. His intention was to make the most of his time and this he did. About a week after entering college, when he was comfort-ably settled in his college quarters, he began taking little trips over the battle-field, after his studies for the day were done, visiting some special point of interest each evening. He was delighted with the wheeling the excellent avenues afforded. Ever since he began the study of History in the public schools Abert always had admired "The Battle of Gettysburg" and that was one of the topics he always had "learned by heart." He had heard and read about Devil's Den, Little Round Top, the Peach Orchard, Valley of Death, the High Water Mark, Bloody Angle, and Culp's Hill. Now since he attended a college situated on this great field, he had an excellent opportunity of seeing and learning all about these places, and in less than a week he might have conducted a party of tourists over the field, lecturing as fluently and eloquently as any of the famous battle-field guides. One evening in September he took his wheel and started for Culp's Hill. It was at this place that some of the most bloody fighting occurred. Culp's Hill lies South of the town, and from a distance you can see an observatory on the summit. Numerous monuments mark the positions of the different divi-sions of troops. The earthworks are still noticeable. On the top of the hill stands a small monument that is pointed out to every THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 99 visitor because it is the only confederate monument on the field. Spangler's spring is at the base of the hill on the opposite side from which you approach. It was at this spring and over this hill that I ©utfite Complete Catalogue Spring and Summer Sports Free. The Name the Guar-antee." a. ©. Spalftlng 8. JBros. New York .\ Philadelphia •.• Chicago ROWE, .Your Grocer. Carries Full Line of Groceries, Canned Goods, Etc, Best Coal Oil and Brooms at most Reasonable Prices. OPPOSITE COLLEGE CAMPUS. S. J. CODORI, Jr. *M Druggist** Dealer in Drugs, Medicines, Toilet Articles, ^ Stationery, Blank Books, Amateur Pho-tographic Supplies, Etc., Etc. .Baltimore Street. R. H. Gulp, PAPER HANGER, Second Square, York St. COLLEGE EMBLEMS. EMIL ZOTHE, ENGRAVER, DESIGNER AND MANUFACTURING JEWELER. 19 S. NINTH ST., PHILADELPHIA, PA. SPECIALTIES: Masonic Marks, Society Badges, College Buttons, Pins, Scarf Pins, Stick Pins and Athletic Prizes. All Goods ordered through . H.Tilp. Gotrell Leonard! 472-474 Broadway, Albany, N. Y. makers of CAPS, GOWNS and. HOODS To the leading American Colleges. Illus-trated Manual, etc., upon application. Meneely Bell Co. TROY, N. Y. MANUFACTURERS OF SUPERIOR BELLS The 2000 pound bell now ringing in the tower of Pennsylvania Col-lege was manufactured at this foundry. PATRONIZE OUR ADVERTISERS. You can't expect to create the im-pression that yon are well dressed unless your clothes are MADE FOR YOU. Equivocate as you may, the fact remains that ready-made garments lack that air of exclusiveness which custom work possesses. J. D. LIPPY, Merchant Tailor 39 Chambersburg- St., Gettysburg-, Pa. G. E. SPANGLER, j» Dealer in Pianos, Organs, Music, Musical Instruments, Strings, Etc. YORK STREET, 1ST SQUARE. GETTYSBURG. L. D. Miller, Grocer, Confectioner and Fruiterer. Ice Cream and Oysters in Season . . . \9 Zrtairt St., Gettysburg. City Hotel, Main St. Gettysburg. J* Free 'Bus to and from all Trains Thirty seconds' walk from either depot Dinner with drive over field with four or more, $1.35 Rates $1.50 to $2.00 per day. John E. Hughes, Prop. 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Issue 15.5 of the Review for Religious, 1956. ; Our New Business , ddress When we were preparing to publish the REVIEW, we arranged to have the College Press, in Topeka, do the printing and distribut-ing. For fifteen years the editors and the College Press have worked together in the closest h.armony. We have literally shared both heart'- 'aches and °joys. The heartaches were',mostly brought about by the difficulties of the war years: for example, as we published each num-ber we wondered how we would get enough paper for printing the next. The jo~,s consiste,d, am6ng other things, in getting the REVIEW out regularly and on time, despite the difficulties, and in the realiza-tion that this new apostolate for religious seemed to be appreciated. Please send all renewals and new subscriptions to REVIEW FOR REL~IGIOUS 3115 South Grand Boulevard St. Louis 18, Missouri This is our new business address During all these fifteen years, Mr. 3. W. O,rr, owner of the Col-lege Press, and his assistants, have given the REVIEW the best they had: and that was very good, indeed. But the time has come when we must make new publishing arrangements. The reason for this is purely an "act of God," as far as both the editors and the College Press are concerned. There has been no break in the harmony that has always characterized our collaboration. Fortunately for us, the publishing department of the Queen's Work has agreed to take over the publication of the REVIEW. Be-ginning with the next volume, the REVIEW will be printed and dis-tributed by the Queen's Work. Obviously, the new publishers can-not wait till the last deadline to begin making addresses and keeping records. For this reason, please note the announcement in the c~nter of this page and follow it exactly. The editors are deeply grateful to the College Press for past col-. laboration and to the Queen'~ Work for taking over the burden. 225 I=xclaus!:rat:ion and Seculariza!:ion Joseph F.°Gallen, S.J. I. EXCLAUSTRATION , 1. Definition. Aft indult of exclaustration is the permission to remain temporarily outside one's religious institute apart from obedi-ence, dependence, and vigilance of religious superiors either for a determined period of time or for the duration of the reason for which the indult was granted. The religious requests the indult and is not obliged to use it afterit has been granted. The petition is made throu~gh religious, superiors. Canon law does not demand the con-sent of superiors, but it is the practice of the Holy See to grant no indult to religious without having considered the opinion of superiors nor generally without their consent. It is difficult to obtain an in-dult of exclaustration from the Holy See when superiors are opposed. The Holy See d~cides whether the opposition of superiors is unreas-onable or unjust.1 The petition therefore should be accompanied by the opinion of the superior general, substantiated by pertinent reasons and facts, as to whether the indult should be granted. Local ordin-aries follow the same practice in granting indults of exclaustration to members of diocesan congregations. Exclaustration differs from a me/e absence outside any house of one's institute (c. 606, § 2), es-sentially because in a simple absence the religious remains subject to the obedience and vigilance of superiors. Authors commonly assert that the Holy See does not grant an in-dult of exclaustration to priests unless the petition'is accompanied by the attestation of a local ordinary that he will permit the priest to reside in his diocese during the exclaustration and at least to say Mass. ~ 2. Competent authority forexclaustration and secularization (c. 638). The competent authority is,the same for both exclaus-tration and secularization. In pontifical institutes~ whether orders or congregations', only the Holy See can grant such an indult. Either the Holy See or the local ordinary is competent for members of dio-cesan congregations, but in practice the indult is obtained from the latter. The competent local ordinary is the ordinary of the place where the religious is staying. The ordinary of the mother house is 1. Goyeneche, Quaestiones Canonicae, II, 124-25 2. Schaefer, De Religiosis, n. 1536, 5. 226 EXCLAUSTRATION AND SECULA.RIZATION competent only for religious staying within his diocese, not for those staying in. other dioceses.3 The competent ordinary therefore is the ordinary of the domicile or quasi-domicile of the religious, even if the latter is Outside either diocese at the time the indult is granted. A religious has a domicile in the diocese of the house to which he is assigned, a quasi-domicile in a diocese where he has licitly resided for the greater part of a year or has been or.dered to reside for the greater part of a year. The ordinary of the licit actual and real resi-' dence of a religious is also competent as long as such residence con-tinues and'the religious is within his diocese, i. e., of a diocese in which the religious has licitly resided for a week or at-, least for several days, since a place where one is staying is not confined in canon law to a domicile or quasi-domicile,4 An ordinary is probably competent with regard to any diocesan religious who is .actually licitly in his diocese at the moment the indult is granted, even if only momentarily and without any regard to the length of the stay, since this also is at least probably a canonical meaning of the place where one is staying.6 The apostolic delegate, possesses the following faculty for nuns: "To allow nuns in case of sickness or for other just and grave rea- ~sons to live outside the religious house for a time to be fixed at his prudent discretion, on condition, however, that they shal~ always have the association and assistance of their relatives by blood or mar-riage or of some other, respectable~woman, that they shall live at home and elsewhere a religious life free 'from the society of men, becomes virgins consecrated to God, and without prejudice to the prescription of canon 639.''~ 3. Sufficient reasons for exclaustration (c. 639). Since common life and subjection to superiors are highly essential elements of the religious state, serious and exceptional reasons are required for the granting of this indult. Those commonly given are a business un-dertaking, care of personal health, and care or support of one's par-ents when these things cannot be accomplished b~ a simple absence from the institute according to ~; 606, § 2~ Other reasons of equal or greater import will suffice. 4. Effects of an indult of exclaustration (c. 639). The effects 3. Code Comm., July 24, 1939; Bouscaren, Canon Law Di~est. II, 173. 4. CL'cc. 94, §§ 2-3; 162, § 1; 620: 1023, § 3; 1039, § 1: 1097, § 1, ~.2": 1563: 1787, § 1; 2385. 5. Cf. c. 94, §§ 2-3: Regatillo, lnterpretatio et lurisprudentia Codicis luris Canonici, 244-45: Michiels, Principia Generalia de Personis in Ecclesia, 210- 11 : 119: Normae Generales luris Canonici, II, 729-36. 6. Bouscaren, op. cir., I, 184; Vermeersch, Periodica, 12 (1924), 145-46. 227 JosEp~-I F. GRLLEN Reoieto for Religious are always the same, whether the indult is granted by the Holy See or a local ordinary. The latter cannot determine the effects of an indult granted by himself, since these are determined by c. 639. The exclaustrated religious remains a religious and a member of hi~ in-stitute. Therefore, he is free of no obligations and loses no rights except those expressly stated in law. The obligation of the vows continues during exclaustration. The obligation of chastity remains undhanged. Instead of being subject to the superiors of his institute, the exclaustrated religious is now subject, also in virtue of the vow of obedience, to the ordinary of the dibcese in which he is staying. The cession of the admihistration, disposition of the use and usufruct, and will that he had made in religion all remain in effect. Exclaus-tration does not change the norms for acquiring property, and the religious acquires property for the institute and for himself in the same way that he would if he were not exclaustrated. He is given implicit permission by the indult itself to acquire, administer, and use temporal goods insofar as these are necessary for his becoming sustenance and the purpose of the indult, e. g., the support of parents. He is obliged to avoid all superfluous expenses. The institute has no obligation from justice to support an exclaustrated religious but shbuld do so from charity insofar as he is hnable to support himself.7 The exclaustrated religious is held to all other obligations, i. e., the laws of the code on religious, the obligations of the Rule, con-stitutions, customs,, ordinances, and regulations of his institute in-sofar as these are compatible with his present state. He is therefore not held to incompatible obligations, which in general are those that depend on common life, e. g., silence, attendance at common exer-cises, inspection of correspondence. Compatible obligations, to which he is held, are, e. g., mental prayer, private recitation of the office, hearing of Mass, ~requenting the sacrament of penance, recitation of the rosary, examen of conscience, other prayers that can be said pri-vately, fast, and abstinence. He must put off the religious habit but may continue to wear any undergarments that appertain to the habit and the small habit, called the scapular, worn under the clothing by the tertiaries of some religious orders. Exclaustrated priests and clerics wear the dress of the diocesan clergy. For special reasons the local ordinary may permit an exclaustrated religious of a diocesan 7. Cf. Guti~rrez, Commentarlum Pro Religiosis, 36 (1955), 375; Schaefer, op. cit., n. 1535; Goyeneche, De Relioiosis, 196, note 19; Coronata, lnstitutiones luris Canonici, I, 840, note 4; Chdodi-Ciprotti, lus Canot~icura de Personis, n. 286; Berutti, De Religiosis, 327. 228 Seprernber, 1956 EXCLAUSTRATION ,AND SECULARIZATION congegation to wear the habit,s The Holy See, of course, may grant the same permission to a religious of a pontifical or diocesan insti-tute. The Holy See grants this permission when no scandal will ens,ue and provided the superior of the institute approves the request, espe-cially when the reason for the exclaustration is not caused by the re-ligious himself.9 During exclaustration the religious possesses neither active nor passive voice. He retains the merely spiritual privileges of his institute, e. g., indulgences. He follows the calendar and rite of his {nstitute in the recitation of the office and the same rite in saying Mass. He retains the privileged confessional faculties of his institute as also those of blessing objects. Heo is not deprived, of suffrages if he should die during exclaus~ration, since no law of the code divests him of this right acquired by profession.19 5, Return to the institute. Whe~i the definite time for which the indult was granted has expired or the reason for which it was given has ceased, the religious is ~o return without delay to his institute, unless an extension of the indult has been obtained from the'com-petent authority. The religious has the rights, to ret'urn before the expiration of the indult, and the institute is Obliged to receive him back. For just reasons his ,religious superiors may also recall him to the institute before the expiration of the indult. 6. Imposed exclaustration. A new form of exclaustration, not contained in the code, has been introduced in the recent practice of the Holy See. It is usually granted on the petition of superiors, whether the subject consents, .is opposed, or indifferent. The essen-tial characteristic of, this exclaustration is that it is imposed, is of obligation, is a precept of dwelling outside the institute. The rea-son is f.requently the good of the community, i. e., the conduct of the religious is a source of serious harm to the institute. Often the good of the subject also is intended, i. e., for his own good' the re-ligious sbould be e~claustrated. Typically specific cases are those of religious who are notably deficient in observance or obedience, who undermine and mi~chinate against government, and very difficult characters who do not merit dismissal but seriously disturb the p~ace of the community. These cases are stated to be of more frequent occurrence in institutes of women. Such reasons are often accom-panied by physical or mental maladies. The state of the religious in 8. Code Comm., Nov. 12, 1922; Bouscaren, op. cir., I, 326-27. 9. Larraona. Acta et Documenta Congressus lnternationalis 8uperiorissarum Gen-eraliurn, 265. 10. Creusen, Religious Men and Wom, en in the Codb, n. 334. 229 JOSEPH F. (3ALLEN Reolew for Religious imposed exclaustration is the same,as in 'the ordinary or voluntary exclaustration, but he may be placed under the vigilance of the local ordinary or his own religious superiors. The religious is obliged to work for his own support, but in this case the institute has a greater obligation i~n charity to support him insofar as he cannot do so him-self. Imposed exclaustration is not prescribed for any definite period of time, but it is not perpetual. It lasts as ldng as the.reasons and purpose persist in the judgment of the S. Congregation of Religious, and the rehg~ous may return and be receN:ed back into the institute only with the permission of the S. Congregation. A clerical religious in sacr,ed orders wh~ is to be exclaustrated in this manner may be received by a bishop but without any intention of future incardination. In this case the religious is in the same state as that of ordinary exclaustration. He is under the authority of the bishop, also in virtue of the vow of obedience, and he exercises the ministry under the authority of the bishop. Such a clerical religious may not have a bishop who is willing to receive him, but another ecclesiastical authority, e. g., a.religious superior of another institute, is willing to be answerable to the Holy See for at least his priest!y life. The religious is then permitted to say Mass in the religious or pious house under the responsibility of this superior. He remains under the authority~and vigilance of his own religious superiors. If ¯ neither a bishop nor other ecclesiastical authority is had, the Holy See does not ilnpose exclaustration on such a c]'erical religious except in a case of absolute necessity. If it is imposed, the exercise of any order or sacred ministry is fbrbidden; and the religious is under his own superiors with regard to his Christian, clerical, and religious life~n II. S~CULARIZATION 7. Definition and competent autboritO (cc. ,638, 640). Secu-larization is a departure from religion by which a subject is separ-ated completely and perpetually from all membership in his .institute and is freed completely and perpetually of all obligations and loses all rights that h~ve their source in religious profession. By seculari-zation the religious ceases to be a religious. Since secularization dis-penses from all the vows of religious profes~sion, even if solemn, i( is commonly called a dispensation from the vows of religion. The competent authority for an indult of secularization is the same as for exclaustration, as explained in n. 2. ~ 11. Guti~rrez, op. cit., 32 (1953), 336-39~; Larraona, op. cir., "266. 230 September, 1956. EXCLAUSTRATION AND SECULARIZATION 8. Sufficient reasons. Very serious' reasons~are required for secu-larization, and the ecclesiastical authority competent to grant the indult is the judge of their sufficiency. There must be a reason over and above the mere desire to'leave religion. The ir~dult is granted because of the motive of the request, not merely because it is requested. The most common reaso~ is that the religious finds the religious life morally impossible or too difficult, even if this state arises from culp-able causes that he will not correct, The difficulty may have its source °in the vow of chastity, obedience, or poverty, the common life, work, or general life of the institute. A reason insufficient in itself may become sufficient when the mental state of the religious that be will not correct is taken into account, e. g., if his desire to leave makes him useless or a source of harm i:o the institute. Other reasons of equal or greater import will suffice, ~. g., lack of suitability for the work of the institute, ill health, mental depression, necessary support of parent.s, and the case of those who are counselled to leave because otherwise the institute will initiate their dismissal. 9. Petition. The religious himself asks for the indult of seculari-zation, since it is a voluntary leaving of religion. He is to write out or at least sign his request, stating his name in religion and in the world, name of his institute, his present address, age, number of years in religion, of what vows he is professed and for how ,long, what orders he has received, that i~e requests an indult of seculariza-tion, all the reasons, and the date. The institute should retain a copy of this petition. The petition should be forwarded to the competent authority ordinarily through the superior general or at least through a higher superior. All the statements above (n. I) on the necessity of the consent of superiors for exclaustration apply here also. The higher superior should enclose a letter with the petition giving all in-formation pertinent to the case ;~nd his own opinion as to whether the religious should leave, substantiatin~ the latter with all reasons and facts that he may know. 10. Acceptance and refusal of indult. (a) Acceptance. When the indult of secularization is received, it should be communicated to the religious; and he should manifest his acceptance of it. "Any instruc-tions on the manner of acceptance contained in the indult are.to be followed. Otherwise, it is ,sufficient that the religious manifest his acceptance by any external s, ign that expresses acceptance. It is better for the acceptance to" be manifested in writing and before two wit-nesses. The following or a similar statement should be written or typed: "I attest that I today accepted, an .indult of secularization 231 JOSEPH 1~. GALEEN from the Order (Congregation)~ of N." The statement should con-tain mention of the place and date. It is to be signed by the recipient before the two witnesses, who are themselves to sign the acceptance as witnesses. The document is to be preserved in the files of the in-stitute. It would be well also for the higher superi'or, personally or through another, to give the secularized ex-religious a written and signed statement on the stationery of the institute to the effect that he had received and accepted an indult of secularization and .accordingly left religion free of all obligations of the religious life. The place-and date are to be mentioned also on this statement. (b) Acceptance and immediate repentance. An indult of seculari-zation produces all its effects immediately upon its acceptance, even if the former religious repents instantly and before leaving the house.12 (c) Refusal. Secularization, even though voluntarily petitioned, has no effect.until accepted; and the religious may refuse to accept the indult.13 If the institute, whether pontifical or diocesan, has serious reasons against the refusal these are to be proposed to the S. Congregation of Religious, which could oblige the religious to accept the [ndult or declare [hat the indult has its effect without ac-ceptance, thus making it equivalent to a form of dismissal.14 The formalities described above for an acceptance should also be followed for a refusal of the-indult. (d) Later useJof a refused indult. If the religious definitively fused the indult and later wishes to leave, a new indult must be pe-titioned. 'If, all things considered, 'the refusal was only doubtful, hesitant, not definitive, the indult is suspended and may be used later. If it is not accepted nor definitively refused within six months, the matter is to be referred tO the ecclesiastical authority that issued the indult.~ (e) Present practice of the Holt¢ See. Indults of secularization granted by the Holy See, for those who are not priests now contain the sentence: "This decree ceases to have any validity if hot'accepted by" the petitioner within ten days after being informed of the execu-torial decree." If within ten days: (1) the indult is expressly ac- 12. Cf.'Guti~trez, o/9. cir., 32 (1953), 194: Creusen, o/9. cit.,'n. 332, 3; Fan-fani, De lure Religiosocaro, n. 490. 13. S. C. of Religious, Aug. I, 1922; Bouscaren, ol9. dr., I, 326. 14. Ci:. Maroto, Commentari,,m Pro Religiosis, 4 (1923), 106. 15. Cf. Goyeneehe, Quaestiones Canonlcae, II, 126-27; Guti~rrez, o/9. cir., 32 (1953), 194-95: Jombart, Tcaitd de Dcoit Canonique, I, n. 907; Muzzarelli, Tractatus Canonicus de Congregationibas luris Dioecesani, 172: Jone, Cora-raeotarium in Codicem laris Canon.&[, I, 563; de Bonhome, Ret~ue des com-munautds Religieuses, 26 (1954), 47, 232 EXCLAUSTRATION AND SECULARIZATION cepted, it becomes effective immediately; (2) the indult is neither accepted nor definitively refused, it ceases'to have any validity at the end of this period;~ (3) the indult is definitively refused, all validity of the indult ceases on this definitive refusal. A new indult is to be petitioned if the religious repents of his refusal and wishes again to leave, even during the ten-d.ay period. The practice of the'.Holy See is not to grant the indult directly to'the religious but to commit to an intermediary person, e~ g.; the local ordinary, the granting of the indult to the religious. The actual granting of the indult by this intermediary is called the executorial decree. The ten days begin to run from the time the ~eligious is offi-cially notified of the executorial decree, not from the date of notifi-cation of the rescript of the Holy See. The day of notification, is not computed. If the notification is given on August 1, the ten days expire at midnight of August 11-12. This time does not run for any period in which the religious was ignorant of or unable to ex-ercise his right of acceptance and refusal.l~ 11. Effects of an inctult of secularization (c. 640). The effects are always the same, whether the indult is granted by the Holy See or ~a local ordinary~ The latter cannot determine the effects of an indult granted by himself, since these are determined by c. 640. One who has been secularized ceases simply and absolutely to be a r& ligious. He is in the same state as if he had never been a religious and° consequently has none.of the rights or obligations of a religious. Can. 640 specifie~ these effects by stating that he ceases to be a mem-ber of his institute; that he must put off the religious habit, as ex- ,plained in n. 4; that he is freed from all the vows of his religious p~ofession, even if solemn; that he is no longer bound by the con-stitutions nor by any particular law of his former institute nor by the obligation of .reciting the Divine Office in virtue of religious pro-fession; and that he loses a.ll rights and privileges of a religious. A secularized religious cleric in sacred orders is bound by tl~e obligation of clerical celibacy and chastity (c. 132, § I), of reciting tl'ie Divine Office (c. 135), and of wearing becoming ecclesiastical garb (c. 136, § 1). In the celebration of Mass, the recitation of the Divine Office, and the administration and reception of the sacraments, the secular-ized religious follows the rite and calendar of the diocesan clergy and laity, not any special rite or proper calendar of his former in-stitute. A secularized religious ma.y not. be admitted into any re-ligious institute without a dispensation from the Holy See, since he 16. Cf. Guti~rrez, ibid., 186-97; Larraona, op. cir., 266. 233 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review for Religious. is now bound by the invalidating impediment of c. 542, I°, of a previous religious profession. If he is again admitted,, he is not obliged to make another postulancy17 but must make another novice-ship, temporary profession, for the full time prescribed by, the, con-stitutions, and perpetual profession. His seniority is determined by the new profession. A dispensation may be requested for'a lessening of a noviceship of more than a year and also of the time of tem-porary profession. The questions specific to clerics in minor and sacred orders (c. 641) and the privations that affect the latter (c. 642) can be found in the ordinary canonical manuals. (a) Return o['tgroperty. The institute has no obligation to re-store to the secularized religious any property that he had given to the institute, e. "g., in the renunciation before solemn profession. However, it is the very common d6ctrine of authors that equity counsels the restoration of a part of such property, at least if it has not been expended,is The renunciation, ceases to have any validity with regard to property that will come to the former religious in the future. A professed of simple vows regains the administration, use, and usufruct of his personal property (cc. 569, § 1; 580, § 3). A few constitutions contain the provision that clothing and personal effects brought to the institute at entrance are to be restored in their current condition to a religious who leaves'or is dismissed after first profession. Such a provision is to be obeyed. The constitutions may contain the contrary provision that hll such objects, except those of sufficiently notable value, are implicitly renounced in favor of the institute at first profession. In the absence of any provision' of the constitutions or custom, the latter doctrine may at least probably be followed. The ihstitute cannot be expected to permit the religious to carry all such objects from house to house or be obliged to retain and store them. The entire capital sum of the dowry, ~but not the interest already derived from it, is to be restored to a.secularized re-ligious woman (c. 551, § 1)i It is forbidden to deduct anything from the dowry for ordinary or extraordinary expenses that the institute had to pay in favor of the religious, e. g., for her support as a postulant or novice, studies, or illne'ss. A secularized r~ligious may not seek compensation for services rendered to the institute at any 17. Cf. c. 640, § 2: Larraona, Commentacium Pro Relioiosis, 16 (1935), 223; done, ot9 clt., 565. 18. Cf. dombart, o19. cir., n. 908; Beste, lntroductio in Codicem, 436; Claeys Bouuaert-Simenon, Manuale duris Canonici, I,, n. 689; Bastien, Directoire Canonique, 440, note 3; Vermeerscfi-Creusen, Epitome luris Canot~ici, I, n. 801. '234 EXCLAUSTRATION AND, ~;ECUL!~RIZATION time from his entrance .(c. 643, § 1). 12. Charitable subsidy for religious wotner~ (c. 643, § 2). The charitable subsidy consists of suitable clothing, personal effects, and a sum of money sufficient to enable a religious woman to return home safely and becomingly and to provid~ her with the means of a re-spectable livelihood for a period of time to be determined by mutual consent or, in the case of disagreement, by the local ordinary. The subsidy need not be prolonged beyond the time required for finding employment suitable to the condition of the former religious. If she is quite old and infirm and without resources, she must agree to enter" into a'suitable institution intended for persons of that condi-tion. The help given by her former institute need never have the~ character of a pension for life.19 Constitutions of religious women most rarely determine whether it is the institute, province, or house that is to furnish the subsidy. The matter.is therefore determined by the 'usage of the particular institute. The subsidy is to be given when the religious was received with-out a dowry or with a dowry insufficient for the purpose2° and cannot p~ovide for herself sufficiently from her own property. In " these circurfistances therefore the institute is obliged to give either the full amount of the subsidy or, in the event that the religious has some property of her own and/or a dov~ry insufficient for the purpose, the added amount necessary to equal the full amount of the subsidy. The ~ubsjdy has to be given to any ~eligious woman who leaves at the end of temporary profession or is then excluded from renew-ing temporary or making j~erpetual profession (c. 643, § 2), who is secularized during temporary or perpetual profession. (c. 643; § 2), or is dismissed during either temporary or perpetual profession (cc. 643, § 2; 647, § 2, 5°; 652, § 3). The code does not mention the subsidy in c. 653, which treats of s.ending a religious back im-mediat. ely and provisionally to secular life, nor in c. 646, which lists the crimes that effect theipso facto dismissal of religious. How-ever, the general canon on the subsidy is 643, § 2, which is evidently closely joined with the firs~ paragraph of the same canon. The latter lists dismisged religious without any restriction. The subsidy should certainly be given in the first case. It seems that it should also be given in the second case. It is not likely that the reli~gious is deprived of the su, bsidy because of the greater culpability of these crimes. The 19. Creusen, op. cir. n. 338; .]'ombart, op. cir., n. 908. 20. S. C. of Religious, Mar. 2, 1924: Bouscaren,.op. cir., I, 300. 235 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review for Religious ordinary dismissal of a religious wbman of perpetual vows demands culpable reasons, yet the code certainly commands that the subsidy-be given to all religious women dismissed in the ordinary manner. The canonical obligation of giving the subsidy is confined to religious women. However, an institute of men will practically al-ways have to give a subject in the same circumstances suitable cloth-ing, personal effects, and a sum of money sufficient to enable him to retu, rn home safely and becomingly; and equity and charity may oblige the institute to assist him financially until he secures em-ployment. 21 13. Special exctaustration (exclaustratio qualit~cata) o1: priests. This is, equivalently .a temporary laicization and secularization. Lai-cization deprives the cleric of the licit use of the power of orders, of clerical offices, rights, and privileges, and frees him of all clerical obligations except that of clerical celibacy and chastity attached to sacred orders (c. 213). The effects of secularization have been de-scribed above. In special exclaustration clerical and religious rights and obligations are not removed but'suspended for the time of the indult. This form of exclaustration is new and was introduced in the practice of the Holy See in October, 1953. It is confined to priests and may be granted only by the Holy See. The indult is generally given only on the petition of the subject or at least with his con-sent. It is likewise temporary and is usually granted only for a brief time, e. g., one or two years. Special exclaustration is a tem-porary and provisional remedy and ordinarily presupposes, tempor-ary reasons that will probably cease by its use. Typical cases are those of a serious crisis of faith, of disgust or fear "of the religious and priestly life, serious da,nger of public scandal or of apostasy from the priesthood or from fai.th, some physical infirmities, serious psy-chic disorders caused by the persuasion of a fundamental lack of aptitude for the priestly and religious life, depressive and scrupulous states, obstinate abstention from the celebration of Mass and from the sacraments caused partially, by infirmity and scruples, invincible repugnance to the exercise of the priestly ministry, and a secretly sinful life with consequent psychic depression and the persuasion that the life of chastity is impossible. The Holy See is ac,utely con-scious of the various dangers of this form of exciaustration and pro-ceeds prudently and cautiously in granting the indult and acts only 21. Cf. Woywood-Smith, A Practical Commentary on the Code of Canon Law, I, 323; Coronata, op. cir., 845; Cappello, Summa luris Canonlci, II, n. 630; ¯Regatillo-Zalba, De Statibus Particularibus, n. 254. 236 September, 1956 EXCLAUSTRATION AND SECULARIZATION ¯ after having obtained complete information of the course of life of the petitioner. The priest continues to be a member of his institute, and this constitutes the essential similarity to ordinary exclaustration. The obligation of all the religious 'vows is suspended, but that of clerical celibacy and chastity attached to sacred o~rders remains. All other clerical and religious rights and Obligations are s,uspended, all clerical ministry is forbidden, and the priest is in the state of a lay person with regard to the reception of the sacraments. The indult places him under the special discipline and assistance of the local ordinary and of the institute that he may be charitably guided to upright and be-coming conduct and be aided in overcoming the crisis. He is obliged to put off the external form of the religious habit, as in ordinary exclaustration and secularization, and be ii also forbidden to wear ecclesiastical garb. He retains the merely spi'ritual privileges of his institute but does not have any of the other rights nor active and passive voice. During the time 'of the indult he acquires property for himself and may and should provide his own support. Before leaving religion he is to give the superior a declaration that he will provide his own support during the exclaustr~tion without any ob-ligation on the part of the institute. Cases can occur in which this declaration will not be prescribed, and the institute in charity should support the subject insofar as he cannot do so himself. Superiors may receive the subject back into the institute before the expiration of the indult~ but the clerical privations remain intact. until the Holy See has given its decision. On the expiration of the indult, the priest is obliged to return to his institute and recourse is to be made to the S. Congregation for a decision of the case. Su-periors, however, may use the faculty of c. 606, § 2, and permit him to live outside the institute for a brief time until the S. Congre-gation decides the matter. The indult can also cease on" its revoca-tion by the S. Congregation, either on the petition of the subject or for a serious reason on the initiative of the S. Congregation. The indult likewise ceases on the granting of perpetual laicization, by the penal infliction of such laicization, e. g., in the case of public scandal, or by a petition for secularizatior~ when the priest has found a bishop who is willing to receive him according to the norm of c. 641. All of the above on special exclaustration is a synopsis of Gutiirrez, Commentari~m Pro Religiosis, 36 (1955), 374-79. The matter i~ briefly described also in Sartori, durisprudev.tiae Ecclesiasticae Ele-menta, 3 ed., 60-61. ~ 237 Mo!:her Dolores Sister M. Teresita, S.H.F. The story of the foundress of the Sisters of the Holy Famil'y THE sudden rush of the ambitious gold seekers of 1848 gave Cali-~ | fornia, and San Francisco in particular, a cosmopolitan Char-acter. But abreast with the adventurers came new recruits in the missionary field seeking the finer gold of precious human souls. Ireland supplied a great many zealous young priests who-were ready to sacrifice home and country. They came to minister to the spiritual wants of her children who followed the lure of gold to the far-away shores of the Pacific. Foremost among the early students of All Hallows' Seminar~, in Dublin was John J. Prendergast. Born in Clogh~e, County Tip-perary, Ireland, in 1834; Father Prendergast was ordained for the Archdiocese of San Francisco on June 26, 1859. His great talents and fervent piety marked him out as an extraordinary student. He was offered a place on the faculty of All Hallows. As he was or- .dained for San Francisco, the authorities communicated with Arch- 'bishop Alemany. To make sure of the Archbishop's permission, two priests were offered in place of Father Prendergast. The de-" cision was left to the newly ordained. He refused the honor and set out for the distant country, chiefly known to the gold hunter, the specul~tor, and adventurer. He arrived in San Francisco when it was in the throes of civil, reli~lious~ educational, and social disor-ganization. In the exercise of the sacred ministry, Father Prendergast met the poor, the unfortunate, as well as the newly rich. He frequently walked the streets of the rapidly growing metropolis sprung out of the sand dunes, the city built,on the hills. His priestly heart ached for the many children he found who were totally ignora.nt of the truths of the faith of their forefathers. The sudden growth since the gold rush. of '49 had far outstripped municipal facilities. Mission Dolores was the parish to which Father Prendergast was assigned. It covered two-thirds of the present area of San Fran-cisco. In taking the census, this ardent son of Erin found many of the children of the poor living in frightful conditions. Many, whose mothers were obliged to go out to work for their living, were left alone all day. They were locked in their backyards with a half losf of bread and a bottle of milk to suktain them. Daily, Father 'lSrayed 238 MOTHER ~OLORES for a solution to the problem and begged God to send a suitable person to inaugurate a systematic campaign among the poor and neglected families of his parish. It was in the sun.rsplasbed gardens of historic Mission Dolores that Father Prendergast first met the high s~0irited, vivacious Eliza-beth Armer. Elizabeth had accompanied Mrs. Richard Tobin to arra, nge to have Masses said for departed relatives. She was standing there beside her" dark-eyed foster mother, the morning sun shining on her golden crown of auburn hair. She carned her fifteen years with girlish dignity. The warm, radiant personality manifested in one so young impressed Father Prendergast. Father felt that Elizabeth, though still a young girl, was just the one to begin his work. When he was later transferred to the Cathedral parish, he secured her services as a religion teacher for the children. She also assisted in cariflg for the altars. Eagerly he watched the unfolding of this beautiful flbwer in God's chosen gar-den. Rapidly plans for a much-needed institute developed in his own mind. Elizabeth Armer came to us out ~f Sidney, Australia. Little is known of her ancestry or early childhood. She was born on April 30, 1851. Soon after she arrived on our shores with her family, her mother died. Her father, Robert Amkr, remarried. It was the oft-repeated story of the step-dhild. Richard Tobin, a friend of Robert Ar~mer, coming home from the office one~da~, said, "Mary; I have a surprise for you. I've brought you a new daughter." Mr. Tobin told his wife that she was the child ofhis.old friend Robert Armer and added, with, deep faith, "Mary dear, God will provide." And God did. Elizabeth was enrolled in the classes at Presentation Convent. Here she spent her happy" school days under the supervision and in-struction of the good Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. That Elizabeth developed such a well-adjusted personality, spite her early misfortune, was due to the sympathetic understand-ing of her new parents. The comforts of their luxuriant home on exclusive Nob Hill did not distract Elizabeth from her love of God and souls. She often met little folks on ,thestreet. She would ,stop them to talk with them. This tall, beautiful girl would ask, "Do you love God? Do you say your prayers? . But we don't know any prayers, Miss," they would answer. "'Come to our house and I will'help 239 " SISTER M. TERESITA Review [or Religious you to learn to love God and to talk to" Him." Soon, Elizabeth had gathered quite a group of children around her to "learn about God." Her foster father remarked that their home was beginning to take on the appearance of a kindergarten. However, Mr. Tobin good naturedly tolerated the invasion. Mrs. Tobin often accompanied Elizabeth on her visits to the homes of the poor. In the institute of which she was destined to be foundress, these early characteristic traits, zeal for sQuls, love for the poor, were to be its distinguishing marks. Alleviation o.f both material, and spiritual poverty, .especially in families, was to be its special work. Soliciting funds from the wealthy to aid the less fortunate was to be the means, of extending help. 'They would seek out the children who needed religious instruction. They would lend a helping hand where needed, to preserve the family. This apostolic social work and social-minded apostolate are the_constant endeavors of her spiritual daughters, today. In spite of her active participation in the lay apostolate, Eliza-beth yearned for a complete dedication of her life to God, Her per-sonal love of the Saviob drew her with such force that Elizabeth thought that God was calling her to be a Carmelite. The future foundress desired to do God's will rather than her own, which led her to consult the archbishop about her vocation. "Elizabeth," replied the saint!y'Archbishop Alemany, "Father Prendergast and I have another work for~ you to ~1o, There are the little ones to be cared for while their mothers are off to work. And who is to instruct the children of our big city in the ways of faith, hope, and love? They must be prepared "for the Sacraments; they must be brought to the knowledge, love, and service of God. There are the poor to be visited in their homes. There are hearts to heal and souls to save in our busy city streets. This, is the work Ggd wants you to do, Elizabeth." To give up the s.ecurity of a life in a long-established and well-ordered religious congregation! To launch out on the rough sea of uncertainty of establishing a new institute! Was this what God was asking?. With firm faith and steady heart, she gave herself with perfect trust into the care of God's representative. This same simple faith, ardent love; and child-like trust mzrked all her dealings with God and men throughout her beautiful but comparatively short life. Trials were. not wanting; for it is only in the crucible of suffer-ing that the pure gold of such a soul is tried. It was necessary that the edifice of the Holy Family institute (the eternal inheritance be- 240 September, 19~6 MOTHER DOLORES queathed by Mother Dolores to her spiritual children) had to rest on the solid foundation of deep humility. God was not long in sending the first trial. Elizabeth was now twenty years of age. The time had come for definite action. At the bidding of her archbishop and Farher Pren-dergast, she left her foster parents' home. With one companion, Miss Collins, she moved into a little rented flat on Pine Street on November 6, 1872. This is Foundation~Day. DaiI~ they went about the duties of caring for the poor, the sick, and the needy: From the outset, the idea of a religious com-munity was in the mind of the founders. They were to devote them-selves generously to the service of God in the children and the poor. Father Prendergast had very definite i~leas of the life and work off. the young institute. To visit the homes of the poor, to bring" relief to the sick, to seek out the neglected children in their families--these are goals in social work that cannot be too much insisted upon. There is danger in our modern projects, providing recreation grounds and community clubs and hikihg expeditions, to neglect the family. 'Father Pren-dergast's idea of assistance covered the whole field of need. "Help-ing others to help themselves," was to be the m6tto of his welfare work. These two energetic young women labored enthusiastically for some months. The good the future institute was to accomplish, in the designs of God, was to be far-reaching. The souls to Obe snatched from Satan were to be 'many. Of course, the devil did not like this. He had his own plan to kill this good work in its infancy. On the other hand, every good work must be tried in the crucible of tribulation: A soul as staunch and courageous as that of Elizabeth Armer must be refined yet more. One morni~ng Miss Collins failed to report for duty. When Miss Armer visited her room, there were visible, On the hands and feet of Miss Collins, the likeness of the wounds of the Savior. Ever straightforward and upright herself, Miss Armer did not doubt her companion's sincerity. The incident created quite a stir. Shortly after, however, on investigation, it was discovered that the wounds were self-inflicted. Miss Collins was dismissed. , The incid'ent is brief in the telling, but who can kno~v the de.ep wound in the soul of the trusting Elizabeth. The scorn that sur-rounded her young institute. The infidelity of one she loved and trusted. 241 SISTER M. TERESITA ~ Review for Religious Another joined Miss Armer for a time. But the work was too hard; the.scorn was too difficult to bear. Friends of Father Prender-gast advised him to give up the idea. One after another had failed. He only replied, "There is one who will never fail, Elizabeth Armer." These were indeed dark days for the young foundress. She never referred to it--this trial was one she bore alone. She leaned on God alor~e for support. She maintained the same zeal for works of charity, the same devotedness to the poor and to the children of the Sunday schools. She did not seek a moment to relax. Her visits to the sick poor continued as before. When she needed a companion, she al-ways knew where to find one in the ever-faithful Mrs. Richard Tobin. Nearly two years had passed since Miss Armer had begun her work in the little rented house on Pine Street. They had been years of struggle and discouragement. True, they had been fruitful of good, but barren as far as a religious community was concerned. Alone, "disappointed in one, abandoned by another," the future Mother Dolores prayed, labored, and trusted in God. Mrs. Tobin remained faithful and Father Prendergast maintained his confidence. Then renewed hope came. On lk-lizabeth's birthday, in 1874, there came a, caller. It had been Ellen O'Connor's third attempt to see Miss Armer. "You are my birthday present!" Elizabeth exclaimed, when Ellen told her that Father Andrew Cullen had sent her. "This morning I asked the" Blessed Mother to send me a present. Have you come to stay? . I hope so," was Ellen's reply. ,And she did. As Sister Teresa, Ellen became the lifelong companion of Mother Dolores and succeeded her as Mother General of the institute. The new enterprise had been marked with the cross, the sign of God'~ special favor. The youthful foundress had proved herself faithful. The work was readyto move fbrward.:. Very soon, other generous young girls came knocking at the door of the little rented convent asking, "May I help too?" The poverty of the flat did not seem to frighten them. The long .hours among the children did not seem to tire them. The night watches with the sick and dying did not make them change their minds. They had cgme to give their all to Christ. He was all in all to them! This was the generous, self-sacrificing spirit that animated those early sisters who were first known as "The Miss Armers." Father Prende~gast called them Sisters of the Holy Family. And that name has been made their own. In rapid succession, four young ladies came to. join Miss Armer 242 September~ 1956" MOTHI~R DOLORES and Miss O'Connor. Winter,was now past for the young institute, and God was blessing it with increase. Archbishop Alemany decided that ,steps should be taken to establish a regular religious congrega-tion. Miss O'Connor was sent to the Dominican Convent in Benecia to make her novitiate. In 1878, she pronounced her .vows as Sisger Teresa of Jesus, in the presence of the Archbishop and the sisters. Now the foundress became .subject and, with her four compan-ions, began her novitiate under the direction of Sister Teresa. They completed their required novitiate in March, 1,880. On the Feast of St. Joseph, faithful guardian of the Holy Family and special pro-tector of the institute, Sister Dolores and the four sisters pronounced their holy vows. The Sisters of the Holy Family were molded into a new congregation in the Church. California's' own; its first, and still its only, native religious institute. Alr~eady, as early as1878, Archbishop Alemany"entrusted a new field of labor, which had long been dear to his heart, to the infant community. They were asked to care for young children throughout the day, whose ~mothers were qbliged to work to support their, little ones. Ever mindful of the sacredness of the integrity of family life, the Archbishop saw in these Day Homes the fulfillment of his early plans. At first the sisters shared their own convent with these needy ones of Christ's flock and cared for them "'with the fender charity of a Christian mother~" In due time, four commodious Day Homes were erected in San Francisco through the industry .of the zealous sisters and the charity of kind benefactors. Abreast with catechetical work, the Day.Hgmes have since spread to San ,Jose, Oakland, and Nevada. From their new mother house on Hayes Street, these~ new, ly pro-fessed religi0us, now augmented by more members, carried on the apostolic work already well begun, They set out on their exalted and laborious mission of pushing back the frontiers of rel.igious ig-noranCe.~ The growing city of San Francisco was their first concern. Soon, pastors of parishes outside of San Francisco were asking for the sisters. They gathered th~ children together after school as well as on Saturday and Sunday rhornings. Sometimes classes were held in an unused store. At Tanforan~ race ,track, they held sessions in the pavillion where the children came to them on foot, on. horse-back, or in wagons. Stories could be multiplied without end, of the men and women, priests and religious, who trace their first desire to hear of Godtto the 243 SISTER M. TERESITA Review for Religious kindly invitation of these seekers of souls. This attraction which her sisters have fo~ children seems to be one of the priceless !e~acies Mother Dolores has bequeathed.to her f~mily. We might cal[ it the special sacramental character of their missionary vocation. These were the specific works of the new institute. However, Mother Dolores.was not slow to respond to emergencies. San Fran-cisco's P[esidio became the port for the sick and wounded soldiers during the Spanish American War. Suddenly the dread typhoid ,plagde broke out in the camps. Her sisters willingly volunteered for active duty as nurses. Mother Dolores herself prepared and provided many of the medic~i1 supplies during the three months in which the disease raged. A grateful city expressed its thanks to the valiant work of the many sisters who foughttthe plague by granting free transportation to all sisters on her street cars and buses, even to this day. The memory of the public service rendered by the sisters in this emergency prompted city officials to call upon them in the greater catastrophe of the 'terrible fire and earthquake of 1906. When the trembling city was licked with flames, the sisters could be found assisting the sick and dying. Their mother house became a hospital for the insane. The now homeless desuits found a tem-porary shelter 'on the main floor of the convent. In return, th~ey have given the mother'.house daily'~Mass ever since. The sisters' im-mediate and efficient, response to the city officials' appeal for help in San dose du.ring the influenza epidemic again manifested their alert-ness to the need for prompt and generous action in public calamities. Tireless in her efforts to save souls, Mother Dolores never spardd herself. The work. of organization and administration of her grgw-ing community was taxing her physical ~trength more than her sisters ~realized. A severe heart attack made it evident that Mother's condition was critical; she was'but.53 years old. Father Prendergast was called to her bedside. On seeing him, Mother simply said, "I am going." "No doubt you would like to see your work more~ per-fectly finished and carry out some 6f your plans before going to Heaven, to our Lord." She answered, "God knows best." So on August 2, 1905, her ardent souF in all its radiant splendor, like a restless flame, leaped from the charred remains of its burned-out temple, to the presence of her Creator, her Divine Lover. Mother Dolores was a product of her age and locale. She im-bibed the spirit of the adventurous gold seekers. By supernaturalizing 244 September, 1956 MOTHER DOLORES that spirit, she became an adventurous soul seeker. : Ever mindful of the necessity of adaptation to changing times, the progressive spirit of the foundress was passed on to her daughters. When modern means of travel proved helpful, they were used. The Sisters of the Holy Family were driving their own cars to distant missions when women drivers were still uncommon. Across the alkali beds of Utah, the deserts of Ne,~ada, or into its high moun-tain peaks they go. They use every means to bring the word of God to the ghost towns so reminiscent of the "Gold Rush." Now they contain only the precious ore of immortal souls. The populous cities witness their zeal in going from school to school during the day, teaching on released time. In the far~flung parishes of the Monterey-Fresno Diocese, they travel within the radius of forty-five miles of their convent home. They gather small groups in one-room schools of tile districts. Soon, a little chapel marks the spot and the Mass comes to another outpost conquered for Christ. Or, in the more populous areas, they assemble large groups, for which ~hey need the belp of a "walkie-talkie" to make themselves heard. Always seeking souls, the sisters will be found with the Mexican~ in Texas, extending the frontiers of faith among the~ Indians in Nevada, the Chinese in Fresno, the colored in our large c~ties, the Hawaiians in Hawaii. The young Americans from every state in the Union, who are pouring into our beautiful California in fabu-lous numbers, are feeling the impact of their religious training. Today, the daughters of Elizabeth Armer are laboring in three archdioceses and six dioceses. They are ~nstr~cting 79,000 public school Children in 225 parishes. Last year there were 1400 belated baptisms and 12,843 first Holy Communions. What a rich harvest of souls! Indeed, the fires of her zeal had inflamed many generous young women. The highways and byways,, the towering moun-t;~ ins and the lowly valleys, know the steady progress of this veri-table conflagration-~conquering one outpost after the other for Christ. The welfare work done among these families cannot be estimated. The Day Homes gave day care to 2,000 regardless of race, colo~, or creed during the past year. The same spirit of faith that SUlSported the pioneer sisters is re-flected in the constitutions of the institute "The special end is to instruct and educate children in the doctrine and practice of the Catholic faith . . ." 245 P. DE LETTER Review "for Religious Wl~en death claimed Mother Dolores on August 2, 1905, there was as yet no foundation outside of San Francisco. Mqnsign6r John J. Prendergast went to his reward on January 19, 1914. Pontifical approval was not requested until many years later, so it was not until-July 8, 1931, that the Holy See issued its decree of praise and approval of the" congregation and its constitutions, thus raising it to the status of a pontifical congregation. Monsignor Pren- ~dergast and Mother Dolores witnessed the crowning of their efforts from heaven when on May 28~ 1945, Pope Plus XII, gave tile definitive approbation, bidding the Congregation to ""continue to the~ end of,time." OnMet:hod in !:he Spiri :ual Life P. De Letter,,S. J. THE most common inconsistency is to desire some end and not to take the means to attain it" (Father de Pdnlevoye, S.J.). This applies particularly, though in no way exclusively, to the spiritual life. It happens, and perhaps it is not rare, that we wish for some certain ideal, desire a particular step forward in spirituality, and neglect to take the means. What is the root of this inconsistency? No doubt some sort of inertia-, of fear of effort. We fight shy of exertion. One takes it easy, and so nothing happens. ~We may not like to confess this sort of laziness. No one, no religious, especially, likes'to acknowledge he is lazy. Perhaps that is why not infrequently an endeavor is made to cover up this ihdecision and lack of action with theoretical difficulties. Perhaps the main difficulty in this re-spect is an objection against method in the spiritual life. For; if one were to follow a method, one would be doing something hbout one's intended objective. THE OBJI~CTION The objection is this: In, the spiritual or supernatural life, 'free-dom must be left to the Holy Spirit, to the initiative and inspiration of grace. It is not we who have to take'the initiative; it is the Spirit that takes the lead. Methods endanger 'the freedom of the Spirit who moves as He pleases; they may stifle the growth of the spiritual life, kill its spontaneity. Perhaps today a little more than formcrly this objection is raised, if not in theory then at any rate in practice; 246 September, 1956 ON METHOD IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFI~ it is acted upon. A number of people who yet try tO lead a spiritual life are inclined to care little for effort, for methodical application to prayer, or to the practice of definite virtues. They like to trust in the inspiration of the m, oment, to" follow the movements of grace rather than to forestall them. Lest this objection may actually turn into a cover for laziness, it is worth considering the issue. We shall do so and first consider method in general and then a concrete ex-ample of it, the Ignatian method. THE ISSUE: METHOD AND COOPERATION WITH (~RACE According to Father'de Guibert's Tl~eolog~ of the Spiritual ~Lit¥, n. 176, the use of method in the spiritual life, in prayer, or in the acquisition or practice of a virtue consists in baying some pre-fixed mode of action, suitable, fo? attaining an end and of application in a series of cases. In mental prayer, for example, it means that one prepares and foresees the subject matter and order of meditation, then starts with a progressive introduction to the subject, follows ,point by point using on'e's memory, understanding, and will--re-flecting, prayer, res, olving and ends with a colloquy. Andther ex-0 ample of use of method is the particular examen applied to the prac~ tice Of a virtue. One foresees what should be,done, how and when, resolves beforehand to pay attention and make the effort, and. tv~ice a day checks the way one went about it, examining success or. ill-success and its cause, resolving again 'to do better in tl4e next. half day. " Now, the problem involved in this use of method is that of our cooperation with grace. How must we conceive this cooperation? Tl~e spiritual life, being supernaturally inspired, actually is a matter of cooperation of our free will with grace, the latter leading, the first following~the lead of grace. It is beyond all doubt that in every; supernatura! activity it is grace that takes the initiative i(just a~ it is the reason of its spiritual fruitfulness and success, but this does not concern our present problem). And so the question is whether the use of method goes against the initiative of grace. Do We by'mak-. ing use of such methods as mentioned abbve take an initiative in the spiritual life that should be left to grace, to the inslAibation of the Holy Spirit? , ANSWER ~ We answer: The rigl~t use of method does not hinder the initia-tive of grace but is only ou'r way of cooperatirig ~with grace. When will the use of method be right? On two conditions: when it is 247 P, DE LETTER Review #:or Religious itself prompted by grace and when in its actual practice one does' not stick too rigidly to fixed details but follows eventual inspira-tions of grace that invite to greater liberty of spirit. 'The use of method can .be, and generally is, an answer to indi-cations that come from .grace. When duty calls to set exercises of prayer~ as when the bell sounds for meditation, or when providential ~ircumstances or genuine inspirations of grace (which are in perfect agreement with duties of obedience) invite to a particular practice of virtue, we may take it that to apply oneself methodically to prayer or to virtuous practice i~ merely to answer the initiative of grace. That is our way of cooperating with grace. There could be nothing but self-delusion in waiting for the promp.tin~s of grace to begin meditation when the hour of prayer is there. Method, used in these, circumstaF~ces,is but a guarantee that we are not wanting to grace but do our' share~ Yet in doing our share, enough freedom of mind must be kept for allowing grace to direct us whenever the Spirit so'chooses. A well-known example of this freedom is given in the directive of the Spiritual Exercises to the effect that in meditation we should stop at the poi,nt in which we find spiritual fruit, without any anxiety of going further, stop as long as we find what satisfies our spiritual need. This freedom and docility to the Spirit forestalls 6vet-rigid fidelity to mechanical rules. When grace clearly, takes the le~d, we follow. When the promptings of grace do not draw us, we on our part do what in us lies to answer the Lord's call expressed in our duty. When we understand the use of method in this manner, then Father de Guibert's practical conclusions in the matter are in no way surprising. He says: To reject all method is unsafe and may amount to the error of quietism; the inspirations of ~grace duly known for. authentic (by the discernment of spirits) may be followed, not how-ever against obedience or clearly known duty; the use-of method, generally speaking, is beneficial, because it is" nothing else" than profit-ing by the experience and wisdom of other people and using the r~eans for the end; methods may and do vary greatly, and freedom must be left in using them, the main point being that one has some method which proves workable; exaggerations however are not ex-cluded, one of which may be undue self-reliance shown in. excessive trust in the efficacy of or~e's method. Such being the case, it may be'well for us religious now and. then to see in which direction the general trend of our spiritual life in- 248 Septemb~er, 1956 ON METHOD IN ,THE SPIRITUAL LIFE clines: are we inclined either to overstress method or to neglect it? The danger of neglect may be the more frequent, because of the ef-fort and monotony involved in methodical action, both of which, may look uninteresting and unappealing. Yet, the other extreme of a too-mechanical fidel~ty is not excluded, nor is it without a danger of turning prayer or virtue into a more or' less fruitless for-mality. IGNATIAN METHOD One of the well-known and much,spread methods in the spiritual life is that of St. Ignatius of Loyola. Perhaps it has been no less maligned than praised. What exactly does Ignatian method consist in? We may characterize it briefly in a feW words: Have an objective in view and take the means to achieve it. Or, more briefly, know what you are after and go for it. What do these two principles mean in practice? How do they respect the initiative that must be left to grace? It is worthwhile to ponder a moment over this simple method~ and see how it enhances rather than hinders the initiative of grace. FIRST PRINCIPLE Its first principle, have a purpose in view, is of the utmost im-portance in spirituality, as in every other field of human activity. In fact, many people oftentimes do not know~ what they are after what they do, say, desire. They do what they do because they have to, or because they feel like doing it, or because they must do something to spend their time and for no reason known to then~ they happened to hit on this particular occupation. Such a manner of living may be little respectful of a man's rational nature; it cer-tainly is not Ignatian at all. St. Ignatius means us to know and to desire .what we intend in prayer or mortification-~or for that mat-ter, in study or manual labor or recreation or social relations. And he wants us to be very definite about our objective. For meditation, he not only begins the exercise with a preparatory prayer in which we ask that our entire activity.during our prayer be directed to God's glory and service; in a, second (or third) preclude he makes us ask for "what we desire," his famous id quod volo, that is, for the par-ticular grace and spiritual fruit which is suggested by and. in con-formity with the subject matter of the meditation. Definiteness of ai~n in prayer is a first Ignatian principle. Does it gb against" the initiative that belongs to grace? On the face of it, it may look as though we ourselves settle beforehand what spiritual fruit or grace we are after; is that not to take the lead and 249 P. DE LETTER Reoieto for Religious to put limits and rules to the activity 6f the Holy Spirit? Is that not a sort of Semi-Pelagianism? The question has more than once been mode :into an accusation, partly perhaps when some hasty or unsym-pathetic reader overlooked what precedes the id quod uolo, namely, to.ask for what I desire. We may point to a threefold answer to this difficulty. First of all, we are directed to ask for the grace we desire; and we may safely take it that this desire and prayer itself is already prompted by grace--is not every salutary act which helps us spiritually to draw nearer to God, and prayer is such an act, a fruit of ~the inspiration of grace? This prayer, moreover, is as it were open to correction; it is' up to God's grace to answer our desire --it is not our effort alone that will carry or enforce it--and to an-swer it in the manner He pleases and knows best. Secondly, the very specification or determination of the grace we ask for is, in principle and generally also in fact, not the result of personal whim or fancy (barring perhaps the exceptional cases of impulsive and weather-cock- like characters who lack or neglect due preparation and fore-' sight) ; it is either provided by external providential indications, as is the case in retreat time or when we use a meditation manual, whether prescribed or advised by a director or even chosen on our own motivated decision, or suggested" by internal inspiration. Of grace. In all these cases, this prayer for a particular grace is but an answer to the initiative of grace. Lastly, this initial desire which to a varying extent inspires the very manner in which we apply our-selves to our prayer does not preclude any new promptings of grace that may and often do arise in the course of the exercise. The above-mentioned Ignatian rule about freedom in stopping at what satisfies the soul clearly entails this. Moreover~ the ~d quod ~olo is often of such a comprehensive nature that it leaves ample and free play to. the manifold and varying inspirations of grace. An example is the prayer made at the beginning of most meditations on the life of our Lord: that we may know Him better, love Him more ardently, and follow Him more closely. This is an ide~il which each particular soul will realize in his or her own p~irticular way--and there are as many various ways nearly as there are particular individuals ~and particular vocations. Futhermor.e, tfiis definiteness in asking for a particular grace is mainly a matter of psychological preparation and should not be misunderstood in the sense of dictating to grace. As in any other human uladertaking, so also in prayer; definiteness of aim makes for definiteness in efforts; and this guarantees definite results, just as vagueness of aim leads to vague and weak efforts~ 250 - September, 1956 ON METHOD IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE and vague and poor results., Accordingly, it is safe tO say that Ig-natian definiteness of aim in our prayer does not clash with the initiative due to grace, provided 0nly we handle our method with a pure intention and with the necessary freedom of spirit. This free-dom is perhaps less fo be attended to in the beginnings of a life of ¯ prayer or of religious training; beginners generally do well to follow directives closely. But after years of practice, experience should teach one what this freedom means, and how it opposes in no way thorough generosity. So much for the first: principle in the Ignatian method~. SECOND PRINCIPLE The second principle; take the means to the purpose you are after, implies mainly two things. It first means to say that we should make the necessary effort. We should not expect results without taking the means that must produce them. Perhaps it is very l'Juman (or must we say childish?) to rely on ,good luck whilst, neglecting what one should do, to hope: and expect that' things will turn out for the b~st somehow. Children in fact more or less expect"miracles to happen. But is tha.t reasonable and safe? Is it not overlooking one of the very first principles of reason: that every effect demands a sufficient and proportionate cause? Which means, in this case, that spiritual results suppose ~not only grace but also our cooperation. It is rather risky to count on a ~ause that may Well never act; in this particula'r case, to rely on abundant grace which would mal~e up for our lack of. diligence; all the more so, since this very unprepared-hess for cooperation with grace is likely, to preclude that grace--God does not dispense His graces in sheer waste. A.second thing implied in this principle, is that we should make a tolanned effort: go about our business, whether of prayer or of any other virtuous practice~ in an orderly manner and not haphaz'ardly: not in an unenlightened way, groping as it were in the dark; not according to an unmotivated manner of proceeding or according to whim and fancy of the moment. This supp,oses first that we know the means for our purpose as they are laid down in directives and rules or borne out by the experience of others or even' learned and confirmed by personal experience. We must know the rules of the game if we are to play properly. It means therefore that it is not enough, however important it may be in itself, to overcqme inertia and set oneself to one's, task, making the needed exertion. We must apply ourselves in a clear-sighted manner, knowing what we are doing and why. It further means that we follow the known direc- 251 P. DE LETTER rives with perseverance. It has been said that "with many, courage gives way when they are half way of the effort; some are afraid of trying, others are afraid of succeeding"; in fact "things are worth what they cost" (Fat, her de Ponlevoye). Yet this perseverance should not be marred by shortsighted stubbornness.We must never forget in practice the necessary freedom of spirit in following methodidal rules; rather we must be ever ready to obey the inspiration of grace, to learn from circumstances and from experience, with humility and, docility, with sincerity and honesty with ourselves. It ma~ not al-ways be easy in practice to find the proper balance bet,ween perseverant fidelity to rules and freedom of spirit or docility to the Spirit. Only the interior Guidi~ can teach it in practice, and He certainly will if we do not lack sincerity and generosity. When this necessary freedom of spirit is safeguarded, there is no fear that metbodital application to prayer or practice of virtue, according to rules and planned action, will make one too mechanical or kill the spontaneity of life needed also in the spiritual life. Method makes for orderly activity; it excl'udes a happy-go-lucky manner which actually is more a lack of readiness to cooperate with grace than the contrary. Method does not kill spontaneity; it directs it, if only one uses it properly, that is, with t?reedom of spirit and sincerity. Nor does it then in any way hinder the initiative of grace which must be respected also in the course of our prayer or practice of virtue. It is part of the method ever to be docile to what grace may show or demand. And so, if tile use of metho~d in the spiritual life is rightly un-derstood and put into practice, that is, as the very expression of our desire to answer the call of grace, then certainly it will never stand in the way of grace. It will guarantee our cooperation with God's grace and leave no excuse for inertia or lazine.ss. Grace do.es not dis-pense with our effort, it renders our effort possible and fruitful. " 252 NEW BUSINESS ADDRESS Please send all renewals and new subscriptions to: REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 3115 South Grand Boulevard St. L~uis 18, Missouri Sisters' Re!:rea!:s--V Thomas Dubay, S.M. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE RETREAT MASTER ]F it is possible to assay the general mind of the sisters as expressed in their thousands of answers and observations given in this re-treat study, the present writer would be inclined to point out the subject matter of this article, the retreat master himself, as consti-tuting what they consider the single, most-imporant element covered in the survey. The sisters often cast this general impression into a concrete mold. Observed one sister: There is one order whose technique I prefer over the others and one whose method I like least. Yet the best retreat master I ever had was from the latter! The man makes the 'retreat master, not the method! Time and time again the sisters retur~ in their comments to the retreat master, his message, his methodology, and especially his qual-ities or lack of them. And yet we frankly grant that we approach this most difficult of the subjects treated in the survey with consider-able diffidence. It is difficult because it deals with persons, not mere things, But there is nothing like the truth, anO so we will plunge in. QUALITIES In order to ascertain what qualities the sisters especially looked for in their retreat masters, the following question was placed before 'them : Among the following characteristics of ~a retreat master would you put the number 1 before the one you appreciate most, a 2 before the next in order, etc. to the last: __experience ._._~sense of humor genuine sanctity __theological learning ~kind manner ~practicality Further comment: (spice provided) Unlike their modus aqendi in the other survey questions, the sisters did not here mention man.y new qualities in the blank spaces. Simplicity, humility, and interest in work were noted twice, while the following qualities were mentioned once each: clarity, sweetness and patience, sincerity, .understanding of women, average speaking ability, and intelligence. In order to differentiate as finely as possible the varying degrees of importance, which were attached to the qualities contained, in 253 THOMAS DUBAY . Reuiew for Religious the questionnaire, three points were given to th'e quality eachsister first selected, tWO points to the second, and one point to the third. In parentheses are indicated the number of times each characteristic w'as given first choice. Genuine sanctity . 1481 (414) Practicality . 786 (100) Experience 693 (71) Theological.learning .496 (63) Kindness . 360 (23) Sense of humor . 'i. 225'(10) As can be easily seen, there is really no contest for first 'place. The very fact that gefuine sanctity received more first place votes than all other characteristics put together clearly demo~astrates the fact that sisters want their retreat masters to be men of God before ;Ill else. Practicality is rated as a little more important thar~ experiehce, while knowledge of theology is given the nod over kindness and a sense of humor. The reader may be interested in comparing tile above rating of qualities with the various comments the sisters have made (or will make) in other articles of this series. The correlation 'is significantly high, We are thus rendered all the more certain that our survey has accurately captured their collective mind. We will give typical excerpts of the sisters' further comments according to tee alphabetical order in which the qualities .were listed on the survey form. Experience-- [I select experience] because if he has survived in this type of work, he should be" good.' Father, this is a hard one. They should all be first. A retreat master need not have years of experience in order to conduct a successful retreat: Sometimes those with most experience can be very dry and not at all practical. By ekperience I would understand his dealing with people, not the number of retreats he has conducted. I take by experience You mean with souls and religious life. I also appreciate it when he. makes [sic] a spade a spade and leaves nff loop holes for if's or ,but's. Genuine sanctity-- It has been my conclusion that the best thing any retreat master has to give is his own personal example. The convictions with which he approaches his own spir-itual life necessarily,shdw through his efforts to instruct-.others and in this lies his greatest appeal at least for me. 254. September, 1956 SISTERS' RETREATS--V The personal holiness of the retreat master is by far the most impoltant characteristic. "We thunder what we are" and I think this is particularly true of retreat masters. A priest who says Mass slovenly, and has a worldly manner, etc., can hardly expect his hearers to be "refOrmed" or uplifted in spirit regardless of how perfect his con-ferences may be. A genuine saint might be a very poor retreat master, if he is unable to express himself effectively~ and lacks the theological learning necessary to instruct and guide others to sanctity. Experience and practicality should help a retreat master in making the best use of the short time ;it his disposal to cover the necessary points. Sanctity is most important, however, because without it, the insincerity" would be obvious and detract from the effectiveness of'tl~e speaker. Of all the retreats I have made, three are outstanding and have affected my spiritual life most, as far as I can judge. In each case it was the personal sanctity .of the retreat master that gave these retreats their form and impetus. . A doer of the wo~d as well as preacher carries more weight than any other quality [ know. Sometimes the good effects are lessened by a discovery" that Father preaches but does not live what he advises. The tirlge of pharisaism is usually detrimental. A genuine saintly retreat master by his very presence is a light to the beholder: his example gives inspiration, and a desire to be like him and draws or attracts the at-tention of the listener. His teaching is naturally as be lives: therefore very ac- Ic elpiktaeb tloe fbeye al ltlh oart mthoes tr eotfr ethaetsm m.aster is really doing what he is asking us to do. Sanctity radiates a something that neither intelligence or humor can replace. I've made retreats given by saintly men after which I was ready to sign up with a Foreign Legion or for China if I were asked to .do sd. If a man is genuinely holy, the rest doesn't matter. If God has thrown in a sense of humor, the man's mighty lucky'. Father, many sisters lead deeply spiritual lives and we are not so interested in your learning as such, as we are in knowing that you firmly live and believe your doc-trine. We want you learned but in the end it is your own spiritual life that tells. Many retreat masters fail to stress holiness as intimate union with God. We thirst for the fountains of living water. We want solid doctrine. We want you to fire us' with enthusiasm. We are not bored or critical when you speak. We are intent upon gaining a spiritual lift. Don't apologize for repeating the same material. We are not looking for novelty. If we knew you prayed out all your meditations be-fore Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, we would have great faith in your spoken words. I have watched 4.8 retreat masters come and go, and observed the sisters,, making retreats, heard their reactions, attended conferences when possible and there is one answer: personal sanctity. Kind manner-- One who is kind and understanding in confession--and who asks. if there is any-' thing else on your mind. Sometimes tha't last question is just what one needs! I think if a retreat master has real genuine sanctity and a kind manner, whatever else is lacking God will supply the rest. Please don't close the slide or glee absolution before sister has told her story and received some satisfaction. I am not referring to a scrupulous soul. 255 THOMAS DUBAY "Reoieto for Religio~ PracticalitF-- I like a retreat master who can "talk" to us and be practical in the applications he makes. A clear cut set of ideas is what I always hope to find in a retreat. A retreat master who sets down principles to live our daily lives by and who makes us toe the mark and set out with new determination to seek perfection with God's help d~es a greatest ot: services. Some seem to avoid the practical problems of religious life. They don't get down to the core of the matter, even in discussing the vows. Make them practical! Not the extraordinary, once in a lifetime act of obedience, but the everyday type, the everyday needs of each vow. Occasions of sin, etc. Most Of us cduld actually write a volume on the theory of sanctity. It has been well explained, but maybe we could have more practical hints to help us practice what we .know. Sense of humor-- A good sense of humor in a retreat master makes for a good retreat. The dry kind never appeal to me. A retreat to me, is a joy, not a dry thing'. A sense of humor is O.K., especially on a very hot day to keep you awake, but Sacred Scripture should not be used to make fun. By sense of humor I understand having a proper evaluation of things, ability to see,and enjoy a joke~not necessarily "full of jokes." Theological learning-- The choice of I and 2 is a difficult one for the "Spirit breatheth where He wills." However, in the analysis of problems, judicious decisions to be made. delicate situ-ations to handle and the like the educated theologian has much to offer. A certain confidence is generated. God can ~use a stick to work wonders. I think all of these necessarily link together because theological learning could not be passed over to some of us without sanctity, experience, practicality, and a sense of humor. We can really presume en~ough theological learning in any religious set aside to give retreats to nuns. A real absence of theological learning would be worse than an absence of sanctity--but a lot of learning carries small weight with nuns with-out genuine holiness behind it. In the last analysis it is only holiness as concretized in another person which can inspire. But sanctity lending weight to incomplete or misapplied doctrine can do harm. General comments-- This is difficult to answer because he needs them a11, at least in some degree~ Nuns like humility in a retreat master, but not a "scared" attitude or one of"'you-know- it-all-already--what can I tell you" attitude~ We do not know very much. He should sound convinced. A sister can tell whether a retreat master is giving.a retreat merely because of duty or whether he honestly loves the sisters and wants to help them advance along 256 September, 1956 SISTERS~ RETREATS--V the road to perfection, understanding their problems no matter how small they may be. Fatherly is the characteristic I like best of all. One to whom you can speak with ease, knowing and realizing that he has your interest (souls) at heart. Very difficult to decide--would like to have all in one. , One final word on the qualities of the retreat master. As has been indicated in a p~evious article, sisters, teaching in college lay a heavier emphasis as a gioup on their need for theglogy. The' writer noted the same stress here on the importance of theological learning in the retreat master. Among the var, ious qualities of the retreat master, a knowledge of theology is the only one that received an emphasis that was noticeably different according to the work in which' the sisters en, gag~d, DEFECTS Often enough pointing out deficiencies is little short of,.unpleas-ant, and it so happens that our present task is decidedly such. How-ever, St. Thomas speaks of fraternal correction as a spiritual alms, an act of charity. For that reason and because the sisters so intended their observations in a lovely spi'rit of combined kindness and frank-ness, we move with less hesitation to the business at hand. The question dealing with defects was worded as follows: What characteristic do you dislike most in a retreat master? Please place hum- . bet 1 before the one you dislike most, etc. Further comment : t No suggested defects were offered to the sisters. The writer feels that more objectivity was thus secured for the reason that a defect would have to make a considerable impression on a sister if she was to be able to recall it unaided. It would have had to be real. This "no suggestion" technique gave rise on the other hand to a ~wide'variety of noted failings. These we have tried to reduce to common categories as far as possible, but accuracy forbade too drastic a reduction. Hence, the sizeable list below. After each obs.erved defect, is given the number of tirffes it was mentioned. The figure in parentheses indicates the number of times the failing was listed as "disliked most." Statements under each heading are characteristic ways in which the sisters styled the defect. Reading conferences an~t meditation expos~.s . 176 (83) 257 THOMAS DUBAY Review for Religious Reading the retreat--slave to notes--reading entire conference--r~ading notes in-stead of talking. Lack of interest . 93 (28) Sense of boredom (I'm here because of obedience)-~cold, factual 16resentation-- "job attitude"-~a no interest attitude-~-doing something assigned and no mor~-- listless, sleepy, dull. , Conceit . 81 (35) Desire to make an impression~know-it-all attitude--attracts to himself--better-than- thou attitude-~c0cksureness--aloofness---ccnstant reference to himself-~go-tism. Verbosity . 71 (15) Long and rambling--talks and talks and says nothing--nev.er getting to the point-- endless repetition --- d0esn't keep to the schedule--long windedness. Sarcasm, ridicule .¯ . 68 (31) Making fun of problems of sisters of other communities--rididule of superiors-- sarcastic manner--sarcastic approach. ,Joking manner . . 59 (19) Too many jokes--keeps retreatants in an'uproar-~clowning~trying to be funny --a joker. Impracticality . 57 (12) Examples that don't fit o~ur work-~-prlnciples without examples---out-dated. Severity . : . 56 (13) Hell fire and brimstone gloomy--fills with fear rather than love--harsh---blunt expres,sions--six days of scolding. Confessional defects . 50 (9) Impatient.-not available--fast--harsh-~curt--not helpful~talks too loud--no in-terest in the Confessional--indifference to problems. Delivery defects . 47 (11) Talks too fast--inaudible--shouting, ranting-r--muttering, indistinct too slow in .speech--hilting, hesitating---cannot heat him. Superficiality ' .42 (5) La~k of material to communicate--superficial flippancy--shallow--greats retreat lightly--too many ideas .at one time--lightnes~ of treatment--banality lack of theological basis--ignorance theologically unsound. Emotionalism and dramatic manner . . 40 (8) Oratorical---excessive emotion--flowery langfiage--sentimentalism in choic~ of poems, prayers, etc.--too many gestures--unnecessary play on words. Lack of preparation . .,. . . 40 (15) Unpreparedness---lack of organization--lack of immediate preparation. 258 September, 1956 SISTERS' RETREATS--V Excessive intellectuality .". . . 39 (15) Subjects too deep--explainer of theology too philosophical--theological learning' --bookish conferences--high sounding explanations~ Critical spirit in general .3.4. .(10) Chip on the shoulder---critical spirit--pet grievances---critical toward his own corn: re.unity or supenors-~constant scolding-~criticism of sisters studying for degrees--, Cynical" spirit. Lack of sense of humor .: . . . 34 (10) Too serious--gloomy--never a sense of humor. Critical spir'it toward sisters .3.1. (6) Belit'tling nuns--atti.tude that religious are frustrated-~-' unfriendly toward our com-munity-~ critical toward sisters--lack of respect for religious women--making fun of nuns-~critical of our rule, constitutions, and customs--says he dislikes giving retreats to sisters. Worldliness .~. . .~ . 29 (7) Lack of spiritual depth--too l~lasi--play boy type~lacks ho!iness-~easy going-- selfish. Narration of personal experie,nces . 26 (8) Too much personal reference--talking about what they have done-~-~introducing himself and his beloved relatives --- details of family history. Lack of kindness .,. .25 (5) o Harsh, unkind, especially in the confessional--unapproachable--unsympathetic. - Condescension toward sisters . 21 (4) Acting as though we can't understand him--talking down to women-~condescend-ing toward nuns-~belittles the intelligence of nuns and hence waters, down doctrine --treats sisters as beginners in the spiritual life, ' Negative approach .1.5. (4) Too much sin, no love--stressing the negative--emphasis on God's justice. Lack of understanding .1.4. (1) Doesn't understand human nature--lack of understanding of nuns and their problems. In or, der neither to prolong our list beyond due m~asure nor to deny the sisters' views full recognition, we will treat the remaining de-fects in paragraph form and indicate only the total number of times each failing was mentioned. Defects in examples (lack .of, exag-gerated, too many), 14; narrating faults~and scandalous stories re- ~arding other religious, 12; mannerisms and idiosyncrasies, 12; brev-ity, 12;language defects (crude, coarse, slang, grammatical errors), 11 ; nervous and timid ' (restless, fidgeting), 11 : not looking :at audience, 10; inexperience, 8; apodictic, 8; insincerity (affected sanc- 2:59 THOMAS DUBAY ~ Review /or Religious tity, not practicing what he preaches), 8; lack of originality (espe-cially in illustrations and expressions), 8; too familiar, 8; watering down spiritual life, 7; slovenly at Mass, 6; no theme in the retreat, 5; late for. conferences, 5; too eager to please, 4. Subjects receiving three mentions were vagueness, rigid retreat routine, self-depreciation, effeminacy, and excessi;ce praise of sisters. Those noted twice were curiosity and p~ying, stress on unimportan.t matters, loud speaking in the convent, neglectof the liturgy; and provincialism. A few of the many items mentioned by only one sister were immaturity, use of cliches, preoccupation with a favorite subject, lack of refinement, joking about sacred things, and use of pietistic expressions. We must not fail to note that 208 sisters chose not to answer this question. While we cannot be sure just what their reasons may have been, it seems likely that some sisters simply could not recall any outstanding defects. Others may have thought it unkind or unappreciative to record defects of their retreat masters. These latter we may admire even though we, do not agree with them. Whatever the reasons may be, more sisters abstained from replying to this question than abstained from any other. In other questions thus far treated in this series of "articles, .we have given representative excerpts from the sisters' further comments, but for the present question any attempt to be really representative would far exceed the bounds of one article. We will, therefore, limit ourselves to excerpts characteristic of some of the more-frequently mentioned defects. Reading notes-- [ also do not like for the retreat master to read his conferences. He may wish to refer to notes,, but he should have his material so well at his finger tips that he cari deliver it without reading. Some are far from interesting. It is a real penance to sit through six days of listening and straining while someone drones away from some notebook. The only real dislike is toward the retreat master who rea,ds all his talks. I don't say he can't have notes, etc., but the reading of entire lectures and meditations has simply no effect. I'd rather ten minutes of a straight talk. Lack' of interest-- The worst fault is perhaps an attitude of mere tolerance of this job of giving nuns a retreat. The sooner it's over the better! Sisters look forward to their annual retreat with eager anticipation for months, and most of them really do want to progress in the spiritual life. It is a big dis-appointment when they have to listen to a retreat master who apparently does not care for this type of work. 260 September, 1956 SISTERS" RETREATS--V Conceit-- One who calls attention to himself --- the 'T'--more than necessary in conferences. Shows off his intelligence and forgets retreatants also have some. Sarcasm-- Sarcasm and ridicule of women in general and of riuns in particular. Critical negativism-- If there is any observation I should like to make it is this: whatever you can do to dissuade retreat masters for sisters from flavoring their conferences, meditations, and talks with stories exemplifying the ¢ricities and quirks of sisters--usually these apply to only a relatively few--please do . There is nothing so devas-tating and So harmful, it seems to me, than just, that t~;pe of story. If our youth-~ ful entrants grow cynical, distrustful, perhaps even weak in their vocation, may it not be because of the unwise, imprudent choice of illustrations chosen by retreat masters? True, there are odd sisters, but for every odd one, there are at last eight or more sensible, normal ones. Why select the queer and rarely allude to the truly noble and fine in every sense' of the words? Young people are shocked, and rightly so, at the strange things they sometimes hear. "It may~ be that retreat masters wish to be entertaining, amusing. But at what a cost! Ours is an age in which reverence is fast wanifig. Couldn't it help to a restoration' if retreat masters were occasionally more reverent? Tendency to overemphasize the fact that disagreements and petty jealousies do occur in religious life. We know they do, but there are plenty of sisters who are outstand-ing examples of beautiful si?terly charity as well as communities ,where the spirit of charity is outstanding. Joking manner-- What the sisters need is practical help toward sanctity . . : , but too often the" maste? uses the shell of the pulpit to reflect Father Retreat Master instead of the will of God to his listeners. This is especially true of the "joker" who uses the time for his stories and leaves the sisters with nothing to take with them except mem-ories of his cleverness. Severity.--- Pounding, scolding, and "yelling," though I don~t mind being told the truth,--- but not so loud! Lacl~ of understanding~ Sometimes the retreat master forgets that the sisters have more to do than just say their prayers. He should look into the entire picture and help both'subject and superior. Some retreats the subject gets all the corrections, and then sometimes the superior is all to blame. Why not lead all to God by charity, patience, and a. kind understanding of our difficulties? I think community life is a far happier and "homey-er" state than some retreat masters imply. After 29 years of it, under 16 different superiors, I can say I've never lived in a house where happiness and virtue didn't far outweigh human failings and "blue Mondays."--(I'm a realist, not an optimist!) 261 THOMAS DUBAY We now have the happier task of noting a few of the unsolicited compliments rciany of the sisters paid their retreat masters. To neg-lect these and dwell on defects alone would be to give the reader a badly distorted' picture of the whole situation. As is usu~ally the case in human affairs, all is neither black nor white. Among the favorable observations made, the following are characteristic. Most retreat masters are sincere, earnest, and holy. We can make allowances for lack of absolute perfection. If a retreat master is sincere and works hard I¯can't dislike much in him. I have had none whose characteristics made me.lose the value of retreats. I never really thought about this [defects], for I can truthfully say and I thank God for it, I enjoyed every one of my retreats. I learned something every time, betause I was looking for something. I have never had a dislike for a retreat master. I see in him God's messenger for my soul, who will only do his best to bring me nearer to God. I have observed no serious undesira~01e characteristics. Actually I have liked every retreat and every retreat master in my twenty years in religion. These very minor dislikes are:mentioned only to indicate how trivial are the things we let get between us and the message of the retreat. Heavens! I don't know--I've never stopped to think. I always figure the poor man is doing a job that's hard enough without our being critical; He's out to help us and we ought to help him to help us. I'm told, '~It's easier to criticize a retreat master than to be one." Most retreat masters have the necessary characteristics requisite for such important work--God bless them! And we might add: God bless these'sisters! both those who in fraternal charity pointed out defects and those who in the same charity saw none to, point out. OUR CONTRIBUTORS JOSEPH F. GALLEN is professor ~f canon law at Woodstock College, Wood-stock,, Maryland. SISTER M.TERESITA is stationed at the Holy Family. Motherhouse, 890 Hayes Street, San Francisco, California. P. DE LETTER is a member of the faculty of St: Mary's Theological College, Kurseong N. E. Ry., India. THOMAS DUBAY teaches philosophy at the Notre Dame Seminary, 290l S. Carrolhon Ave., New Orleans, Louisiana. 262 ( ues .ions and Answers [The following answers are given" by Father Joseph F. ~allen, S.J., professor of canon law at Woodstock College. Woodstock, Maryland.] I am guiding a young man who is entering our own institute. He casu-ally remarked to me that his family wanted him to sign over his mor3ey to his brothers and sisters before entrafice. By careful questioning I learr~ed that his money amounted to several thousand dollars. Should he sign over th~s money to others before his entrance? A renunciation'is the giving away, the gratuitous, abdication of the ownership of property. An obligation is any act by which own-ership is lessened, rendered less secure, or impeded, e. g., putting up property as security for the debts of others. Can. 568 renders both illicit and invalid any renunciation or obligatmn placed on the prin-cipal of his property by a novice. The canon applies only to the noviceship, but it" is contrary to the spirit of this same law for a renunciation or obligation to be placed on the property of a candi- .date during the postulancy or before entrance becafise of the inten-tion of entering religion. The purpose of c. 568 is to protect the novice's right to. leave religion and to prevent him being, deterred from doing so because he had given away his property. This reason applies equally to the time before the noviceship. Therefore, postu-lants and candidates should in practically every case be dissuaded from any renunciation or obligation. 'The professed of simple vows may give away the income on his property even after first profession. He c6uld later ask the Holy See for permission th give away all or part of the principal of his property, if there should be real need of this; and the solemnly professed will have to give away all his prop-erty at the renunciation effective at solemn profession. Relatives are not often selfless in a case of thi~ nature. It is also at least becoming for those in or approaching the state of perfection, if they are to give away any property, to follow the counsel of perfection, which is not to give to relatives but to give to the poor. A postulant was in danger of death. Could he have been admitted to the profession that is ~ermiffed to novices in danger of death.'? A plenary indulgence in the form of a jubilee is attached to the profession permitted to novices, and this profession also requires ad-mission by a higher superior, the superior of the novitiate house, or the delegate of either. This profession is restricted to novices and" 263 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Revidw [or Religious may not be granted to a postulant. However, canon law does not forbid professed religious, novices, and postulants to make private vows (c. 1307, §' 2). Such vows are most rgrely advisable for them, and should never be made without consulting a confessor who is prudent and sufficiently conversant with the habitual state of soul of. the subject. There would rarely be any reason for opposing a private vow by a postulant in danger of death. Therefore, the postu-lant in danger of death can be instructed that he may, make the vows of the institute completely of his own volition. There is no ad-mission in this case on the part of superiors, and the indulgence is not attached to this profession. The essential effect of the profession granted to novices is .attained, i. e., the greater oblation of oneself to God and the co.nsolation of the postulant. In this case also, the or-dinary formula of profession of the institute "is to be used but with-out any determination of time. The implicit duration of the vows is until the postulant zecovers his health. If he does, the vows cease; and he is in exactly the same state as if he had taken no vows what-soever. Cf. Wernz-Vidal, III,.De Reli~liosis, 258-59, note 71. m32-- Is it canon law or merely our own constitutions that forbid the assign-ment of any but exempla, r¥ religious to the novitiate house? Is it always possible to observe this prohibition? Can. 554, § 3, commands higher superiors to assign only ex-emplary religious to novitiate houses. The evident reason is the in-fluence that the lives of the professed.can exert on the novices. The sense of this law is that religious who are not exemplar.y must not be assigned for habitual residence to the house in which the novitiate is located. The code presumes that ,only the master and his assist-ants will reside in the novitiate itself. In clerical institutes the same prescription of the code extends t6 houses of study. Lay i~astitutes should be directed by the same principle with regard to the houses where the professed of temporary vows reside during studies. Every effort is to be made to observe this law, of the code, but it is quite often impossible in practice to send a refractory religi0us to any house except the novitiate house. The religious' at times has to be removed from contact with externs, and even more frequently he or she simply has to be sent to a very large community. Religious of this type can make life impossible for a smaller community. In cases ¯ of this nature, superiors are to strive tO observe the purpose of the law by preventing such religious from having a harmful influence. on the novices. ' 264 September, 1956 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 33 ¯ Must the nov;t;ate be located at the residence of the superior general or prov~ncla~? Neither canon law nor the practice of the Holy See in approv-ing constitutions demands that the novitiate be located at the resi-dence of the superior general or provincial. Article 88 of the Normae of 1901 contained the self-evident prescription that the novitiate wasoto be located at the place most suitable for the formation of the novices. The supervision of the higher superior can be more readily exercised when he resides at the novitiate, but the same purpose can and should be attained by more frequ.ent visits to the novitiate. --34--- Must we admit to the novlceship one who has been approved in the canonical examination of the local ordlnary~ and ~s it of" obligation that this examlnafi6n be made outside the clolster7 The canonical examination prescribed for institutes of women by can. 552 .is not admission to the noviceship or first temporary or perpetual~profession but a prerequisite for a licit admission. There-fore, a subject, who has been approved in this examination may be dismissed, excluded from further professions, or have her time of postulancy, noviceship, or temporary vows prolonged by the com-petent higher superior: The examination is to take place outside the cloister of both orders and congregations, but .any just or reason-able cause (c. 604, § 1) will suffice for holding the ~examination within the common cloister of congregations, i. e., institutes of simple vows." What is to be done ff in giving Holy Communion at the grille a Host hlls within the papal cloister of nuns? A priest may enter the cloister to pick up the Host, or a nun may pick up the Host with the paten, a clean piece of paper, or'her fingers And either consume it, if she has not already co'mmunicated, or give it to the priest. The place where the Host had fallen is after-wards to be washed by a nun, and the water is to be thrown into the sacrarium. Cf. Fanfani, De Religiosis, 460; J. O'Connell, The . Celebration of Mass, 242; De Amicis, Caerernoniale Parochorum, 181; De Herdt, Sacrae Liturgiae Praxis, II, n. 188. --36-- I asked a priest to say a votive Mass of the Annunciation of the Bless- 265 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Review for' Religious ed Virgln Mary. He told me he was not allowed to do so. What is the reason for this? Only the Masses for which permission is expressly given may be said as votive Masses of the Divine Persons, the Blessed Virgin, and the angels. This permission is verified when the Mass 'is listed as a votive Mass in the missal ~r when directions are given in the. Mass, usually after thi~ gradual, for saying it as a votive Mass. The votive Masses of the Blessed Mother universally permitted., are the five Masses of Our Lady for Saturdays according to the season, Immacu-late Conception, Seven Dolors, and Immaculate Heart. All the Masses of the Blessed Virgin in the Masses for Certain. Places may be used as votive Masses, except that of the Expectation of the Birth of Our Lord (December 18), but only in places where the festal Mass is permitted. Particular dioceses or religious institutes can also have indults to say some other Masses of the Blessed Virgin as votive Masses. A votive Mass may be said-in honor of any canon-ized saint whose name is inscribed in the Roman Martyrology, in its~approved supplements, or in tlhe calendar approved by the Holy See for any diocese, religious order, or congregation. Votive Masses may also be said for the various necessities contained in the second series of votive Masses of the missal. Cf. 3.O'Connell, "T'he Cele-bration of Mass, 68-73. --37m What is thb meaning of lay brother and la~/sister? When found, different classes of religious in the same instittite are commonly those of clerical religious and lay brothers, teaching brothers and lay brothers, choir nuns or sis~'ers and lay sisters. Lay brothers and lay sisters are sometimes called coadjutor, coadjutrix, auxiliary, and converse religious. The Latin n.ame for their class is conversi(ae). A lay brother or sister is not simply a. lay religious. All religious wo'men are lay religious, Since a lay religious is one not destined for, the priesthood. Lay brothers can be had in ~i male in-stitute in which all, the members are lay religious, e. g., in a congre-gation of teaching brothers, The class of lay brother and lay sister is distinguished ,by the following notes. There are two juridical classe's of members of distinct rights 'and obligations in the institute. The lay brother or sister is destined for domestic, manual, and tem-poral la.bors, while to the other class appertain the priestly ministry, teaching, nursing, and the formation of postulants, novices, and prbfessed. The lay brothers and sisters have no part in the govern-ment of the institute, which is reserved to the other class. Therefore, 266 September, 1956 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS they cannot be voted for or appointed to any office; nor do they have a vote in any chaptbr, general, provincial, or local. In virtue of c. 526, lay sisters have a vote on prolonging the term of the ordinary confessor; but this is.not a matter of government. ~38~- We prolonged the temporary vows of a junior professed for three more years'. May we admit him to perpetual profession before the ex-plratlon of these three added years? By canon law both the postulancy and the noviceship may be prolonged but not longer than six months. This prolongation ma~ be made even if the duration of,the postulancy and noviceship is longer than the six months and the year prescribed by canon law. Some constitutions restrict prolongation, e. g., by forbidding an tension Of more than three months to a prescribed post~lancy of nine months or to a noviceship of two years. Canon law also per-mits a prolongation of temporary vows for' three years but forbids that the whole time of- any case of temporary profession, without an indu.lt from the Holy See, be more than six years. If an institute has five years of temporary vows, they are prol6ngable-only for a year; if six, they may be prolonged only by an indult from the Holy See. Prolongation of any of these probationary states is to be avoided as far as possible by a system of reports to the highe[ superior and the prompt instruction, counseling, and admonishing of the unsatis-factory subject. Prolongation is rarely found to be a satisfactory expedient except in a case such as that of health. A prolongation of any of these probationary states does not have to be made for the frill time permitted by law. Any of them may be prolonged for days, Weeks, months, and the temporary pro-fession for one or two years. ,Whether the prolongation has been made for the full time allowed or any lesser period, the competent higher superior may admit a subject who has proved himself satis- . factory before the expiration of such a period. --39m What ,is the difference between the canonical impediments that' make a noviceship ,invalid and those that render it merely illicit?. An impediment to the noviceship is a circumstance affecting a per.son that would make his novi'ceship either invalid. (diriment im-pediment) or merely illicit (merely prohibiting impediment). All religious' institutes are' obliged by the impediments of can.~ 542. Some 267 QUESTION~AND ANSWERS Review f~r" Religious institutes have additional impediments of their own constitutions. All laws of the code oblige immediately under sin. Their vio-lation is consequently a sin, at least, objectively. The common ef-fect of law is to produce a moral obligation. A law produces no other effect uialess this is certainly stated in the law. For example, ' some laws enact'a canonical penalty, such as an excommunication against a Catholic who attempts marriage before a non-Catholic minister (c. 2319, § 1, 1"). In the present inatter, a law produces only the common effect of a moral obligation when it is a merely prohibiting impediment. To be also a diriment impediment, the law must state certainly, either explicitly or implicitly, that it is an invalidating law. This i~ done explicitly by the phrases that the person is incapable of making a valid noviceship or ~afinot be validly admitted to the noviceship. Implicitly the same effect would be ex-pressed by stating that the circumstance was a diriment impediment or that no noviceship could exist because of the circumstance or by requiring a circumstance for a noviceship or a novice to exist. Invalidating ecclesiastical laws are-concerned only .with juridical acts. These are acts that effect the acquisition, change,~nd loss of rights and ol~ligafions, such as contracts, marriage, and religious pro-fession. It is impossible to invalidate a simple act of disobedience; but marriage, since it produces the rights and obligations of husband and wife, can be invalidated. Let us suppose that a religious pro-fession is invalidly made. The invalidating law does not and can-not annihilate the physical enyity of the act of l~rofession; nor can it annul the moral entity of the act, i. e., that the act was or was not knowingly and thus sinfully made contrary to law. However; the act of profession would otherwise have produced the rights and ob-ligations of the religious state. The' p.recise effect 0f the invalidating law is tO annul these rights and obligations. The one who made the profession is not a religious and h~i's none of the rights and obliga-tions of a religious. The juridical effect of a valid noviceship is to make the subject capable under this" aspect of a valid religious pro-fession; a diriment impediment not dispensed annuls this capability. Inculpable ignorance excuses from the sin but not from the invali-dating effect of a Violation of such laws. Ignorance would excuse even from the invalidity of a particular law when such a law states that ignorance has this effect (c. 16, § 1). None of the invalidating laws on the religious state admit ignorance as an excuse from the invalidating effect. ¯Religious should faithfully observe all the laws of their institute 268 $eptember, 1956 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS and especially of the Church, but the invalidating laws are to be even more carefully studied and most strict~ly observed.Very serious consequences can arise from negligence in this matter, since the in-validating laws on the religious state can quite readily cause a chain of invalidity in the institute; For example, an invalid noviceship makes all subsequent professions invalid, and a house not validly designated as a novitiate house renders all noviceships in that house invalid. These possible cases could be multiplied, and all possible cases appear to have been verified in fact. The care for the observance of. invalidating laws on the religious state rarely falls on subjects or local superiors. It.is the master of novices, higher superiors and' their councilors, and the general and provincial secretary who must take care of the observance of such laws. They should know enough canon law to recognize or at least suspect an invalidating law and they must seek competent advice in any doubtful matter. ~0-- Poverty is a constant, iproblem in our institute. The principal difficul-ties are the use of money.wlthout permission, the very frequent request to use all or part of cjiffs, the obtaining of personal necessities, practlca~ly always of better quality, from seculars, and the obtaining of money from seculars for special purposes, which appear very extraordinary to the other religious. The last two are often solicited, directly or indirectly, by the rel[glous. It is hum[llatlng to realize that this is being done, and es-pecially the last two practices cause difficulties, discontent, and 9radua| loss of observance in quite a few other religious. I am sure that, with the possible exceptlbn of rare and accidental cases, local superiors are cjen~ erous. Are there any law~. that we should add to our constitutions to strengthen the observance of poverty? The principles with regard to such practices and even thespecific practices themselves have often been treated in the REVIEW FOR RE-LIGIOUS. It is a delusion to believe that new or added laws neces-sarily effect a renewed spiritual life. Defective laws,should b~ cor-rected; but the laws of the institute in question, as of so many others that are faced by the same problem, are not defective. The precise difficulty of many religious is that they confine their understanding and practice of poverty to the mere obligation of the vow and .of law. Superiors are to insist on the observance of both the vow\ and the laws on poverty; they are to. remember that it is easier to prevent than to eliminate abuses; and by apt ~nstruction and individual guid-ance they are to strive.to rfiake their subjects realize the purpose of poverty, without which poverty in many cases will be a matter of, 269 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Reoieu~ for Religious ;'what I~can get away with." The purpose of the religious life is the perfection of divine charity, and the primary purpose of the three vows of religion is to remove the chief obstacles that impede the soul from complete,love of God. The princilSal purpose therefore of tt~e vow of poverty is not mere external observance but a detach-ment from external goods that will lead to an increased love of God. Detachment here is the habitual interior state by which one uses, requests, and desires ma'terial things, not for themselves, but only in-sofar as they are necessary or useful for personal sanctification, prog-ress in that sanctification, and work. Permission is a help to the at-tainment of deta~chment, but no assurance of its acquisition. Per- .mission is highly compatible with attachment to the object permitted. It should be axiomatic that religious pove~rty is efficacious only to the degree that it effects detachment. If a religious iS not striving for detachment, poverty is contributing very little to his religious life. This purpose of povery is not commanded under sin; but a religious is grievously deceived if he does not realize that his sanctification, even after profession, is placed principally in matters of counsel. Religious poverty consequently is real and effective only in the degree that it is increasing love of God, detachment from material' things, and the ~ correlative virtues of trust in divine providence, patience, meekness, humility, and the spirit of mortification. A candidate applied for admission~ who had evidently been conceived before the marr[acje of his parents, but the parents married in the C~hurch before his birth. Is he lecjitlmat~? A legitimate child is one either conceived or born of a valid or a putative marriage (c. 1114). It is therefore not necessary that a Child be both conceived and born of such a ¯marriage, but either con-ception or birth is sufficient. This child was born of a valid mar-riage and is consequently legitimate. ¯ If'will be clearer to put the present question in the form of'a case with fictitious names. Irwin, a Gatholic, attemp÷ed marFiacje with an Episcppalian, before an Episcopalian minister. A daughter, Jane, was born to the couple a year later. The marrlacje was ne~;er ¢onvalidated in the Gathloi¢ Church. 'Irwin has always been certain ofthe invalidity" of his marriacje, but Irma has never had a doub~ about its validity. -Jane has olways been a C~athollc and wishes to enter relicjion. Is she lecjitim~te? 270 " September, 1956 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS A child is legitimate if conceived or born °either from a valid or from a putative marriage. A putative marriage is an invalid mar-riage, but at the time of the celebration at least one of the parties believed'the marriage valid. It is sufficient that a non-Catholic party be the one in good faith. (Cf. Vlaming-Bender, Praelectiones Iuris Matrimonii, 45-46; Woywood-Smith, A Practical Commentary, I, 646.) This good faith required in at least one of the parties means that such a party at the time of the celebration either had no doubt about the validity; or, if there was such a doubt, it was proportion-ately investigated. If such anlnvestigation was neglected, the party was not in good faith. The marriage remains putative until both parties are certain of its invalidity. A child either conceived or both while the marriage is putative is legitimate and remains so forever, even though later both parties become certain of the invalidity. A putative marriage can occur, when the invalidating .cause is el}her a defect of consent or a diriment impediment not dispensed. On January 26, 1949, the Code Commission gave an au.thentic inter-- pretation, whose sense is that a .marriage attempted completely with-out canonical form cannot be puta, tive if at least one of the parties is held to c~nonical form. Canonical form consists in the presence of a competent priest and at least two witnesses. As a Catholic, Irwin was held to canonical form; and his marriage with'Irma before an Episcopalian minister was attempted completely without ~canoniCal form. Therefore, the marriage cannot be putative; and Jane is iilegitimate. --43m Does the impediment of a religious profession effect one ~vho left after profe~slon and later wishes to be readmiffed to the, same institute? This diriment impediment of can. 542, 1 °, reads: "Those who ~ire or were bound by religious profession." The language of the canon is absolute and i.s to be understood absolutely. The impediment )herefore is verified in those who. are now bound or at any time in the past were bound by valid religious vows, sOlemn or simple, per-~ petual or temporary, iri the same or a different institute, whet,her an order or a pontifical or diocesan congregation. The iNpediment does not affect , those who were merely novices or postulants in any re, ligious institute, nor novices who were admitted to profession in dan-ger of death, nor finally anyone who was a member of a society of common life without public vows or of a secular institute. How-ever, m~iny institutes have a merely, prohibitive impediment of their own constitutions with regard to.those whd were novices or pos~u~- 271 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS lants in another, religious institute, which some extend also to those who had been nox;ices or postulants in the same religious institute. The impediment is dispensable. Greater care is to be exercised in this case to secure assurance of a religious vocation. The departure from ,,another institute is, generally speaking, a strong argument against the presence of a religious vocation. The petition should give the circumstances and reasons for the departure, i. e., the name of the 6ther institute, of what vows the candidate was professed, how long, and whether the departure was voluntary or by exclusion at the end of temporary vows, by secularization, or dismissal. The reasons for the departure should be given truthfully arid completely. Should novices be separated from the postulants? Canon law does not command the separatioh of the novices and postulants. Constitutions of lay congregations approved by the Holy See after 1901 are based in great part on the Normae of 1901. Article 64 of these Normae prescribed such a separation when this could be conveniently accomplished. Some institutes have such a prescription in their constitutions, due either to the influence of the Nor.maeor to the fact that these institutes believe separation to be more conducive to the religious formation of both novices and postulants. What does canon law command about the place of postulancy? Can. 540, § 1, commands that the postulancy be made in the novitiate ,house or in another house of the institute where the religious discipline prescribed by the constitutions is faithfully observed. The canon does not forbid the distribution of the postulants in many houses of the institute nor the repeated transfer of a postulant from one house to another. Experience, however, 'more than fully dem-onstrates that it is far more preferable for the postulancy to be made , in the novitiate house. It can be taken as a thorotighly sound and general practical principle that the effect o,f separation from the master of novices or postulants is little instruction 6r formation in the religious li~e. A small number of congregations have wisely pre-scrib, ed that the postulants must spend two complete months in the novitiate house before their entrance into the noviceship when the earlier part of the postulancy has been made outside the novitiate house. 272 (Material for this department should ,be sent to: Book Review Editor, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, West Baden College, West Baden Springs~ Indiana.) THE MIND OF THE CHURCH IN THE FORMATION OF SISTERS. Se-lectlbns from Addresses Given durln9 the Six Regional Conferences and the First National Meeting of the Sister Formation Conference, 19S4-19SS. Pp. 282. Fordham University Press, New York. 19S6. $3.00 This book is another milestone in the Sister Formation move, menL The inspiration of the movement was the address of Plus XII at the first International Congress of Teaching Sisters in September, 1951. The Holy Father dxhorted the ~ sisters to make all of their schools excellent, to make sure that the education of sister teach-ers corresponds in quality and academic degrees to that demanded by the state, and to adapt themselves to new conditions. "You," he added, "must serve the cause of Jesus Christ and of His Church as the world t~oday requires." The movement was inf~rmally laurlched at the Kansas City NCEA convention in 1952 when a ggoup of sisters was authorized .to survey the current status of sister education in the United States. ,The findings of the survey underscored three major problems of sister education: (!) the. needed time for sisters to complete a bachelor's degree program and state certification requirements beford entering the classroom, (2) the resources (financial and academic) necessary for this adeq

Issue 51.2 of the Review for Religious, March/April 1992. ; 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. 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 ~,¥ashington, D.C. 20017. I}OSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Second-class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional offices. SUBSCRIPTION RATES Single copy $5.00 includes surface mailing costs. One-year subscription $15.00 plus mailing costs. Two-year subscription $28.00 plus mailing costs. See inside back cover for subscription information and mailing costs. ©1992 Review for Religious for religious Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Assistant Editors Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Michael G. Harter sJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Jean Read Mary Ann Foppe David J. Hassel SJ Mary Margaret Johanning SSND Iris Ann Ledden SSND Se;in Sammon FMS Wendy Wright PhD Suzanne Zuercher OSB Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living MARCH / APRIL1992 ¯ VOLUMES1 ¯ NUMBER2 contents 166 182 191 2O6 217 229 236 ministry and ministries The Spiritual Exercises as a Foundation for Educational Ministry Walter J. Burghardt SJ reflects on the vision and values given to educational ministry when it is permeated by the spirituality of Ignatius Loyola's Spiritual Exercises. Going the Distance, Sustaining the Gift Melannie Svoboda SND suggests some concrete ways that people can joyfully exercise their ministry over the long haul. Newman's Living the Oratory Charism Halbert G. Weidner CO explains the Oratory foundation of Philip Neri in order to highlight values significant to John Henry Newman's life. theology and spirituality The Resurrection Kernel Dennis Billy CSSR outlines the basic principle of the doctrine of the resurrection in order to show its influence in our way of living. The Fragile Connection between Prayer and Suffering Matthias Neuman OSB speaks from his own experience of how human suffering affects our prayer. To Choose Jesus for My Heaven Donald Macdonald SMM finds Julian of Norwich's insights into the maternal love of Jesus expressed in the Blessed Sacrament. religious life and renewal Seeing in the Dark Janet Ruffing RSM finds light in John of the Cross's description of the Dark Night for understanding the current turmoil in reli-gious life. 162 Review for Religious 249 260 267 Memories of the Future Thomas McKenna CM shows how eschatology as a style of thinking provides understanding for the renewal efforts in reli-gious life. Integrating Postmodernity and Tradition Reid Perkins OP encourages the greater use of narratives in reli-gious life to connect us to the tradition and at the same time to help us overcome the obliviousness of postmodern life. Religious-Life Issues in a Time of Transition John A. Grindel CM and Sean Peters CSJ summarize the results of various studies of U.S. religious life funded by the Lilly Endowment and point to issues still to be dealt with. living religiously 276 Cultivating Uselessness Rose Hoover RC proposes that in the very experience of useless-ness and foolishness lies the gift of religious life to a pragmatic society. 282 Therapy for Religious: The Troublesome Triangle Joyce Harris OSC offers some suggestions for a collaborative rela-tionship among therapist, the individual religious, and the com-munity and its representative. 289 294 Prenovitiate: Theory and Practice Anthony Steel SSG believes a prenovitiate program can help meet the challenges of contemporary cultural attitudes toward religious life and outlines the plan for his community. report U.S. Hispanic Catholics: Trends and Works 1991 Kenneth Davis OFM Conv reviews the various events and writ-ings in the Catholic Hispanic experience. departments 164 Prisms 303 Canonical Counseh Hermits and Virgins 309 Book Reviews March-April 1992 163 prisms Teilhard de Chardin in The Divine Milieu observes that the larger half of our lives is made up of what happens to us. His observation comes home to us each year as we celebrate the great high holy days of Christianity-- Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday. Paradoxically Jesus accomplishes the work of redemption, his life's purpose, in what happens to him in his suffering, death, and resurrection. We enter into this paradox by our celebration of these days. We cannot change history, we cannot undo what has happened. Our celebration allows us in our own time to enter into what happened to Jesus and to be with him, to stand alongside, to feel com-passion- as helplessly as we listen to someone tell of being tortured by a totalitarian regime or as we sit at the bedside of a dying loved one. No activity of ours changes the event; compassionate presence is the difficult but precious gift we can give. Of course it is also our privilege to share in some-one's joy and happiness, as we do when we celebrate the res-urrection victory of Jesus. Despite the fact that so many of us are spectator-sports people, whether in the stadium or in front of the TV set, we are not comfortable being spectators of an evil we can-not eliminate and sometimes even of a happiness which lit-tle touches our lives. We may find other people's parties empty of fun for ourselves, and we may dread visiting a neighbor in the hospital.We would rather not drive through derelict inner-city neighborhoods, we would brush past the homeless person sleeping over heating grates in our down-towns, or we would switch TV channels if the images of starving Sudanese children with distended stomachs are too graphic. The problems seem too large for our efforts to make a difference. Our activity and our emotions seem 164 Review for Religious frozen. Even though we are members of the Body of Christ, we often choose not to see and not to hear. When hostages return exuberantly to waiting families, when a comatose girl revives to the joy of her parents, when government agencies extend unemployment benefits for those hurting in a reces-sion economy, how often do we feel a thrill and utter a prayer of thanks to God? Too often we keep ourselves emotionally distant even from the joys of others around us, probably because they just "happen" and leave us personally unaffected. St. Paul could state, by analogy with our human bodies, that if one member suffers all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members share its joy. The Easter events challenge us always in what we do and in what happens to us. If God is truly the God of our life, then we find the opportunity of meeting God both in what we set out to do and in what happens to us. Jesus' crucifixion confronts the activist in each of us to question our judgment about our most valued "work." All of our dyings become not the entropy of exhaustive waste, but graced moments of freedom to embrace another givenness of life from our God of life. When St. Paul challenged death--"Where is your sting?"--he did not close his eyes to the evils and losses which all the forms of dying represent. He trumpeted the Easter message that the Christ-redemption event changes not only our attitude but also our ability to value the whole of our life--its successes and accomplishments, its apparent waste matter of sin and failure. As Gospel models, Mary Magdalene (who may have confused sex and love) and Peter (who has grabbed for success and lied for survival) are the first among the evangelizers of this new creation event. Pope John Paul's appeal for a new evangelization takes form in us by our renewed attempt to integrate the active and passive aspects of our daily life. By living faith-lives as "other Christs" we make a dif-ference in what we do and in what we suffer. The call to a new evan-gelization invites us to explore further the struggles of justice and poverty and human living both at our doorstep and in our larger world. Making a difference often seems like planting seeds and hav-ing to wait for things to happen. Easter faith stirs us up in hope, moves us out in action, and integrates us in a compassionate patience. This Easter may the risen Lord embrace us anew with the grace of his passion for life. David L. Fleming sJ March-April 1992 165 WALTER J. BURGHARDT The Spiritual Exercises as a Foundation for Educational Ministry ministry and ministries To speak of basing an educational ministry on the Spiritual Exercises is something of a paradox, an apparent contra-diction. Two things simply do not seem to fit. Are not the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola an experience of the spirit, a thirty-day or eight-day retreat centered on the movement of the Christian soul to heaven, conducted in solitude, far from hustle and bustle, and preferably in silence? And is not a university or college a citadel of the intellect, where the stress is on knowledge, on books, where minds meet in constant conflict, where ideas clash, where noise is in the air, where silence is reserved for a corner of the library? I am not saying that the Spiritual Exercises and the groves of academe are interchangeable terms, that a col-lege or university is a retreat experience, that the class-room is a chapel, that learning is worship. My thesis is that the Spiritual Exercises can be, indeed should be, an exciting foundation for education Jesuit-style. More specif-ically, I see the Spiritual Exercises as a process of conver-sion which in an educational institution aims at altering in students, faculty, and staff (1) their world of learning, the Walter J. Burghardt SJ is director of the Woodstock Theo-logical Center Project Preaching the ffust Word. This article retains the flavor of its original oral presentation made at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, in April 1991. Father Burghardt's address is Manresa-on-Severn; P.O. Box 9; Annapolis, Maryland 21404. 166 Review for Religious life of the mind; (2) their world of loving, their human and reli-gious imagination and affection; (3) their world of living, the life of social realities. Let me explain what I mean in each of these three cases. First, the Spiritual Exercises should alter your world of learn-ing, that is, the life of your mind. You see, basic to the life of the mind, at the root of a university's existence, is a momentous mono-syllable: Why? Why study art and the arts, physical science or political science, law or business or medicine? Now Ignatius does not ask that question in those terms. But "spiritual exercises" he defines as "every way of preparing and disposing" ourselves to remove "all disordered attachments and, after their removal, of seeking and finding God's will in the way we direct our lives.''1 And there definitely are disordered approaches to the life of the mind, strange reasons why some go to college or university or professional school. I am not thinking of the more superficial reasons--college as a four-year Hammer dance2 interrupted by class. I am thinking of an approach to business education guided by a powerful principle: what makes the world go round is economics, and what makes the economy work is greed, the almighty dollar. I am thinking of gifted music and drama students whose aim is fame, the lust for applause, even the TV laugh machine. I am thinking of political-science students whose primary purpose is political power, the thrill in manipulating other men and women. A heart-rending example in this area is Lee Atwater, the manager of George Bush's 1988 presidential campaign who almost single-handedly turned the tide against Dukakis. Not long before his death at forty from a brain tumor on 29 March, this gifted man~ with an incredible instinct for the jugular made this poignant confession: The '80s were about acquiring--acquiring wealth, power, prestige. I know, I acquired more wealth, power and pres-tige than most. But you can acquire all you want and still feel empty. It took a deadly illness to put me eye to eye with that truth, but it is a truth that the country, caught up in its ruthless ambitions and moral decay, can learn on my dime.3 Not that money, fame, power are immoral in themselves; they are not. Without money a university would have little to offer to anyone. Fame makes it easier for the deprived to know you, to beg for the crumbs that fall from your table. Political power makes March-April 1992 167 Burghardt ¯ The Exercises for Educational Ministry possible not only a Persian Gulf war but legislated housing for the poor. Ignatius forces on the retreatant that insistent mono-syllable: Why? Even more radically, the Spiritual Exercises can keep you from segregating learning into a pigeonhole of its own, divorced from the thrust of the spirit towards God. I do not mean that all of learning becomes a religious enterprise. Vatican II made that quite clear. With Vatican I, it distinguished "'two orders of knowl-edge' which are distinct," declared that "the Church does not indeed forbid that 'when the human arts and sciences are practiced they use their own principles and their proper method, each in its own domain.'" In consequence, the council "affirms the legiti-mate autonomy of human culture and especially of the sciences.''4 My point is, the life of the mind is perilously impoverished if knowledge does not lead to wonder. Not sheer questioning: I wonder if Israel should continue populating the West Bank. In the grasp of wonder I marvel: I am surprised, amazed, delighted, enraptured. It is MaW pregnant by God's Spirit: "My spirit finds delight in God my Savior" (Lk 1:47). It is Magdalen about to touch her risen Jesus: "Master!" (Jn 20:16). It is doubting Thomas discovering his God in the wounds of Jesus. It is Michelangelo striking his sculptured Moses: "Speak!" It is Alexander Fleming fascinated by the very first antibiotic, America thrilling to the first footsteps on the moon. It is Mother Teresa cradling a naked retarded child in the rubble of West Beirut, a crippled old man in the excrement of Calcutta. It is the wonder of a first kiss. Such, sooner or later, should be your reaction to the life of learning, such the wonder that should permeate the life of your mind. Not a new methodology for biology or psychology; simply awe in the presence of a fascinating four-letter reality: life. The multifaceted, myriad miracle of life. Amazement at what breadths and depths there are to being alive--from the architectural artistry of the ant and the grace of a loping panther, through the blind-ing speed of a white marlin and the majestic flight of the bald eagle, to the beating heart of a unique fetus, the inspired imagery of Shakespeare, the fantastic forty-eight measures of Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker," the transforming insight of Einstein. With such wonder you may hope to touch the pinnacle of knowledge. For, as philosopher Jacques Maritain discovered, the height of human knowing is not conceptual; it is experiential. Man or woman feels God. Yes, feels" God. 168 Review for Religious Am I ignoring Ignatius? Have I been distracted from his Spiritual Exercises? Quite the contrary. The Spiritual Exercises are an adventure in experience, in wonder. With all the power of your mental faculties, you enter the kingdom of contemplation--what contemplative William McNamara called % long loving look at the real." The real: all there is--the things of God, the people of God, God's very self. And the high purpose of all this? To be struck, surprised, stunned by the wonder of it all--from the ecstasy of Eden unspoiled, through sin's rape of the earth and earth's dwellers, to the unique love of God-in-our-flesh pinned to a cross, and our rebirth in his rising from the rock. The net effect? Ignatius's final contemplation, the acme of the Exercises: Learning to Love Like God. Here you touch the heart of Ignatius, his awareness of the ceaseless presence of Christ to our earth--now. "Consider," he counsels, "how [Christ] labors for me in all creatures.''s Not a vague, ultrapious generality. Christ behaves like a worker, a laborer, in each and every creature of his creation. How is it that the Rockies still rise in breathtaking splendor, Venus shines brighter than any star, and oil gushes from the fields of Nebraska? Because a risen Christ gives them being. Not once for all; continuously, day after day. How is it that forsythia can herald the approach of spring, corn turn into hot buttered popcorn for your theater, giant red-woods stalk the California sky? Because an imaginative Christ gives them life. How is it that your Irish setter can smell the game beyond your ken, gulls scavenge your ocean, the shad ascend the waters? Because a sensitive Christ gives them senses. How is it that you, this wondrous wedding of molecules and spirit, can shape an idea or send a skyscraper soaring, unveil mystery in a microscope or telescope, join with another--man or woman or God--in deathless oneness? Because Christ labors in you to give you intelligence and love--intelligence that mimics the mind of God, love that stems from a cross on the outskirts of Jerusalem. A thing of beauty and a joy for ever, this life of the mind. But only if the arts and sciences, if professions like law and medicine and business, that legitimately engross you open you to the still richer reality that surrounds you, invades you, transcends you, gives fresh life to the mind you treasure so rightly, the mind you The life of the mind is perilously impoverished if knowledge does not lead to wonder. March-April 1992 169 Burghardt ¯ The Exercises for Educational Ministry accept so lightly. Ignatius's Spiritual Exercises are not the only "way to go." But for openers in two senses--a beginning and an opening--as a basis, a foundation, for the life of the mind, the Spiritual Exercises are an experience difficult to exceed. Second, the Spiritual Exercises should alter your world of loving, that is, your human and religious imagination and affec-tion. Basic to this affirmation is a realization: The life of the human spirit is not circumscribed by reason, by your ability to grasp ideas, to draw conclusions from facts and premises. If your intellectual existence is simply a model of Cartesian clarity, you are limping along on one leg. What is the lamentable lacuna? Imagination. What is this strange creature we call imagination?6 To begin with, what is imagination not? It is not the same thing as fantasy. Fantasy has come to mean the grotesque, the bizarre. That is fan-tastic which is unreal, irrational, wild, unrestrained. We speak of "pure fantasy": It has no connection with reality. It is imagination run wild, on the loose, unbridled, uncontained.7 What is it, then? Imagination is the capacity we have "to make the material an image of the immaterial or spiritual.''8 It is a cre-ative power. You find it in Rembrandt's self-portraits, in Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, in the odor of a new rose or the flavor of an old wine. You find it in dramatists like Aeschylus and Shakespeare, in poets from Sappho to Gerard Manley Hopkins, in storytellers like C.S. Lewis and Stephen King. Now, when I say "capacity," I do not mean a "faculty" like intellect or will. I mean rather a posture of my whole person towards my experience.9 It is a way of seeing. It is, as with Castaneda, looking for the holes in the world or listening to the space between sounds. It is a breaking through the obvious, the surface, the superficial, to the reality beneath and beyond. It is the world of wonder and intuition, of amazement and delight, of fes-tivity and play. How does imagination come to expression? Let me focus on specifically religious imagination. I sketch five ways. 1. A vision. I mean "the emergence either in dreams, trance, or ecstasy, of a pattern of images, words, or dreamlike dramas which are experienced then, and upon later reflection, as having revelatory significance." 10 Examples? Isaiah's vision of the Lord in the temple (Is 6); Moses and Elijah appearing to Jesus and the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration (Mt 17:1-9); Joan of Arc's "voices"; St. Margaret Mary's vision of the Sacred Heart. 170 Review for Religious 2. Ritual. The form of ritual is action--public, dramatic, pat-terned. A group enacts the presence of the sacred and partici-pates in that presence, usually through some combination of dance, chant, sacrifice, or sacrament.11 3. Story. I mean a narrative, a constellation of images, that recounts incidents or events. As Sallie TeSelle put it, "We all love a good story because of the basic nar-rative quality of human experience: in a sense any story is about ourselves, and a good story is good precisely because somehow it rings true to human life . We recognize our pilgrimage from here to there in a good story.''12 For the religious imagina-tion, three types of stories are particularly impor-tant: parable, allegory, and myth; the parables of Jesus, Lewis's "Chronicles of Narnia," and the Creation myth.13 4. The fine arts. I mean painting and poetry, sculpture and architecture, music, dancing, and dra-matic art. I mean da Vinci and John Donne, the "PietY" and Chartres, Beethoven's "Missa Solemnis," David whirling and skipping before the Ark of the Covenant, the mystery dramas of the Middle Ages. I mean films. 5. Symbol. What symbol means is not easy to say, for even within theology it does not have a univocal sense. Let me define it, with Avery Dulles, as "an externally perceived sign that works mysteriously on the human consciousness so as to suggest more than it can clearly describe or define." 14 Not every sign is a sym-bol. A mere indicator ("This way to the art museum") is not a symbol. "The symbol is a sign pregnant with a depth of meaning which is evoked rather than explicitly stated.''is It might be an artifact, a person, an event, words, a story--parable, allegory, myth. The importance of symbols, of imagination, in a university? I make three points. First, imagination is not at odds with knowl-edge; imagination is a form of cognition. In Whitehead's words, "Imagination is not to be divorced from the facts; it is a way of illuminating the facts.''16 True, it is not a process of reasoning; it is not abstract thought, conceptual analysis, rational demonstra-tion, syllogistic proof. Notre Dame of Paris is not a thesis in the-ology; Lewis's famous trilogy does not demonstrate the origin of evil; Hopkins is not analyzing God's image in us when he sings Imagination is not at odds with knowledge; imagination is a form of cognition. Marcb-April 1992 171 Burghardt ¯ The Exercises for Educational Ministry that "Christ plays in ten thousand places, / Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his / To the Father through the features of men's faces.''17 And still, imaging and imagining is a work of our intellectual nature; through it our spirit reaches the true, the beautiful, and the good. Second, imagination does not so much teach as evoke; it calls something forth from you. And so it is often ambiguous; the image can be understood in different ways. Do you remember the reporters who asked Martha Graham, "Miss Graham, what does your dance mean?" She replied: "Darlings, if I could tell you, I would not have danced it!" Something is lost when we move from imagining to thinking, from art to conceptual clarity. Not that imagination is arbitrary, that "Swan Lake" or the Infancy Narrative or "Hamlet" or the Transfiguration is whatever anyone wants to make of it, my gut feeling. Hostile to a valid imagina-tion is "the cult of imagination for itself alone; vision, phantasy, ecstasy for their own sakes; creativity, spontaneity on their own, without roots, without tradition, without discipline.''1~ Amos Wilder was right: "Inebriation is no substitute for paideia.''19 And still it is true, the image is more open-ended than the con-cept, less confining, less imprisoning. The image evokes our own imagining. Third, religion itself is a system of symbols. As sociologist Andrew Greeley saw, "religion was symbol and story long before it became theology and philosophy and., the poetry of religion was not inferior to its prose but rather anterior to it and, in terms of the whole human person, in some ways superior to it.''2° Biblical revelation is highly symbolic. Skim the Hebrew Scriptures: a burning bush, the miracles of the Exodus, the theo-phanies of Sinai, the "still small voice" heard by Elijah, the visions of the prophets and seers. Scan the New Testament: the circum-stances surrounding Jesus' conception and birth, the descent of the Spirit in the form of a dove, the transfiguration, Calvary, the res-urrection. Take key themes like the kingdom of God, its expres-sion in Jesus' proverbial sayings, in the Lord's Prayer, in the Gospel parables. The kingdom is not a clear concept with a uni-vocal significance. It is a symbol that "can represent or evoke a whole range or series of conceptions or ideas.''21 Turn from Scripture to the Catholic-Protestant problematic. Greeley's research persuades him that "the fundamental differ-ences between Catholicism and Protestantism are not doctrinal or 172 Review for Religious ethical" but "differing sets of symbols.''22 Take the central symbol: God.23 The classical literature of the Catholic tradition assumes a God who is present in the world, disclosing Himself in and through creation. The world and all its events, objects, and people tend to be somewhat like God. The Protestant classics, on the other hand, assume a God who is radically absent from the world and who discloses Herself only on rare occasions (especially in Jesus Christ and Him cruci-fied). The world and all its events, objects, and people tend to be radically different from God.24 Even more concretely, Greeley insists, their different images of God account for different religious behavior between Catholics and Protestants. In the Protestant imagination God is perceived as distant (father, judge, king, master); in the Catholic imagination God is perceived as present (mother, lover, friend, spouse).2s Another crucial example: two approaches to human society shaped by different imaginative pictures. The Catholic tends to see society as a "sacrament" of God, a set of ordered relationships, governed by both justice and love, that reveal, however imperfectly, the presence of God. Society is "natural" and "good," therefore, for humans and their natural response to God is social. The Protestant, on the other hand, tends to see human society as "God-for-saken" and therefore unnatural and oppressive. The indi-vidual stands over against society and not integrated into it. The human becomes fully human only when he is able to break away from social oppression and relate to the absent God as a completely free individual.26 A final example from Greeley's sociological research: The image that most sharply distinguishes the Catholic tradition from other Christian traditions is Mary the mother of Jesus. No one else has Madonna statues in church. MaW is essen-tial to Catholicism, not perhaps on the level of doctrine but surely on the level of imagination, because she more than any other image blatantly confirms the sacramental instinct: the whole of creation and all its processes, especially its lifegiving and life-nurturing processes, reveal the lurking and passionate love of God.27 Once again, have I been distracted from Ignatius and his Spiritual Exercises? Not really. The Exercises, for all their appeal to the Christian intelligence, are not a head trip. They are first and foremost an experience. An experience of Catholic symbols: Adam and Eve and Eden, angels and Satan, hellfire, a virgin and a crib, March-April 1992 173 Burghardt ¯ The Exercises for Educational Ministry The events of Jesus" earthly existence must be seen as a 'today." Egypt and Jerusalem, the transfiguration, bread and wine, blood and water from the side of Christ, nail marks in risen hands, an ascension into heaven. But the experience is not cold reason. Take the experience of sin's devastating impact on angels and humans, sin's ravishing of God's good earth. When you go through the Spiritual Exercises, you do not simply define sin, recall a traditional definition: any thought, word, or action against God's law. Your senses get into the act: you smell sin's stench. Even more importantly, you see sin's cost, image it, weep over it; for sin's cost is a cross, the pierced hands of a God-man. The God-man. The Exercises are a constant contemplation--contemplation of Christ. Never abstract theology, though theology informs it all. In Bethlehem's cave you are a servant; you not only listen to Mary and Joseph, you "smell the infinite flagrance and taste the infinite sweetness of the divinity.''28 You flee with that unique family into Egypt, feel what it means to be a refugee in the Middle East. In a decisive meditation you not only contrast "two standards," two scenarios for orienting your life. The standards take flesh in two persons: in a Satan who inspires "horror and terror," who makes you lust for riches, for honor, for pride; and in a living Christ who attracts you to poverty, insults, and humil-ity.: 9 It is not only Jesus who is tempted in the wilderness; you wrestle with your personal devils, sweat through the temptations that jolted Jesus: Use your powers, your gifts, your possessions just for your own fantastic self, for the sweet smell of success. Like the sinful woman, you wash our Lord's feet with your tears, feel your sins forgiven because you too have "loved much" (Lk 7:47). And so into Christ's passion, which you no longer study with scholarly detachment, comparing different traditions, reconcil-ing inconsistencies. Ignatius wants you to feel: grief and shame indeed, "because the Lord is going to his suffering for [your] sins,''3° but even, if possible, the kiss that betrayed him, the nails that held him fast. And finally, joy in the risen Christ. Not sim-ply a sense of relief; rather your whole being bursting with new life, his life, as you share his rising with his Mother, try to touch him with Magdalen, munch seafood with him and the Eleven. This is not simply your own picture show, on a level with 174 Review for Religious Kevin Costner "Dancing with !/Volves.''31 Ignatius playing with your capacity to imagine is attempting something terribly signif-icant psychologically and spiritually. This "application of the senses" goes back to a medieval tradition that reached Ignatius through a book he read while convalescing from cannon wounds back at Loyola.32 The unknown Franciscan author had written: If you wish to draw profit from these meditations., make everything that the Lord Jesus said and did present to your-self, just as though you were hearing it with your ears and seeing it with your eyes . And even when it is related in the past tense you should contemplate it all as though pres-ent today. VChy is this highly significant for an intelligent spirituality? Because you are no longer looking at the life of Christ sheerly as history, something that took place in the past. The events of Jesus' earthly existence must be seen as a "today," the historical hap-penings drawn into your own world here and now. That is how you achieve not abstract knowledge but what the medievals called "familiarity with Christ," an understanding that takes hold not only of discursive reasoning but of the whole person. Imagination leads to love--a direct experience of love. Ignatius films in living color what Aquinas phrased in attractive abstraction: There are two ways of desiring knowledge. One way is to desire it as a perfection of one's self; and that is the way philosophers desire it. The other way is to desire it not [merely] as a perfection of one's self but because through this knowledge the one we love becomes present to us; and that is the way saints desire it.34 Third, the Spiritual Exercises should alter your world of liv-ing, that is, the life of social realities. Here three facets call for clarification: social realities, the Exercises, and you. What do I mean by social realities? I mean the life of a soci-ety, the life that moves beyond the individual in isolation to com-munity, people interacting, impacting one on another, human persons depending on one another. How do the Spiritual Exercises touch social realities? After all, did not Ignatius himself describe the Exercises as "every way of preparing and disposing" ourselves to remove "all disordered attachments and, after their removal, of seeking and finding God's will in the way we direct our lives"?3s This sounds rather indi-vidualistic, does it not? Or, at best, quite vague. March-April 1992 175 Burghardt ¯ The Exercises for Educational Ministry I am aware that in 1975 the 32nd General Congregation of Jesuits declared, "The mission of the Society of Jesus today is the service of faith, of which the promotion of justice is an absolute requirement.''36 And it went on to assert a bit later: Every sector of our educational works should be subjected to constant review, so that they will not only continue to form young people and adults able and willing to build a more just social order, but do so ever more effectively. Especially should we help form our Christian students as "men [and women]-for-others" in a mature faith and in per-sonal attachment to Jesus Christ, persons whose lively faith impels them to seek and find Christ in the service of their fellow men [and women]. Thus we shall contribute to form-ing persons who will themselves multiply the work of world-wide education.-~7 But our specific question remains: Granted that our colleges should prepare women and men to construct a more just social order, how do the Spiritual Exercises lay a foundation for the social-justice component of Jesuit education? Almost a half century ago, a young Jesuit who had not yet taken his final vows in the Society was asked by his provincial to direct the annual eight-day retreat for the Jesuit theology stu-dents at Alma in California. In the course of the retreat, director Father George H. Dunne reflected on a number of social issues. Dealing with the Sermon on the Mount, for example, and the two great commandments, he "talked about poverty, peace, war, not in the abstract but in the concrete." He "talked about anti- Semitism, Hitler's holocaust, racial segregation, the rat-infested tenements in New York, the exploitation of migrant farm work-ers, the Spanish Civil War, the anguish of the world's poor . -38 Not long after, he received a letter from the representative of the Jesuit superior general for the American provinces during World War II. Father Zacheus J. Maher charged Father Dunne with substituting for the Spiritual Exercises a series of "brilliant talks on social subjects." "Such subjects," he declared, "have no place in the Spiritual Exercises.''> Let us make an admission: Our neighbor, the wider society, is not explicit in the text of the Exercises.4° Not surprising; for the Exercises "are addressed to individuals, and they seek to enable a person to have the interior freedom to serve God . -41 But if you delve more deeply, you discover how profoundly social, societal, the Exercises are. 176 Review for Religious You see, the Ignatian meditations point you ceaselessly to Christ, to the Christ of the Gospels, in that way to absorb the mind of Christ. And so you focus on the programmatic scene in Nazareth's synagogue, where Jesus makes his own the announce-ment in Isaiah: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me. He has sent me to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release for pris-oners and sight for the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the Lord's year of favor" (Lk 4:1 8-1 9).42 Through the Exercises that program ceases to be pecu-liarly Jesus'; it becomes your own. What Second Isaiah announced to the people of his day Jesus announces to the poor and impris-oned, the blind and deprived of his day. And this is what Christians in the mold of Ignatius announce to the downtrodden of their day. With Ignatius in the final Contemplation for Learning to Love Like God, you ponder profoundly how Christ "labors for [you] in all creatures on the face of the earth, that is, he behaves like one who labors. In the heav-ens, the elements, the plants, the fruits, the cattle, [man and woman], he gives being, conserves them in existence, confers life and sensation, and so on.''43 And you ask to labor with Christ as he ceaselessly creates, recreates, redeems a fallen world. Last Easter a Catholic professor of history ended his regular column in a diocesan newspaper with two puzzling sentences: "When Jesus rose from the dead, he did not go about lecturing on the social problems of his day. Instead he manifested himself in glory to his disciples in a manner that empowered them to go forth as his courageous emissaries.''44 But neither did the risen Jesus go about celebrating the Eucharist and fingering his rosary. And what did he empower them to go forth to do? To baptize indeed; to preach what he preached. But did he not preach loving your sisters and brothers as Jesus loved you? Does such loving have nothing to do with war on the womb or war in the Middle East? Nothing to do with inhuman poverty or child abuse? Nothing to do with racism or the rape of the earth? What you should experience through the Exercises is that by God's design and initiative human existence is fundamentally social, societal:4s we are "we" before we are "I" and "thou." This By God's design and initiative human existence is fundamentally social, societal. March-April 1992 177 Burghardt ¯ The Exercises for Educational Ministry is central in Christian revelation and of primary importance for our contemporary culture of individualism, where we think first of self and then how we can join with others in community--as though community did not precede the individual genetically, psychically, socially, and spiritually.46 Even Catholic social teach-ing frequently fails to position this fact front and center, because it lays down as primary in its social ethics the "dignity of the human person, who is made to the image of God." From there the teaching argues to the God-invested rights of the individual which other individuals and institutions must respect. This misses the point of the Genesis story (on which it is often based) that the "Adam" who is given such dignity is not an individual but "the hmnan," our whole race in personification.47 How does all this touch us? Very simply, a university or col-lege ought to be not only the seedbed of learning and imagination; it should be the boot camp of our societal existence. The Jesuit educational ideal is not the intellectual mole who lives almost entirely underground, surfaces occasionally for fresh air and a Big Mac, burrows back down to the earthworms before people can distract him. No. A college is where young men and women who may one day profoundly influence America's way of life touch, some for the first time, the ruptures that sever us from our earth, from our sisters and brothers, from our very selves. Not simply in an antiseptic classroom, for all its high importance for under-standing. Even more importantly, experience of rupture: experi-ence not only of ecology but of an earth irreparably ravaged, not only abstract poverty but the stomach-bloated poor, not only the words "child abuse" but the vacant stare of the child abused, not only a book on racism but the hopelessness or hatred in human hearts. To yearn for such experience, I know no better introduc-tion than experiencing the Christ of the Spiritual Exercises, the conversion consequent on seeing Christ more clearly, loving him more dearly. Can you get a 4.0, be learned, a scholar, without such a con-version? Undoubtedly. Can you make megabucks in business or law, in medicine or government without such a conversion? Undoubtedly. Can you marry well, raise two and a half children, treat them to an Ivy school education without such a conversion? Undoubtedly. Can you be deliriously happy without such a con-version? Undoubtedly. Can you live an integrated human and Christian existence without such a conversion? I doubt it. 178 Review for Religious Notes i Spiritual Exercises 1; translation partially mine. 2 Reference to a type of dancing currently in high favor with the young and involving amazing hyperactivity. 3 Thomas B. Edsall, "GOP Battler Lee Atwater Dies at 40," Washington Post, 30 March 1991, 1 and 7. 4 Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, no. 59. s Spiritual Exercises 236. For Christ as the "creator and Lord" of this contemplation, see Hugo Rahner SJ, Ignatius the Theologian (New York: Herder and Herder, 1968 / San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1991), p. 134. 6 Here I am drawing largely, but not entirely, on material in nay book Preaching: The Art and the Craft (New York/Mahwah: Paulist, 1987), pp. 19-25. 7 I am aware that fantasy does not have to mean the bizarre; I am speaking of a com~non current usage. The development was concisely expressed in l/Vebster's New International Dictionary of the English Language (2nd ed. unabridged; Springfield, Mass.: Merriam, 1958), p. 918: "From the conception of fantasy as the faculty of mentally reproducing sensible objects, the meaning appears to have developed into: first, false or delu-sive mental creation; and second, any senselike representation in the mind, equivalent to the less strict use of imagination and fancy. Later fan-tasy acquired, also, a somewhat distinctive usage, taking over the sense of whimsical, grotesque, or bizarre image making. This latter sense, however, did not attach itself to the variant phantasy, which is used for visionary or phantasmic imagination." See also Urban T. Hohnes III, Ministry and Imagination (New York: Seabury, 1976), pp. 100-103. ~ Holmes, ibid, pp. 97-98. Here Holmes is a&nittedly borrowing from Owen Barfield, Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, n.d.). 9 See Holmes, ibid, p. 88. 10 Theodore W. Jennings Jr., Introduction to Theology: An Invitation to Reflection upon the Christian Mythos (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976), p. 49. 1~ See ibid, p. 52. 12 Sallie M. TeSelle, cited by Holmes, Ministry and Imagination, p. 166, from the Journal of the American Academy of Religion 42 (1974): 635. ~3 Lest the reader be unduly disturbed, myth is not opposed to fact or to fancy. Its raw material tnay he fact or it may be fancy; in either case it intends "to narrate the fundamental structure of human being in the world. By the concreteness of its imagery, the universality of its intention, its narrative or stoW form, the myth evokes the identification and par-ticipation of those for whom it functions as revelatory" (Jennings, Introduction to Theology, pp. 51-52). ~4 Avery Dulles SJ, "The Symbolic Structure of Revelation," March-April 1992 179 Burghardt ¯ The Exercises for Educational Ministry Theological Studies 41 (1980): 55-56. Dulles studies the five dominant approaches to revelation: the propositional, historical, mystical, dialecti-cal, and symbolic--with greatest stress on the symbolic. He asks how in each theory revelation is mediated and what kind of truth it has. He con-cludes that in Christ the five aspects coalesce in a kind of unity, but insists that the first four are reconciled and held in unity through the symbolic facet. ~s Ibid, p. 56. 16 A. N. Whitehead, The Aims of Education and Other Essays (New York: Macmillan, 1929), p. 139. 17 Gerard Manley Hopkins, "As kingfishers catch fire. ," Poem 57 in W. H. Gardner and N.H. Mackenzie, eds., The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins (London: Oxford University, 1970), p. 90. ~ Amos Niven Wilder, Theopoetic: Theology and the Religious Imagination (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976), p. 57. ~') Ibid, p. 67. ~,0 Andrew M. Greeley, The Catholic Myth: The Behavior and Beliefs of American Catholics (New York: Scribner's, 1990), p. 37. 21 Norman Perrin, Jesus and the Language of the Kingdom (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976), p. 33. ~2 Greeley, The Catholic ~Vlyth, p. 44. 23 Here Greeley (p. 45) admits his dependence on David Tracy's The Analogical Imagination (New York: Crossroad, 1981). 24 Greeley, The C)ttholic Myth, p. 45. ~5 See ibid, p. 55. 26 Ibid, p. 45. Hcre, too, Greeley is indebted to David Tracy. Note Greeley's warning to his readers that the word "tend" is "used advisedly. Zero-sum relationships do not exist in the world of the preconscious" (ibid). -,7 Ibid, p. 253. See p. 254: "I argue., that the obvious functional role of Mary the mother of Jesus in the Catholic tradition is to reflect the mother love of God." For detailed presentation of the origins and func-tion of the Mary symbol, see Greeley's The Mary Myth (New York: Seabury, 1977). 2~ Spiritual Exercises 124; text from Louis J. Puhl sJ, The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius (Chicago: Loyola University, 195 I), p. 55. 29 Spiritual Exercises 140, 146 (Puhl, pp. 60, 62). 30 Spiritual Exercises 193 (Puhl, p. 81). 31 A current fihn that made off with a number of Academy awards. 3~ The book was Meditationes vitae Christi, long attributed to St. Bonaventure but actually composed by an unknown Franciscan of the fourteenth century; see Rahner, Ignatius the Theologian (n. 5 above), pp. 192-193. Quoted from Rahner, ibid, p. 193. 180 Review for Religious 34 1 have not been able as yet to document this text. 3s Spiritual Exercises 1 ; translation partially mine. 36 Documents of the Thirty-second General Congregatio,z of the Society of Jesus, 2 December 1974--7 March 1975 I, 4 (Washington, D.C.: Jesuit Conference, [1975]), p. 17. 37 Ibid, I, 4, pp. 35-36. 38 King's Pawn: The Memoirs of George H. Dunue, s.J. (Chicago: Loyola University, 1990), p. 70. 39 Ibid, pp. 69, 70. q0 See useful material in Dean Brackley SJ, "Downward Mobility: Social Implications of St. Ignatius's Two Standards," Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits 20, no. 4 (January 1988): 53; also in Thomas E. Clark SJ, "Ignatian Spirituality and Societal Consciousness," ibid, 7, no. 4 (September 1975): 127-150. 4~ Brackley, "Downward Mobility," p. 12. 42 On this episode see Joseph A. Fitzmyer SJ, The Gospel according to Luke (I-IX) (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1981), p. 529: "Luke had deliberately put this story [4:16-30] at the beginning of the public min-istry to encapsulate the entire ministry of Jesus and the reaction to it." 43 Spiritual Exercises 236; translation partially mine. 44james Hitchcock in St. Louis Review, 29 March 1991, p. 11. 4s See Clarke (n. 40 above), pp. 128-129, for the advantages of the adjective "societal" over "social" in reference to apostolate and ministry. "Social" efforts "seek immediately and personally to alleviate the misery of those individuals who are deprived." "Societal" activity "concerns itself immediately with the healing and transformation of those human struc-tures, institutions, processes, and environments which draw persons into misery or make it difficult for them to emerge from it." 46 See Matthew Lamb, "The Social and Political Dimensions of Lonergan's Theology," in Vernon Gregson, ed., The Desires of the Human Heart (New York/Mahwah: Paulist, 1988), p. 270. 471 owe this paragraph to notes of James L. Connor sJ, director of the Woodstock Theological Center, Washington, D.C., prepared for the inau-gural retreat of my project Preaching the Just Word, an effort to move the preaching of social-justice issues more effectively into the Catholic pul-pits of the United States. March-April 1992 181 MELANNIE SVOBODA Going the Distance, Sustaining the Gift an one of her newspaper columns, Ellen Goodman describes pheno~nenon called "compassion fatigue." This occurs when people who are normally sensitive and generous get "tired of caring." Most Americans, Goodman maintains, are very caring in emergencies. She writes: "We are great at performing the one-night stands for causes. Christmas dinner for the poor, collec-tions for victims of fire or flood or famine." But if the emergency situation becomes chronic, many of us find it difficult to sustain our initial level of concern. When compassion fatigue sets in, says Goodman, "A gift can begin to feel like an obligation, generosity can turn into resentment, and sympathy can turn hard." I think Goodman's article has definite implications for those of us involved in ministry in the church. Let us face it: most of us are in ministry not for a one-night stand. We are in it for years, maybe even for life. The problems we deal with every day--igno-rance, poverty, injustice, sickness, violence--will not go away overnight--or even in a matter of a few years. So the question we have to ask ourselves is: How do we keep our compassion alive over the long haul? How do we fan the flame of enthusiasm for a lifetime of service in the church? Before I suggest some ways of doing this, I would like to say a few words about why. For everything I say is based on the premise Melannie Svoboda SND, with whom our readers are well acquainted, resides at Notre Dame Academy; Route One, Box 197; Middleburg, Virginia 22117. 182 Review for Religious that coinpassion and enthusiasm are essential for ministry in the church. Without them, ministry is at best a mere show and at worst a perversion of the very Gospel we claim to proclaim. To illustrate this fact, I tried to come up with an image of ministry as compassionate, generous, and enthusiastic--and not something performed out of a sense of obligation and even with resentment. The image I came up with may appear an unlikely one: feeding chickens! But let me explain. Feeding Chickens I was born and raised on a small goose farm in Willoughby Hills, Ohio. That rural "initial formation" continues to influence my outlook on life. On our farm we had hundreds of white Emden geese. It was my father and brothers who had the job of feeding them. But we also had a couple dozen chickens, and the task of feeding them usually fell to my mother, my sister, or me. Now what is the connection between feeding chickens and ministering in today's church? Simple. The way I see it, there are three essential elements to proper chicken feeding (and, I might add, to proper church ministry). First, there is the feed itself--the corn, the mash, whatever. The feed is the gift we bring to the chickens. More than that, it is their source of nourishment, of life itself. Without too much of a stretch of the imagination, we can say that the chicken feed is the "good news" we bring each day to our chickens. The second element of chicken feeding involves calling the chickens. We have to get their attention, alert them to the feed we have for them. But a good chicken feeder goes beyond merely calling the chickens. He or she establishes a relationship with them. The feeder talks to the chickens, even thanking them for the fine eggs they have been laying. For a good chicken feeder (like a good church minister) is always aware of being a receiver as well as a giver. The third element of chicken feeding (and of ministry) is the actual broadcasting of the feed. How does an experienced chicken feeder broadcast the feed? Eagerly, generously, unsparingly. Now that is an image of ministry at its best, ministry with compassion and enthusiasm. Ministry at its worst would be the person who sets out to feed the chickens grumbling and mum-bling the whole way to the chicken coop. "I have got to feed those March-April 1992 183 Svoboda ¯ Going the Distance stupid chickens--again. I just fed them yesterday. They're never satisfied. All they do is eat, eat, eat. What good are they, any-way?" Such a feeder might not even call the chickens, thinking: "If I don't call them, maybe they won't come, and then I won't have to feed them." But, of course, the chickens do come, called or uncalled. And how does this kind of feeder broadcast the feed? Perhaps sparingly: "A kernel for you, a kernel for you . " Or angrily, throwing handfuls of feed down on the ground in dis-gust. Or hastily, dumping the whole pail of feed in one spot, just to get the job over with. That is an image of ministry when compassion fatigue has set in. I maintain that ministering in such a way is a contradiction of the Gospel. For we are called to proclaim the good news, not the "ho-hum" news, not the "halfway decent" news. We are called to love the people to whom we minister, not "put up with" them or view them as a nuisance. If we can no longer minister with gen-uine compassion or with vibrant enthusiasm, then maybe we should not be ministering. Years ago I had a Scripture teacher who made this point very clear. He said that on a given day we might wake up crabby, dis-couraged, depressed, mad at the whole world and every human being in it. On such a morning, maybe we should call the office, the school, or the parish and say in all honesty and humility, "I won't be in. I cannot in conscience represent the Gospel today." The suggestion, though perhaps a little extreme, does make a salient point: an anti-sign to the Gospel is probably worse than no sign at all. In other words, if our words, attitude, and whole bear-ing contradict the Good News we represent, then maybe we should not be representing it. Compassion and enthusiasm are requisites for effective min-istry. What, then, are some ways we can "go the distance" and "sustain our gift" of ministering? There are, no doubt, many ways. Here, I suggest four. Retaining the Big Picture The first way is to retain the big picture. Sometimes we lose enthusiasm for our ministry because our perspective becomes too narrow, our vision myopic. We lose sight of the big picture and get enmeshed in the near at hand, the petty, the nitty-gritty. In his book The Art of Choosing, Carlos ~Galles SJ reminds us how impor- 184 Review for Reli~4ous rant it is in life to have a sense of direction. He describes "a lovely little habit" that Ignatius had of stopping himself physically in the middle of a hall and asking himself, "Where am I going? And what for?" That habit was one way Ignatius had of connecting a seemingly insignificant action--going to the dining room to eat, heading for chapel to pray, or walking down the hall to a meet-ing-- with the bigger picture of ministering to God's people. The practice is a good one: regularly and consciously to make ourselves see our daily small actions as part of a greater whole. Recently I watched an artist painting a large mural of a sunrise. I noticed how frequently she stepped back from her work to gain a broader perspective. Then she would step forward, add a few more strokes with the paint roller, and step back again for another look. We must do the same thing in our ministry. Sometimes God seems to provide us with opportunities to do this: after a suc-cessful activity, after an apparent failure, at the time of a transfer or change in ministry, or during a serious illness. But we can also do this more regularly: during an annual retreat or a monthly day of recollection, in the morning before we begin our day, or in the evening before we crawl (or fall) into bed. The habit of ask-ing "Where am I going (or where have I been today) and what for?" will put us in touch with the real zvhat and v:hatfor of our ministry, thus enabling us to catch at least a glimpse of how our "daily chores" fit into the big picture of God's grand design. Seeing Babies A second way of retaining our compassion and enthusiasm I call: seeing babies and not diapers. A priest told me once that a young mother came to him very discouraged and worn out. "I'm sick and tired of changing diapers," she cried. The priest thought for a moment and then gently suggested, "Next time don't change the diaper. Change the baby." He was not being "celibately sar-castic." He was pointing out to her a lesson in perspective. We have to see the tasks we do in relation to the individual human beings for whom we do them. During a retreat another priest told this true stoW. A teenage boy was seriously injured in a car accident. When the parish priest was notified, he immediately went to the hospital to see the boy. When the priest walked in, the boy said, "Father, if you've come here for God's sake, then for God's sake, get out! But if you have March-April 1992 185 Svoboda ¯ Going the Distance come here because you think I am worth it, then please stay." The priest stayed. Maybe for too long we overemphasized "All for the greater honor and glory of God." That phrase certainly encapsulates a marvelous truth, but, like most truths, even that one needs another truth to balance it. In our ministry we do not bypass the human beings we serve. We do not overlook them. We do not use them to win God's favor. We must remember, we minister not to parishes, schools, hospitals, or dioceses. We minister to individ-ual human beings--to Vera, Frank, Carlos, Heather--and each of them is worth it. Getting Support A third way we sustain our gift of ministry is: We get sup-port. The venerable tradition of rugged individualism that helped found this great nation will not "cut it" in ministry. The truth is, we cannot "go it alone." Fortunately, our contemporary times, with its emphasis on support groups, reminds us of this truth. I came to appreciate the importance of support groups when I became a flee-lance writer. Before that I had been a full-time high school teacher for many years. As a teacher I had a built-in support group: the other teachers on the faculty. But when I seri-ously began to write as part of my ministry, I suddenly felt terri-bly isolated and alone. It became difficult for me to sit in front of my typewriter (and later tny computer) for two or three hours a day and write, for I would recall working for hours on a piece only to have it fizzle into nothingness. Or I would send out arti-cles and stories enthusiastically only to have them lost, mutilated, or rejected. Finally I knew I needed support in my ministry--and more than the occasional acceptance letter offers. So I attended some writers' conferences and hooked up with a few other people who write for publication. I rely on these friends for the under-standing and encouragement that only a fellow writer can give. In his book The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis writes beautifully about the origin of a friendship. He says a friendship originates when two people, often engaged in a common task, disclose some-thing of their inner selves to each other. They turn to each other in amazement and say, "You, too?" We in church ministry need to experience that "you-too?-ness" with others who are engaged in the same or similar ministry. 186 Review for Religious Being More than a Minister A fourth way we can go the distance in our ministry is to be more than a minister. We probably all agree that we are more than we do, and that we are far more valuable than what we pro-duce. But an effective minister does more than give intellectual assent to that truth. He or she makes decisions based on it. He or she takes time to be more than a minister, knowing how pathetic it is if a minister's identity is restricted to a particular job or title. There is always a danger of turning even church work into an end in itself. Workaholism is alive and well in most business organizations and (we have to admit with sadness) also in our church. The problem is, workaholism, though a real addiction, looks a lot like dedication. If a minister in the church is addicted to alcohol or gambling or food or sex, chances are someone (or someones) sooner or later will intervene to help that person. But if a minister is addicted to work~staying up all hours of the night, never taking time for a break or vacation, never socializing with people in a nonwork setting--we sometimes let him or her go on. Or even worse, we praise that person, thus encouraging the addiction. In this regard, we should recall that the primary biblical image of heaven is not an office, not a school, not a parish. It is a party, a banquet. If all we do our whole life is work, work, work, chances are we are going to feel extremely out of place in heaven. We will not know what to do, how to let go, how to have fun. No, we ministers should learn how to be party people while we are still here on earth--even as we minister. We work hard, yes, knowing full well that our ministry cannot always be restricted to certain office hours. But we also know how to get away, how to enjoy people and have fun. The Cross, the Cost So far we have looked at four ways to help prevent compas-sion fatigue in our ministry. But there is one more word I wish to say about compassion fatigue: sometimes it is the cross we bear, the cost we pay. Our fatigue is not always a sign that we are doing something wrong. Sometimes it is a sign that we are doing some-thing right. Our periodic fatigue and occasional discouragement put us in touch with our limits. And experiencing our limits is vital to effective ministry. Otherwise we run the risk of living in March-April 1992 187 Svoboda ¯ Going the Distance illusion, of beginning to think that we are responsible for the good we do or that we are the "good news" we proclaim--and not Jesus. Our ministry, in order to be authentic, must cost us some-thing-- in time, in energy, in love. I am reminded of that seem-ingly insignificant incident in the story of David at the end of the second book of Samuel. David, nearing the end of his life, goes to a man named Araunah and asks to buy his threshing place in order to build an altar there for the Lord. Araunah tells David, "Take it, Your Majesty." And he offers to give several oxen, too, all free of charge. But David refuses to accept Araunah's gifts. He insists on paying for everything, saying, "I will not offer the Lord my God sacrifices that have cost me nothing." At times we all get weary in our ministry. Our fatigue, loneliness, or discouragement are part of the cost of our love and service of others, part of the sacrifice we make regularly to God for the privilege of serving in the church. The Ministry of Jesus How does all of this relate to the person of Jesus? How did he remain loving and alive throughout his ministry? First of all, Jesus had the big picture. He possessed an amazingly expansive view of reality. He looked at a crude fisherman and saw a great leader. He observed the birds in the air and comprehended God's provident care. He beheld a sinful woman and recognized her as a woman who loved much. Jesus was always ready to adjust his perspective, to align it ever more closely with that of the Father. Nowhere is that more clearly seen than in Gethsemane. Jesus' initial reaction to his impending crucifixion was "Please let this pass!" But by let-ting go of his limited perspective, he could say, "Your will be done"; in other words, "I embrace your point of view." Jesus saw babies and not diapers. That is, he focused on indi-vidual people and not on the immense task he had to perform. The Gospels show Jesus speaking to large crowds, of course, but more often they show him relating to individuals: the twelve apos-tles, the man with a withered hand, a centurion, a demoniac, Simon's mother-in-law, a particular deaf man, a grieving widow, an epileptic, Jairus, Nicodemus, Mary and Martha, and so forth. The clear impression is that Jesus ministered to individuals. Even more important, individuals were his legacy. Jesus did not leave 188 Review for Relig4ous behind a spiral notebook on how to run a church. He did not write a curriculum nor even one encyclical. Instead, he left behind people--individuals--whose lives he touched and radically altered. Maybe we have to ask ourselves: How do we measure the effectiveness of our ministry? By the number of reports we fill out? By the neatness of our office? By the thick-ness of our files? Or by the individuals we have ministered to and with--and those we have allowed to minister to us? Jesus liked support groups. In fact, he even started one: the apostles. He also went outside that group for the kind of support that those dozen men could not give him. He seemed to need and appreciate the feminine encouragement of a Mary and a Martha, the unique devotion of a Mary Magdalene. The Gospels show Jesus enioying people. He was not always preaching or teaching or giving workshops. He was relaxing in the company of his friends and colleagues. Even in his darkest hour in Gethsemane, he did not "go it alone." He took part of his support group with him: Peter, James, and John. They disappointed him, yes, as people sometimes disappoint us, too. But Jesus understood their weakness and forgave them, knowing his ultimate support group was the Father and the Spirit. Lastly, Jesus was more than a minister, much more. Van Gogh supposedly said, "If you want to know God, love many things." One reason Jesus was so close to God was because he loved so many things, so many varied aspects of life. Jesus was perhaps a carpenter. What can we deduce from that simple fact? He had a "good eye," a highly developed aesthetic sense. He had a steady hand and knew and appreciated wood. Jesus was a storyteller, too, and a fine one. His "Good Samaritan" and "Prodigal Son" are masterpieces. 0nly a person in touch with the core of life could have spun such magnificent yarns. Jesus was well acquainted with other components of life: bread baking, barbecuing, wine making, and farming, to name but a few. He was keenly aware of the political situation of his times. He was in touch with the prejudices of his day as well as the hopes and dreams of his people. He was something of a naturalist, too, sen-sitive to the changing seasons and to the flora and fauna of his Our ministry, in order to be authentic, must cost us something.- in time, in energy, in love. March-April 1992 189 Svoboda ¯ Going the Distance immediate environment. Little wonder Jesus was so effective as a minister--for he was so much more than one. He was a person fascinated by life, and thus he became a source of fascination--and salvation--for others. Yes, Van Gogh said it: "If you want to know God, love many things." But Jesus lived it, leaving an example for all of us who would follow in his footsteps: "If you want to minister, love many things!" The Long-Distance Runner When I taught high school in Raleigh, North Carolina, in the late 70s, I had a senior girl who was a top-ranking long-dis-tance runner. Julie taught me that there is a world of difference between the sprinter and the long-distance runner. The training and techinques are vastly different. The sprinter's goal is near, often clearly visible. He or she relies on a quick burst of energy to reach that goal within a matter of seconds. Because the dis-tance is so short, the sprinter runs side by side, neck and neck, with other runners who provide an impetus for the sprinter to run hard and fast. Not so with the long-distance runner. This runner's goal is miles away, not even visible. He or she must take steps all along the way to conserve energy for the long haul. Pacing becoInes critical. Although the runners in a marathon start out together, toward the end of the race they often find themselves running alone and forced to rely on deep inner resources and not the near-ness of fellow runners to keep them going to the end. The image of the long-distance runner is an appropriate one for those of us engaged in ministry. For most of us are in ministry for the long haul. We do not want our loving service to deterio-rate into a stoic sense of duty, but to remain a joyful gift. We do not want resentment to contaminate our pool of selfless giving. Instead we want our generosity to be alive and well, our com-passion tender and strong. And we wish to carry our enthusiasm for the Good News all the way to the finish line. Thank God, we do not run alone: God, our God, goes with us--the whole distance. 190 Review for Religious HALBERT WEIDNER Newman's Living the Oratory Charism As the biographical approach to writers and thinkers pro-liferates, so does the controversy over its historical worth. I am taking a biographical approach to John Henry Newman with some trepidation because of the length of his life, his great contributions to thought, and the complexities of the issues. Still I am encouraged in the enterprise by Newman him-self, who insisted on the validity of personal influence in the pur-suit of truth) I intend in this essay first to introduce readers to the Oratory of St. Philip Neri, which Newman brought to England, and then to discuss the Oratory as important for understanding certain values in Newman's life. Newman arrived at these values and maintained them at some personal cost. That cost represents for this author, another Oratorian, the personal drama of grace and conversion of a founding father among English-speaking Oratories. The Nature of an Oratory of St. Philip Neri The first thing that should be said about an Oratory is what it is not. It is not a religious order. There are no vows, no oaths, no promises of any kind public or private. There is no Rule. You will see a Rule mentioned in the time of Newman, but actually what you have are constitutions representing the practice of the Roman house in the latter part of the sixteenth century.2 Philip Neri was a reluctant founder who refused to write a Rule or con-stitutions. Halbert Weidner CO sends these reflections from the Spiritual Life Center; 2717 Pamoa Road; Honolulu, Hawaii 96822. March-April 1992 191 This irregular founder lived from 1515 until 1595, coming to Rome as a young Florentine in 1533. He was not ordained until he was thirty-six years old. He had been a student, a hermit and mystic, and a member of a reforming confraternity which served sick pilgrims, that is, the poor who became ill while visit-ing Rome. He lived in a set of apartments with other priests as part of a complex named San Girolamo della Carit~. It was in a prayer room at this church that the crowd who could no longer fit into Philip's rooms began to gather daily at the siesta hour for prayer. It was this afternoon gathering of laity which was the first Oratory.3 Perhaps the best description of St. Philip's intent is given by Newman himself in The Idea of a University: He [Philip Neri] was raised up to do a work ahnost peculiar in the church--not to be a Jerome Savonarola, though Philip had a true devotion towards him and a tender mem-ory of his Florentine house; not to be a St. Charles, though in his beaming countenance Philip had recognized the aure-ole of a saint; not to be a St. Ignatius, wrestling with the foe, though Philip was termed the Society~ bell of call, so many subjects did he send to it; not to be a St. Francis Xavier, though Philip had longed to shed his blood for Christ in India with him; not to be a St. Caietan, or hunter of souls, for Philip preferred, as he expressed it, tranquilly to cast in his net to gain them; he preferred to yield to the stream, and direct the current, which he could not stop, of science, literature, art, and fashion, and to sweeten and to sanctify what God had made very good and man had spoilt.4 Those who gathered around Philip found a mystic, a reformer, and a humanist, but they did not find him in a cloister or in any religious order. They found him in his rooms with the doors wide open to the public and surrounded by laity. This is why the Oratory is first and foremost secular. It was this laity that formed the original gathering for prayer in a place of prayer (that is, an oratory) and these same laypersons who preached, led prayers, sang in the vernacular, and studied together each afternoon under Philip's guidance. The Congregation of the Oratory is a secondary group of secular priests and laity which gathered around Philip as the Oratory became less of a movement and more of an institu-tion. But before this, Philip carried on the ministry of prayer and reflection from 1551 until 1575, more or less activating the laity as the leaders. It was in 1575 that a secondary group of priests and brothers had gathered sufficiently to be formally organized 192 Review for Religious with papal approval. But this Congregation was without any con-stitutions and was still primarily organized for the initial group of laity,s Constitutions for the Congregation were not finished until 1612, seventeen years after Philip's death. Later the institution of the congregation became more clericalized as not only the pri-mary group of laity disappeared, but even the brothers were no longer accepted, leaving a congregation of secular priests who lived together in community. While the Oratory is unique within Roman Catholicism, its values represent a mind-set present among many reformers of the early sixteenth century. This reforming spirit is symbolized by the values St. Jerome came to represent within a church loaded down with religious orders heavy on structure and low in spirit. Erasmus had noted that, in the days of St. Jerome, "the profession of a monk consisted in no more than the practice of the original, free, purely Christian life.''6 The summary of Erasmus's thinking about the ideal religious given us in Eugene Rice's St. Jerome in the Renaissance could also be a description of the spirit animating the early Oratory of St. Philip: Monks then were men who wished only to live with willing friends in liberty of spirit close to the teachings of the Gospel. Their lives were sweetly leisured. No ceremonies or man-made regulations fettered them. No single dress was prescribed. No deference was paid to total abstinence. They studied, they fasted, and sang psalms as the spirit moved them. They took no vows.7 This being said, we can note some positive elements in the Congregation of the Oratory: A. It is a center of prayer by nature. The classical form that this prayer takes dates back to the more intimate group that gath-ered in the evening around Philip. This amounts to about a half hour of silent prayer or meditation concluded with vocal prayers. The two-hour prayer sessions led by and for the laity at the time of St. Philip have been the casualty of time. Likewise the primary group of laity called the Oratory has also passed away except for a remnant often called "the Little Oratory." This name is quite ironic since what has become "little" was in fact the biggest and the first of the founder's works, not to say the very reason behind it all. Except for a directive to somehow maintain the secular or "Little Oratory," the ministry of the Congregation is otherwise unspecified and unspecialized. Each house tends to the work at 21/larch-April992 193 The life of an Oratory is said to be built on a deep regard for "well-known faces.' hand, and assignments tend to reflect the talents of the members. Philip Neri was against centralization and so put on its own every house that wished to follow on his general pattern. He believed that duplication was impossible and that each situation called for its own approach. B. Face-to-face association is essential to the Oratory. In a phrase going back to the community's origins, the life of an Oratory is said to be built on a deep regard for "well-known faces.''8 There were no fears to be engendered in an Oratory over friendships, and such a pol-icy militated against large sizes and the anomaly of "communities" of religious who have to resort to books with mem-bers' pictures for help in identification. C. Relative permanence is an ideal even though there are no vows or any-thing else holding a person to an Oratory. Perseverance is a fundamental aspect of the house spirituality and is often prayed for aloud at community prayer. Note that members cannot be transferred from one house to another and that, if they leave a house to go voluntarily to another that has freely accepted them, they must usually transfer membership as well. This means that problems with and among members must be worked out within the house since, obviously, transference cannot be the solution. Dismissal from a house is a rare and difficult pro-cedure. D. Small numbers, then, are the consequence of Oratorian living. The Constitutions of the Congregation go so far as to say that the power of an Oratory resides in such a small membership. Large numbers would weaken a house, which is supposed to be built on interpersonal relationships. When Newman wrote The Present Position of Catholics in England, he was addressing the men of the secular or Little Oratory. Towards the end, he applies this Oratorian principle of strength despite small numbers when he tells them: Your strength lies in your God and your conscience; there-fore it lies not in your number. It lies not in your number any more than in intrigue, or combination, or worldly wisdom. God saves whether by many or by few; you are to aim at 194 Review for Religious showing forth His light, at diffusing "the sweet odor of His knowledge in every place": numbers would not secure this. On the contrary, the more you grew, the more you might be thrown back into yourselves, by the increased animosity and jealousy of your enemies. You are enabled in some mea-sure to mix with them while you are few; you might be thrown back upon yourselves, when you became many? The Oratory, then, exists to embody the ideal of koinonia, liv-ing together as a fruit of the Holy Spirit and a sign of God's rule. The Oratory is very conscious that only the Spirit can keep it together faithful to the charism and that a life of prayer and open-ness is the only way to persevere with any kind of fruitfulness. Community in this context is not a utility, but an end, the pres-ence of each person's final destiny in the communion of saints somehow present now. E. The Oratory is collegial to a unique degree. All major pol-icy decisions are made by the entire congregation of members who have finished six years. Personnel and financial decisions on a smaller scale are decided by a deputed congregation elected by the membership. The provost is the title of the "superior" who holds the office as first among equals. He is chiefly an adminis-trator and his authority rests in moral persuasion. His only clear power is that of proposal since neither the general congregation nor the smaller deputed congregation can discuss or vote on any-thing without this proposal. Since the provost serves only three years, any provost resisting the majority can only hold out for a certain time. E The Congregation of the Oratory is also juridically pon-tifical. Today each house is now part of a very loose confederation, but each is still a complete pontifical congregation. Each superior is a major superior. In Newman's time there was no confederation at all, and so each house was directly involved with the Roman Curia. This gives each small house a double relationship. They are rooted in their diocese and have a special relationship to the local church and the bishop on one hand, and yet on the other look to the Holy See for the preservation of the charism. We shall see how each of the elements of the Oratory Congregation played a role in the life of Newman. Newman and the Oratory I have chosen five aspects of Newman's life where I believe the March-April 1992 195 Oratorian charism was arrived at and purchased at some cost to him. These are: (1) the elasticity of the Oratory and Newman which was tested in his assumption of the rectorship of the Irish Catholic University, (2) the choice he had between a university apostolate and the Oratory during the Irish Catholic University founding, (3) the promotion of the laity in fields rightly theirs that had been co-opted by clericalism, (4) the resistance to foreign cultural aspects of Roman Catholicism in favor of an indigenous English religious life, (5) fidelity to community life in one place and one people. 1. The Elasticity of the Charism I have said that each Oratory has a great deal of elasticity to it as the congregation has no specific work to which its members are bound. This elasticity is from time to time tested within an individual Oratory, and Newman's assumption of the rectorship of a yet-to-be-founded university in Dublin was a very grave exper-iment in just how flexible an Oratory can be. But the flexibility had a true Oratorian origin. First, it was the result of consultation with both Birmingham and the not-yet-independent London house. Father Faber's letter indicates that the London community thought it good for the congregation that Newman assume the rectorship rather than anything less demand-ing, but less powerful.~° Secondly, it took a papal brief confirm-ing the arrangement before the attempt was made to do the impossible, that is, allow Newman to bilocate as provost in Birmingham and rector in Dublin.11 Thirdly, it was specifically for the purpose of starting a Dublin Oratory, and Newman's build-ing plans indicate he gave priority to the Oratory in that the uni-versity church built there was for the sake of a potential foundation.12 But Newman knew how precarious it was for an Oratorian to be away from his house. In a letter to Ambrose St. John he says, "I trust we shall have an Oratory in Dublin--which is the only thing I can bribe St. Philip with for coming here.''13 That it was a disaster emotionally for Newman and a serious drain on the Birmingham Oratory does not make it any less Oratorian for all that. Because of its lack of structure, it is typical of an Oratory to try to do too much rather than too little. It is easy enough to document other Oratories trying to stretch too thin. Thus we have the Oratory of Goa, India, sending Joseph Vaz to Sri Lanka at a time of persecution and in the clothing of a Hindu 196 Review for Religious holy man. There he labors with other Oratorians scattered around the countryside more like clerks regular than sons of St. Philip.14 My own Oratory in South Carolina had members scattered throughout the state during half of its history and only recently and with great difficulty has been able to return all of the mem-bers to a community life.Is During the time of St. Philip, the Oratory took on dependent missions for a while until St. Philip and the community abruptly called a halt to this development.Is So it is Oratorian to push the Oratory to the extreme and perhaps beyond. It is also Oratorian to eventually return to saner limits and the grace of a life closer to the original charism. 2. The Preference for Obscurity If Newman's acceptance of the rectorship pushed the Oratorian charism beyond limits, his fidelity to an Oratorian voca-tion is demonstrated by his resistance to a classic temptation against the life to which he believed God called him. The asceti-cism of the Oratory is a rigorous egalitarianism. Each member has one vote and all are equal and most aspects of the life are governed by the majority when not regulated by the constitu-tions. It was not uncommon among the best and brightest of St. Philip's followers to leave the Oratory, usually under papal "obe-dience," for higher positions in the church. That St. Philip him-self managed to escape or refuse such offers does not seem to be a grace extended to many of his followers. One of St. Philip's aphorisms was "love to be unknown,''17 but it is a hard saying. And it was a grace extended to Newman. Simply put, when presented with a full-time rectorship of the Irish university, Newman chose the small, obscure Oratory of Birmingham, England.I8 He was consistently resistant to any compromise on this point even though the choice seemed impenetrably obscure to both friends and foes. This disregard for the existence, rights, and potential of the Birmingham Oratory was one of Newman's great crosses. Newman complained, "Me they wish to use--me they wish to detach in every way from my own Fathers.''19 Separating an Oratorian from his community has not always been difficult, and there is evidence to indicate that some of these peo-ple thought they were doing Newman a favor by trying to detach him from the Oratory. Another fear of Newman's was the bad effect an absent provost would have on attracting new members to the Birmingham Oratory. This made the arrangement with the March-April 1992 197 university and Archbishop Cullen finally untenable.2° From inside the Oratory, the sacrifice of an outside position seems to be the heart of a vocation that embraces the asceticism of simply being one among many. 3. Maintaining the Preference for Laity The University episode also exemplifies another Oratorian principle, the importance of laicity to church and Oratory. As I have said, in the nineteenth century much of the lay character of the Oratory was atrophied. Only the little Oratory existed in some places and in some forms. Within some of the Congregations there were lay members or "brothers," for want of a better word, but as in most societies defined as congregations of priests, these brothers had no vote and seniority depended on holy orders first and seminary status second; only third came the brothers, who followed the youngest seminarians. But at a time when brothers in clerical communities of priests were treated as second-class members and even much like servants, Newman wrote to the act-ing superior of Birmingham the following directive: I am somewhat pained, my dear Edward, to hear you speak of us as 'Gentlemen--' We are not Gentlemen in con-tradistinction to the Brothers--they are Gentlemen too, by which 1 mean, not only a Catholic, but a polished refined Catholic. The Brothers are our equals . The Father is above the Brothers sacerdotally--but in the Oratory they are equal2~ This is indeed the spirit of St. Philip, whose esteem for the lay members of the congregation as well as of the religious orders was well known. But making this point about equality is still a struggle today within the congregations. In my opinion, if you ask many Oratorians what the Oratory is, they will simply say that it is a community of priests, without communicating at all the possibility of full lay membership and, since the Second Vatican Council, full voting rights. Newman's second contribution as an Oratorian to laicity was his emphasis on the secular Oratory or the Oratory as a lay move-ment. The revival of the secular or Little Oratory was "more important than anything else," at least in his own eyes. He real-ized that this was not a burning isst.e among the other Oratories, but he himself believed that, if the secular Oratory was not estab-lished, then the Congregation of the Oratory should be consid- 198 Review for Religious ered a faih~re.22 It was, as I said, for the secular Oratory that Newman wrote the lectures now called The Present Position of Catholics, and it is this volume I would call Newman's literary con-tribution to laicity. Perhaps Newman would agree with me, as he believed it in his old age to be his "best written book.''23 It is at any rate, in the opinion of Ian Ker, a popular, even Dickens-like piece of wit and rhetoric introducing the grander themes later developed in his explorations of the nature of a university.24 And, finally, it must be noted that for Newman laity meant men and women. Women had not been his-torically part of the secular Oratory, and so he petitioned Rome for a secular Oratory for women. Even though it did not develop, the rescript obtained estab-lished a new precedent.2s It was this regard for laity as essential to the religious enterprise of the Oratory that informs Newman's Idea of a University, where laicity is central to the educational enterprise. In my reckoning, this is his third contribution to laicity, but probably the best-known outside the Oratory. Newman believed that it was his struggle to appoint a lay vice-rector, to define the university as the province of the laity, and to develop self-moti-vated students with a minimum of authority which led to the ruin of the project.26 It was such "dreadful jealousy of the laity," Newman also believed, which led to the rejection of another planned Oratory at another university, this time no less than Oxford itself.27 Secularity and laicity, principles at the heart of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri, made it impossible for Newman to spread the congregation when both such principles were feared and rejected by church officials who felt the church to be under siege. That the ability to act and to be respectful of church author-ity were compatible seems to be exemplified in the life of the very independent personality Philip Neri. But, when Newman wished to prove the principle by anecdote, he very cleverly chose the most authoritarian of religious societies, the Jesuits, to make his point: "Nothing great or living can be done except when men are self governed and independent: this is quite consistent with a full maintenance of ecclesiastical supremacy. St. Francis Xavier wrote Regard for the laity as essential to the religious enterprise of the Oratory informs Newman's Idea of a University. March-April 1992 199 to St. Ignatius on his knees; but who will say that St. Francis was not a real center of action?''-'s 4. Preference for the Local Culture Around an Oratory Besides preserving laicity, Newman desired also to preserve English culture within the Roman Catholic Church. St. Philip Neri's emphasis on autonomous houses or congregations was rooted in his belief that each locale had its own culture and that the needs of the place had to be met through this culture. There could be nothing more contrary to the spirit of the Oratory than for any of the congregations to see themselves as the importers of foreign customs. The Italian devotionalism of such an Oratorian figure as the famous Father Frederick Faber of London was really a misguided attempt to re-create not only another culture but also another time. Ironically, the culture and time chosen by Faber was the Baroque era--when the Oratory was spreading through Europe, but a century later than Philip's own time and work. The extravagances of Faber and some other members of the London Oratory would not have been as effective as they were without the backing of the Dublin Review (seen to be the voice of London's Archbishop Manning)29 and W.G. Ward. When Newman had a chance to defend Roman Catholicism against some charges of his old Anglican friend E.B. Pusey, there was also the possibility of distancing that same Catholicism from the foreign enthusiasm of converts like Manning, Ward, and Faber. Newman could declare: "I prefer English habits of belief and devotion to foreign, from the same causes, and by the same right, which jus-tifies foreigners in preferring their own. In following those of my people, I show less singularity, and create less disturbance than if I made a flourish with what is novel and exotic.''3° "What is novel and exotic" to many English Catholics was for the London Oratory the true renewal of Catholicism and of the Congregation of the Oratory at the same time. Father Bernard Dalgairns left the Birmingham Oratory for the London house with a condemnation of Newman and his fellow members who had adopted a position paper which has been called an "Apologia pro vita sua--Oratoriana." 3~ Newman had insisted earlier that an Oratory is "the representative of no distant or foreign interest, but lives a~nong and is contented with its own people.''~-~ The con-troversy with Dalgairns assisted the Birmingham house in defin-ing itself against the London clai~n to be normative)3 200 Review for Religious Birmingham did not issue a counterclaim as the true measure of Oratorian life, but it did insist that its own very English adap-tation to education and culture in its own time and place was cer-tainly an authentic version of Oratorian life. The Idea of a University, with its marvelous panegyric of St. Philip Neri, is the public version of these private Oratory position papers which were worked on at the same time. In short, the Birmingham com-munity saw the idea of the Oratory and the idea of the university as complementary and consistent with each other. That authority within another Oratory, authority in the English Catholic hier-archy, and authority in Rome saw this as dangerous eventually prevented Newman from a university ministry and the founding of two Oratories, the one in Dublin, the other in Oxford. If he had not been thwarted--we can ask not only what effect this would have had on the Catholic Church's presence in higher education, but also what kind of model the Oratory would have become for that presence. ~. Fidelity to One Place and Community If Newman's devotion to the Oratory as a humanistic Christian community making the best of its own time and place cost him considerable loss of influence, it also explains why Newman was always hoisted between the limitations of the local hierarchy and Roman authority. As small as an Oratory usually is, it is nevertheless a community of pontifical right. But, because the members never move out of this small community, it is inti-mately involved in the local church and becomes specially related to the bishop. This arrangement was meant to allow the Oratory to serve both worlds best, but it also means that the Oratory is vulnerable to the worst of both. And it was the worst that Newman often had to suffer. Suffering at the hands of both local officials and Curial bureaucrats was the fate of the Oratory's founder, St. Philip Neri, but it took Newman some time to realize that such was his own unavoidable fate.34 In 1856 he could be sanguine about Roman love of an English house of St. Philip ("Be sure," he wrote, "that, if we are really doing work, Rome will never be hard on us, even if we are informal, imprudent, or arbitrary").35 By the 1860s he had suffered enough to be afraid of Rome calling him to the Curia for trial of his opinions and judgments. He was so afraid that he considered such a prospect as the threat of death.36 The March-April 1992 201 bishop of Birmingham was of no help in the face of Roman threats. Newinan wrote privately in 1867 that Ullathorne "wishes to be kind to me, but to stand well with people at Rome super-sedes in his mind every other wish. So he is a coward.''37 We can be considerably grateful that the insight into the abuses of church power led him to write in 1877 the great preface to the ¼"a Media in which he developed a theology of abuses in the church. He asks us to contemplate the implications of Matthew 13 and to choose the complexities and shortcomings of a world church rather than the narrow confines and perfection of a sect. That is, for the sake of Catholicity, we must realize that sanctity will not always be an equally prominent mark of the church.3s Conclusion The burden of this short paper has been to indicate some areas where Newman cannot be completely understood without a direct reference to the Oratory of St. Philip Neri. I would say several areas have been directly touched on. First, there is the mystery Why Birmingham? Why would such a talented person remain faithful to this city when he had been born in London and had adopted Oxford and its university? If living in Birmingham is of any consequence in understanding the mystery of Newman, then only the Oratory suffices for an explanation. Newman consciously rejected the London option because his absence from Birmingham would have been the death of a community wishing to live around him.39 And it is within the mystery of a providence that settled the Oratory in Birmingham that we have the mystery of Newman's fidelity to St. Philip, a fidelity which certainly shaped the field of Newman's activities which we have now inherited. Secondly, knowing the Oratory helps us understand how Newman was able to function as pastor and theologian. He had no official standing in a seminary or a university, and his membership in the Oratory cut him off from preferments in the diocese. Yet, despite the fragility of the Oratory and Newman's vulnerability to his enemies with real power bases, he was able to accomplish much. As a pastor he was perpetually available to a local people, and as a teacher he could, in the Congregation, exercise his tal-ents and find reinforcement of his values. Thirdly, the prophetic stands which he brought to the Roman 202 Review for Religious Catholic Church found a congenial place within the tradition of Philip Neri and the Oratory. Laicity, education, and culture were not feared in the Oratory, but promoted. Certainly the Oratory could accommodate the interests of such a person as Newman, and this I think says a lot for the Oratory. Finally, the Oratory provided an emotional complementarity for Newman. Newman had written that he had "never liked a large Oratory. Twelve working priests has been the limit of my ambition. One cannot love many at one time; one cannot really have many friends.''4° The rather intimate expression of this is found in the well-known conclusion to the Apologia, but I would beg an indulgence to cite a lesser-known example found in Meriol Trevor's Life. Late in life some parishioners brought Newman a portrait of himself as a gift to the Birmingham Oratory. Newman replied to them in these words: You ask for my blessing and I bless you with all my heart, as I desire to be blessed myself. Each one of us has his own individuality, his separate history, his antecedents and his future, his duties, his responsibilities, his solemn trial, and his eternity. May God's grace, His love, His peace rest on all of you, united as you are in the Oratory of St. Philip, on old and young, on confessors and penitents, on teachers and taught, on living and dead. Apart from that grace, that love, that peace, nothing is stable, all things have an end; but the earth will last its time, and while the earth lasts, Holy Church will last, and while the Church lasts, may the Oratory of Birmingham last also, amid the fortunes of many generations one and the same, faithful to St Philip, strong in the protection of our Lady and all Saints, not losing as time goes on its sympathy with its first fathers, whatever may be the burden and interests of its own day, as we in turn now stretch forth our hands with love and awe towards those, our unborn successors, whom on earth we shall never kFIow.41 From the Oratory of Birmingham, England, Newman gives a blessing because he believed his life as an Oratorian was itself a blessing. For this reason the Oratory might merit a considera-tion when we think of Newman and what it cost him to be a Catholic and what it was like for him to rejoice as an old man after a long time not only in the Catholic Church but in the Oratory of St. Philip Neri. March-April 1992 203 Notes ~ NewInan's classical exposition of this is found in University Sermons, vol. 5, pp. 75-98, and elucidated very well by Stephen Dessain in The Spirituality offfobn Henry Newman (Minneapolis, 1977), pp. 31-55. But see this theme repeated in an Oratorian context in Newman's Oratory Paper No. 6 in Placid Murray, Newman the Oratorian (Leominster, England, 1968), pp. 215-216. -' For the documentation of the constitutional development of the Congregation, see Antonius Cistellini CO, Collectanea Vetustorum ac Fundamentalium Documentorum Congregationis Oratorii Sancti Philippi Nerii (Brescia, 1982). ~ The more detailed history of this development can be found in Louis Ponnelle and Louis Border, St. Philip Neri and the Roman Society of His Times (London, 1932), pp. 166-173. 4 Idea, Discourse 9, no. 9. ~ Ponnelle and Bordet, pp. 287-381. 6 Erasmus, Ep. 164, in Opus epistolarum Des. Erasmii Roterodami, ed. P. S. Allen, H.M. Allen, and H.W. Garrod (Oxford, 1906-08), quoted in Eugene Rice Jr., Saint Jerome in the Renaissance (Baltimore, 1985), p. 133. 7 Rice, p. 133. 8 The 1969 Constitutions of the Congregation read in no. 15: "The Congregation follows the primitive Christian community that its char-acteristic power consists not in the multitude of its members, but rather in mutual knowledge--so that there may be a regard for the well-known faces--and in the true bond of love, by which those of the same family may be bound together through the practice of daily customs." See Newman the Oratorian, p. 329, for Newman's familiarity with the con-cept of well-known faces or countenances. ~ Prepos., p. 388. ~o Autobiographical Vt~ritings (AI/V), p. 281. 11AW, p. 286. ~2 Ian Ker, John Henry Newman (Oxford, 1988), p. 433. 13 Letters and Diaries (LD), vol. 14, p. 377. ~4 See S.G. Perera SJ, Life of the Venerable Father Joseph Uaz, Apostle of Ceylon (Galle, 1953). Newman indicates a long-standing knowledge of this special case in a letter written in 1867. ~s There is no history written of this first of the Oratories in the United States, and the archives of the house are very sketchy. There is no written rationale of the house for the scattering of the members, but some effort was made to rotate them back to Rock Hill if they were some distance away. There is an article describing the Rock Hill house written by Edward YVahl, one of the earlier members, in Oratorium, Ann. III, S.I-N. 1, Ian-Iun. 1972, pp. 23-32. ~' Ponnelle and Bordet, pp. 471-474. 204 Review for Religious 17 E A. Agnelli, The Excellencies of the Congregation of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri (Venice, 1825), translated and abridged by F.A. Antrobus, London 1881, chapter 1, section V. is LD, vol. 18, pp. 478,483. 19 LD, vol. 17, p. 447. '-OLD, vol. 18, pp. 114-115. z1 LD, vol. 16, p. 267. 22 LD, vol. 14, p. 274. ,~3 LD, vol. 26, p. 115. 24 Ker, pp. 365-372. 25 LD, vol. 17, p. 137. See Newman the Oratorian, p. 311, for his appre-ciation of the Oratory and women. 26 A~17~ p. 327. 27 LD, vol. 21, p. 327. 28LD, vol. 21, p. 331. ~'9 Ker, p. 579. 3o DiffT, ii, pp. 20-21. 31 Placid Murphy calls these papers another apologia (Newman the Oratoria~l, p. 299). -~'~ Newman the Oratorian, p. 196. 33 Newman the Oratorian, p. 358. 34 The 1848 paper in Newman the Oratorian lists the persecutions Philip suffered (see p. 163). In 1862 he can compare his troubles to the founder's (see AW, pp. 256-257). 35 LD, vol. 17, p. 151. 36 LD, vol. 20, pp. 445-448. ~7 LD, vol. 23, p. 296. 38 See R. Bergeron, LesAbus de L'~glise d'apr& Newman (Paris, 1971), and the annotated edition of Newman's ~a Media (Oxford, 1990), ed. H.D. Weidner. 39 LD, vol. 13, pp. 51-52. 40 Newman the Oratorian. p. 387. 4~ Meriol Trevor, Newman, Light in I:Vinter (New York, 1962), p. 582. March-April 1992 205 DENNIS J. BILLY The Resurrection Kernel theology and spirituality Is there a fundamental principle of the resurrection? The answer to this question depends on the way in which one understands the relationship of history to the reality of the risen Christ. This relationship, in turn, depends on the stance one takes towards the possibility of a transhistorical event and the type of impact it would have on the continuities and discontinuities of historical change. However understood, the impact itself would have vast ramifications for the whole of theology. Resurrection: Distinguishing Idea from Reality At the outset, it may be helpful to distinguish between resurrection (1) as a particular item in the history of ideas and (2) as the reality experienced among the earliest fol-lowers of Christ. The former may be separated from the viewpoint of faith, compared with other ideas about the nature of the afterlife, and evaluated on a rational basis for its various strengths and weaknesses as a viable expla-nation of the nature of life after death. As a transhistori-cal event with historical consequences, the latter is intricately bound to the faith of the primitive Christian community and cannot be studied in such a detached, ana- Dennis J. Billy CSSR continues his reflections on various cen-tral tenets of our faith and their relationship to the vowed life of religious. His address is Accademia Alfonsiana; Via Merulana, 31; C.P. 2458; 00100 Rome, Italy. 206 Review for Religious lyrical manner. Any effort to formulate a fundamental principle of the resurrection must be careful to take both sides of this dis-tinction into account. The Idea of Resurrection. A well-grounded discussion of an idea should begin with an attempt to identify its most distinctive char-acteristics. With respect to its general mean-ing, one could accurately describe the term "resurrection" as a belief common among Christians that, at some point after death, an individual is transformed by the power of the Divinity on every level of his or her anthro-pological makeup--the corporeal, the psy-chological, the spiritual, and the social--and thus raised to a higher level of human exis-tence in a way that always remains in funda-mental continuity with his or her historical, earthly life. The most distinctive marks in this short yet exact account of the idea of resurrection include: (1) personal life after death, (2) in a The idea of resurrection alone safeguards the inviolate dignity of each human being on every level of existence. transformed state, (3) embracing all the anthropological factors of human existence, and (4) in a way continuous with an individual's concrete, earthly life. Each of these elements is essential to the idea of resurrection as it is used in this essay and as it exists in the major Christian traditions. These characteristics also set the idea of resurrection apart from the related idea of bodily resuscitation (for example, the raising of Lazarus, Jn 11:44), as well as from the other major philosophical and religious explanations of the nature of life in the hereafter (for example, the immortality of the soul, reincar-nation, nirvana). When these are compared, the idea of resur-rection distinguishes itselfi (1) from bodily resuscitation, in its emphasis on a transformed existence in life after death; (2) from the immortality of the soul, in its inclusion of all of humanity's anthropological factors in the nature of that existence; (3) from reincarnation, in its rupture of the cycle of time and its insistence on the fundamental continuity of life in the hereafter with a per-son's earthly existence; and (4) from nirvana, in its avowal that final beatitude does not involve the extinction of individual con-sciousness. The greatest strength of the idea of resurrection is March-April 1992 207 that, of all of the ideas about the nature of life after death, it alone safeguards the inviolate dignity of each human being on every level of his or her existence. That is to say that it alone keeps human nature eternally intact while, at the same time, saving the individual from ultimate personal extinction. Its greatest weak-ness is that, in representing the fulfillment of one of the deepest and most profound hopes of the human heart, it seems almost too good to be true, an attractive but highly unlikely possibility. For this reason, of all the ideas of life in the hereafter, resurrec-tion is the one most difficult to accept on the simple basis of faith. The Reality of the Resurrection. Rooted in the hopes of Jewish apoc-alypticism during the centuries just prior to the appearance of Christ, and promulgated during Jesus' own lifetime by the reli-gious elite known as the Pharisees, the idea of resurrection devel-oped to its present form as a result of theological reflection on the nature of the Christ event, most especially in the primitive Christian community's interpretation of the meaning of the apos-tolic experience of the risen Lord. This reflection is intimately tied to the trust that community placed in the validity of the apos-tolic witness and to the experience of faith upon which it rested. It is also the context within which one may speak of the resur-rection not as an idea, but as a reality and a hope. \Vhat precisely happened on the first Easter morning remains shrouded by the subjective awareness of the earliest followers of Jesus. That awareness probably ran the gamut of several emo-tional states--from depression and fear, to suspicion and isola-tion, to incipient faith and the lingering yearning for the retrieval of lost expectations--and most likely varied in each of the persons involved. That is not to say that the event had no basis outside the experience of Jesus' followers, but only that there is no way to determine what it is with any accuracy. It is for this reason that, down through the centuries, the Easter event remains primarily an experience of faith in the lives of Jesus' followers. A distinction must still be made, however, between the faith of those who witnessed the Easter event personally and those whose faith relies on the testimony of the apostles. The procla-mation of the church rests upon the eyewitness accounts of the apostles, that is, on those who made the startling claim to have experienced for themselves the reality of the risen Lord. Their experience of faith remains qualitatively different from that of 208 Review for Religious the believer in the pew, for they claim to have experienced a real-ity outside of themselves, rooted in the objective order, distinct from their own subjectivity, and identified with the person of their Master, Jesus of Nazareth. Without the unprecedented bold-ness and resiliency of these claims, the Christian project would have nothing distinctive in its message and probably would never have gotten off the ground. These apostolic claims emerge from one of two possibilities: the experience of the risen Christ was with or without a basis in the person of Jesus in the external order. That is to say that the experience of the apostles corresponds to a reality outside of themselves or remains entirely subjective in all respects. If the former is true, then the further question must be asked regarding the nature of this basis in the external order. If the latter be true, then the only conclusion to be drawn is that the apostles suffered from self-delusion, that their testimony is false, as is the religion to which it gave rise. The fact that neither of these possibilities can be proven highlights the underlying quality of faith inherent in the conclusions of both the believer and non-believer alike. Still more can be said about the position of the believer. If the apostolic experience of the risen Christ does have an external basis in the person of Jesus, then this affirmation, when combined with the idea of resurrection developed earlier in this essay, nec-essarily points to an event of singular historical significance. Indeed, this event could be measured by the instruments of his-torical observation only by its effects (for example, a missing body) and, for this reason, must be placed in a category unique to itself and understood as a transhistorical event with historical conse-quences. This is so precisely because the risen Christ, existing in a transformed state but in a way continuous with his earthly life, does not lead "a historical existence" in the way in which the phrase is commonly used. That is to say that space and time no longer set the limits for his physical existence. In his resurrected state, Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, a singular dimension unique unto himself, who recapitulates, both now and forever, all The Easter event remains primarily an experience of faith in the lives of lesus" followers. March-April 1992 209 of creation within himself, into the love of the Father and the joy of their Spirit. The Resurrection Kernel From all that has been said, a sound formulation of the fun-damental principle of the resurrection (the resurrection kernel) would consist in the affirmation of faith that the idea of resur-rection has become a reality in the risen Christ. This reality is rooted in the transhistorical nature of the Christ event, whose historical consequences linger even to this day in the ongoing proclamation of the church. Based on the testimony of its apos-tolic forebears, the church has, in its ministry down through the centuries, kept alive for humanity the fervent hope that the deep-est yearnings of the human heart will one day be fully realized. That is to say that the transformation wrought by God in Christ promises to extend itself to all who are incorporated into his body, the church. In this respect, a sharing in the life of the risen Lord may be looked upon as the ultimate destiny of all of humankind and will be impeded only by a stubborn individual or corporate persistence in the life of sin. Given the above formulation, a number of important obser-vations arise: (1) To affirm that an idea has become a reality is to utilize the well-known philosophical distinction between the internal (that is, subjective) and external (that is, objective) orders. The limitations of this distinction are well known, and care must be taken not to stretch the analogy beyond its avowed usefulness. Indeed, special care must be taken not to project the concerns of the so-called critical problem back to a time before its signifi-cance was entirely known. (2) God the Father is the primary agent in bringing about this realization in Christ. Since idea and reality are intimately connected in the Divinity's vision of itself, the resurrection of Christ may be viewed as a providential movement on the part of the Father to bring the plan of redemption in accord with the working of the Divine Mind, that is, the Logos. In this respect, Christ's resurrection is that event which, touching upon history but transcending time, initiates the ultimate return of all created things back to God. (3) This view of Christ's resurrection also sheds light upon 210 Review for Religious the development in the early church of the doctrine of the incar-nation. If it is true that, in Christ's resurrection, flesh has been divinized and lifted up into the reality of the Word, it follows that, at some point prior to this momentous occasion, the Word itself had descended into the reality of human flesh and had become a human person. Putting aside for the moment the vari-ous intricacies involved in discussing the Christological contro-versies in the early centuries of the church, it seems quite appropriate to say that the doctrines of Christ's incarnation and resurrection form two aspects of a single salvific event which, if one were to borrow the Neoplatonic exitus/reditus structure adopted by Aquinas, represents the recreatio,z of all things going out of (exitus) and going back (reditus) to God. It is in this sense that all things are recapitulated in Christ, the New Adam. (4) As described above, the resurrection is not merely the state of Christ's postmortem existence, but an intricate part of the whole process of redemption. If Christ's exitu} from the Father reaches its furthest extension in his passion and death on the cross (described in the Creed as his descent into hell), his reditus is ush-ered in by the events of Easter morning, and his Spirit is the prin-ciple by which all things continue to be gathered into his body and thus into the presence of the Father. (5) As a transhistorical event with historical consequences, the resurrection of Christ exists outside of but in relation to the realm of historical inquiry. In this regard, it lies beyond the realm of scientific investigation and can be affirmed only through faith in the testimony of those claiming to have actually experienced Jesus after his death. That is not to say that the apostles did not experience outside of themselves in the exter-nal order, but only that the basis for their experience cannot be verified. (6) Indeed, probably the only historical consequence of mea-surable scientific value would have been the disappearance of Jesus' body at the actual moment of his resurrection. Since the precise whereabouts of the body was a point of contention even in the initial aftermath of the Easter proclamation (Mt 28:13), one must conclude that, although its disappearance could have been verified, if not scientifically, then at least through pagan eyewitness accounts, it obviously was not. (7) On all other points, the detached observer would not be able to separate the subjective experience of the apostles from March-April 1992 211 the reality of the risen Christ. There would, in other words, have been no way of determining whether or not they were actually experiencing anything beyond their own intensified inner aware-ness. The singularity of this experience would be expected if a transhistorical event were to occur and be experienced in its his-torical consequences. (8) To the extent that it is not based on direct experience but on the testimony of others, the faith of the church is qualitatively different from the faith of the apostles. Not only does it point to the conviction of those who claimed to have experienced the risen Lord, but, in one respect, it is even a purer experience of faith: "Happy are those who have not seen and yet believe" (Jn 20:29). (9) Belief in the risen Christ keeps alive in people the hope that, after death, their lives will not end, but merely change. Because of Christ's resurrection, they look forward to a trans-formed existence in the hereafter, one in continuity with their own lives on earth. Sustained by a believer's prayerful response to the contetnporary challenges of Christian discipleship, this hope forms the basis upon which life in the resurrection is anticipated even in the present. (10) Through their participation in the ministry and life of the church, people receive a foretaste of this transformed exis-tence, especially when they partake of the sacraments around the table of the Lord. It was at the Eucharist where Jesus' disciples recognized him in the breaking of the bread (Lk 24:30). It is there where Christians, even to this day, gather to do the same. This is especially true for those who dedicate their lives to Christ through the following of the evangelical counsels. Religious and the Resurrection In their vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, religious strive to center their lives upon the reality of the risen Christ. They seek to do so by virtue of their firtn conviction that they are called to share in the life of the resurrection by making the idea of the vows a lived reality in their day-to-day existence. Christ, who exhibited both before and after his resurrection a life dedicated to the Father through the eschatological signs of the evangelical counsels, asks religious to do the same. The strength to do so comes from Christ and is mediated by his Spirit through his church and its ministry of the sacraments. While such dedi- 212 Review for Religious cation is never fully realized in the present, religious are called to imitate Christ throughout their entire lives. It is for this reason that, at the end of their earthly lives, they hope to share in the full-ness of his transformed existence. In their vowed life in common, religious pledge to give them-selves over entirely to the life of the risen Lord. In their vow of poverty, they seek both physical and spiritual detachment from material goods, doing so not out of a suspicion about the fundamental good-ness of creation, but from the convic-tion that it too will undergo a transformation in the fullness of Christ's kingdom. In their vow of chastity, they promise to forgo the goods of marriage, children, and sexual pleasure, thereby accepting Christ's Gospel declaration that there will be neither husband nor wife in the life to come (Lk 20:35) and that, even in the realm of relationships, all who abide in him will live a trans-formed existence. In their vow of obe-dience, they promise to accept the will of their superiors as a manifestation of God's plan for their lives, thus hoping to estab-lish within themselves a continual movement of accord between their own wills and that of the their risen Lord. Finally, in their communal existence, they hold each other accountable for the way of life they have chosen and seek to reflect in their mutual relations that dignity and care appropriate to those who are called to be members of Christ's body. By means of their individual and communal dedication to the evangelical counsels, it is clear that religious seek, even in this present life, a deeper share in the life of the resurrection. Through their vowed life in community, religious thus provide a faithful witness for themselves, the rest of the church, and the entire world that the idea of resurrection has not only been made a reality in Christ but that it is striving, at this very moment, to be realized in the lives of those who believe. In this respect, their witness affirms the movement of Christ's Spirit in the life of the church and provides a foretaste of the life to come. That is not to say that religious embody this charismatic dimension of the church better or more faithfully than any of the other vocations within the Belief in the risen Christ keeps alive in people the hope that, after death, their lives will not end, but merely change. March-April 1992 213 church (for example: single, married, priestly states), but only that their way of life is especially suited to it. Of its very nature, the religious life forIns a part of the charismatic dimension of the church. Indeed, to the extent that religious communities do not manifest to both others and themselves the gentle yet challenging presence of the Spirit, they fall short of the explicit nature of their call to center their lives entirely around the reality of the risen Christ. He it was who first imparted the Holy Spirit to his body, the church. He it is who continues to do so even to the present day. Through their faithfulness to the vows, lived in community and in the Spirit, religious seek mainly to nourish their relation-ship with the risen Christ. This personal relationship to the Lord motivates all of their activity for the establishment of God's king-dom; it is also what draws others to follow their particular way of life. Indeed, the care with which they tend this relationship is itself a sign that the reality of Christ's resurrection is meant for all to share and experience in all its fullness. In this respect, reli-gious must be ever conscious that their vowed life in common has little meaning if it is separated from life in the Spirit of the risen Christ and seen as an end in itself. To be sure, there is noth-ing sadder in the life of the church than to see individual reli-gious and, at times, entire communities lose sight of the meaning of their vocation. When people of such great promise and poten-tial compromise themselves and begin to believe that the Spirit is no longer active in their lives and that things will never change for the better, when men and women, who are called to be signs of hope, begin to believe in the voices of hopelessness, then the time is ripe for a prophet to arise within their midst to challenge them to come back to the Lord and to live the life to which they have been called. At the same time, there is nothing more joyful in the life of the church than to see men and women who, out of love for their Lord, renounce the very things for which they most actually strive during their sojourn on earth. To live in poverty, without children or spouse, and without full personal liberty provides oth-ers with the constantly needed reminder that the fullness of riches, family life, and freedom is ultimately found only in one's rela-tionship to him whom the apostles acclaimed to be truly risen. 214 Review for Religious Conclusion This essay has sought to outline the basic, underlying principle of the Christian doctrine of the resurrection. It has done so, on the one hand, by describing in as precise detail as possible the mean-ing of the idea of resurrection as under-stood in the church's teaching and, on the other hand, by looking into some of the fundamental presuppositions regarding the resurrection of Christ as experienced by his earliest followers. Bringing these two currents of inquiry together, the funda-mental principle of the resurrection (the resurrection kernel) was described as the affirmation of faith that the idea of resur-rection has become a reality in the risen Christ. Seen as a transhistorical event with historical consequences, the acclaimed res-urrection of Jesus of Nazareth lies, for all practical purposes, beyond the scope of scientific verification and remains inti- Through their faithfulness to the vows, lived in community and in the Spirit, religious seek mainly to nourish their relationship with the risen Christ. mately tied to the internal, subjective event of faith to which it gave life. That is not to say that Jesus' resurrection has no ground in the external order, but only that it ultimately lies beyond the scope of controlled observation. In this respect, the faith experi-ence of those who experienced the risen Lord is qualitatively dif-ferent from that of those whose faith rests upon their testimony. Blessed precisely because they believe without seeing, today's believers share in the hope of their own transformed existence which, through their experience of the Spirit in the church com-munity of the faithful, may be experienced even now in the quiet anticipation of the fullness of a reality yet to come. They bring their hearts' deepest yearning for the fullest presence of the risen Christ to the table of the Lord, where they are blessed with a glimpse of

When looking at the literature surrounding the Iran Hostage Crisis, many scholars focus solely on the events that occurred in Iran leading up to the embassy being taken. This focus tends to paint Iranians as the "bad guys" in all situations. However, there was a large population of Iranian students in the US at the time, and these students had a completely different experience than those often remembered from the nightly news. Few scholars have set out to demonstrate the lives of those Iranian students, but those who have often describe the controversy that surrounded them. Scholars recognize how Iranian students in the US faced discrimination and how the US government was looking to deport them. These scholars tend to look at the lives of students who had it the worst, assuming all Iranian students' lives were atrocious in the US. They do not take into account those who were still welcomed at their universities throughout the crisis, as students disregarded diplomatic tensions and looked at the humans they spent their days with instead. By looking at more universities and more student experiences, a broader picture can be understood about the lives of Iranian students in the US during the crisis. ; Winner of the 2020 Friends of the Kreitzberg Library Award for Outstanding Research in the University Archives category. ; A Diplomatic Fiasco: How Iranian Students in the US were Affected Throughout the Iran Hostage Crisis Faith Privett Professor Boonshoft HI 249 Historical Methods 0800 5 December 2019 3979 Words 2 Not long after Ronald Reagan's inauguration as President of the United States on January 20th, 1981, former President Jimmy Carter was meeting the hostages he tried so desperately to release for 444 days. One of the bleakest moments of United States foreign policy history is the Iranian Hostage Crisis, which lasted from November 4th, 1979 to Reagan's inauguration day. In total, 66 people were taken hostage initially, but 52 were held for the full 444 days. America and the rest of the world watched as the days in captivity kept getting longer and longer, and their hopes conversely dropped. However, those accounts rarely showed the perspectives of the thousands of Iranian students in the US who suffered discrimination, harassment, and questioning throughout the crisis. They were seen as the enemy in a country that is supposed to be the "Land of the Free" and the "Great American Melting Pot." Nevertheless, this was not the case for all students; some were accepted with open arms throughout the crisis, as all so desperately sought world peace. Some students who did not necessarily feel the general American abhorrence were those who attended Norwich University, a private military college in central Vermont. Even though the rest of the country had conflicting views towards Iranian students in the US during the late 1970s, the Iranian Imperial Navy students at Norwich University were welcomed and well respected because of the well-developed program, the shared military experience and respect for authority, and the outward-looking ideals taught by the university, despite the tensions between the US and Iranian governments at the time. When looking at the literature surrounding the Iran Hostage Crisis, many scholars focus solely on the events that occurred in Iran leading up to the embassy being taken. This focus tends to paint Iranians as the "bad guys" in all situations.1 However, there was a large population of Iranian students in the US at the time, and these students had a completely different experience 1 Scott, "Bound for Glory." 3 than those often remembered from the nightly news. Few scholars have set out to demonstrate the lives of those Iranian students, but those who have often describe the controversy that surrounded them.2 Scholars recognize how Iranian students in the US faced discrimination and how the US government was looking to deport them. These scholars tend to look at the lives of students who had it the worst, assuming all Iranian students' lives were atrocious in the US.3 They do not take into account those who were still welcomed at their universities throughout the crisis, as students disregarded diplomatic tensions and looked at the humans they spent their days with instead. By looking at more universities and more student experiences, a broader picture can be understood about the lives of Iranian students in the US during the crisis. The US and Iran have a tumultuous diplomatic relationship that continues to this day, or better put does not continue to this day. The US had an interest in Iran during World War II and later into the start of the Cold War due to the fear of communism spreading and the fact that Iran had copious amounts of oil. In 1953, this came to a head when the leader of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh, showed some "communist" tendencies that did not support US and British interests. The two countries staged a coup that removed Mossadegh and placed the previous ruler, Muhammed Reza Shah, back into power. This jumpstarted US involvement in Iran through diplomatic means that continued until the overthrow of the Shah in 1979. According to research by Dr. David Patrick Houghton, this involvement consequently may have led to the interest of the revolutionaries to take the hostages in 1979, as they saw the US as a threat to their sovereignty once again.4 2 Shannon, "American-Iranian Alliances." 3 Teague, "Hostages of the Crisis." 4 Houghton, US Foreign Policy and the Iran Hostage Crisis, 58-59. 4 Iranians may also have related the actions of the Shah to US involvement because the US supported him despite his authoritarian tendencies. Dr. Matthew Shannon notes the injustices that took place under the Shah in numerous works. When the Shah came into power, he instilled policies that led to "rapid socioeconomic modernization," but the process in which he did it brings about questions of civil rights and democracy.5 The modernization process that took place in Iran, known as the White Revolution, made the country incredibly western by allowing capitalist practices in land and factory holdings and giving women the right to vote, among other things.6 However, the vote that supposedly put these acts into power was not necessarily ratified by the legislative body of Iran at the time, although the Shah made it look as such.7 By taking away democratic practices such as these, the Shah furthered his cause of becoming an authoritarian ruler without opposition. Along with taking away democratic practices, the Shah also limited expression in Iran, especially for those that may have come out against his reign. Much of this was enforced by SAVAK, or the National Intelligence and Security Organization, who was known for repressing any anti-government sentiments, especially anti-Shah sentiments. Starting in the 1950s, SAVAK was trained in the US by government officials, and their only oversight and command came from the Shah, meaning they did whatever they were told to do by him directly.8 News came out in the 1970s that SAVAK was using torture to suppress anti-government acts within Iran. Military tribunals, which were open to the public for a time, were moved behind closed doors for over a year by the Shah after a defendant showed scars during a tribunal they had obtained from torture by SAVAK.9 These human rights abuses and the fact that 5 Shannon, "American-Iranian Alliances," 662. 6 Shannon, "American-Iranian Alliances," 675. 7 Shannon, Losing Hearts and Minds, 63. 8 Shannon, Losing Hearts and Minds, 25-27. 9 Shannon, "American-Iranian Alliances," 681. 5 SAVAK could be anywhere instilled fear in the hearts of Iranians both at home and abroad, which helped the Shah uphold his authoritarian regime. Besides support for the Shah by the US, Shannon also focuses on how US involvement in Iran from 1953 to 1979 focused highly on education, as many of those who worked in the Iranian government in the early days of the Shah were educated at American universities. The exchange rate of students from Iran to the US to study in college was greater than any other country at the time, with over 50,000 Iranian students enrolled in US universities in the 1979-1980 school year, and in the years following, post-secondary education in Iran was oftentimes structured after American universities.10 The cooperation between the US and Iran regarding education before the Shah's removal helped to modernize the country, which was seen differently by each party involved. Luckily for historians, many of the documents from the era are still preserved in university archives, including those at Norwich University, where upwards of 134 Iranian students were attending in the spring of 1979.11 Numerous student newspaper articles, administrative files, and oral histories tell the stories of Iranian students at Norwich from 1976 to 1980. The President Loring Hart files describe the administrative set up of the program, which was modeled after the program at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), where Iranian students had been attending for a few years before the program starting at Norwich. Deputy Commander LTC Paul Lafond went down to VMI to review their program in early May 1976, and he detailed a report that helped to eventually flesh out Norwich's Iranian student program. Some of the recommendations Lafond had were that Iranian students should room with American students, not with other Iranian students, because this would help them adapt to American life and learn 10 Hamidreza, "A Follow-Up Study on U.S.-Trained Iranian Faculty Members," 1038-1039. 11 Hart, "The President's Corner," Norwich University Record. 6 English quicker.12 Because of the Corps of Cadets' lifestyle at both VMI and Norwich, other recommendations were made regarding how cadre, or student military leaders, should train the Iranian cadets, as their learning styles were not the same. Lafond recommended that Iranian students respond well to clear orders, but they do not always respond well to negativity or derogatory or vulgar language. They should also be told when something is wrong, as they are oftentimes eager to fix it, but they will not understand if it is not brought to their attention. Lastly, Lafond notes that English proficiency is the biggest issue on campus, and even though the students attended a summer program that focused on English, it was not enough.13 This information was taken into account when designing the Norwich program. The administration designed an eighteen-week summer program that prepared the first fifty Iranian students with classes mainly focused on English, Math, Physical Education, and Naval ROTC, before the start of the school year in August 1976.14 With each year that Iranian students were on campus, more and more were able to attend as they worked out some of the issues with the program, and it became better established. Early on, Iranian students on campus ran across a few issues in their daily lives that highlight some of the changes that Norwich went through from 1976 to 1980 to improve the program. In a Norwich Guidon article published in October 1976, American author Gerard Grimes interviewed "Recruit Mohammad Zerehi from Iran" about what life was like at Norwich and how students could better understand their international counterparts.15 Zerehi noted some of the issues he and his fellow Iranian students were having on campus included English proficiency, adapting to the climate, and the diet. Zerehi asks readers that they do not 12 Lafond to Hart, 7 May 1976. 13 Lafond to Hart, 7 May 1976. 14 "Iranian Students Come to Norwich" Norwich Guidon. 15 Grimes, "Iranian Students at Norwich" Norwich Guidon. 7 discriminate against the Iranian students on the issue of pork, which many chose not to eat, because it is a religious practice.16 Other accounts by Iranian students recognize the issue with pork as well, but that over time, both the students and the school were able to resolve these problems and continue growing.17 Because this was written so early on in the program, it is noticeable that eventually, American and Iranian students got used to each other's practices, which led to their friendship and respect for one another throughout the years. Vital to the descriptions of life at Norwich from 1976-1980 are the oral histories of Iranian cadets Arsalan Namdar and Benjamin Heydary. Both men described what training was like, how they got along with their classmates, struggles they had, and how they eventually had to leave. Namdar described Rook Week as a "Piece of cake" because they had already been through years of more intense training in the Iranian Imperial Navy (IIN).18 Namdar also noted the Iranians "goofed off" at the beginning of training, much to the chagrin of their American classmates. This behavior transitioned once tasks started getting more intense. Another issue they ran into was the fact that their cadre were often younger and more inexperienced than they were, which created difficulties when they would get yelled at and disciplined.19 Heydary described similar feelings towards younger authority figures, but that he often kept his head down and dealt with it due to his humble upbringing.20 Another issue that arose earlier in the Iranian student's time at Norwich was that they often had more money than their American classmates because they were still getting paid their full salaries while attending school. This created a bit of strife between students, as the Iranians were not afraid to spend their money on cars and stereos.21 16 Grimes, "Iranian Students at Norwich" Norwich Guidon. 17 Namdar, interview by Yahm, April 2, 2015, transcript. 18 Namdar, interview by Yahm, April 2, 2015, transcript. 19 Namdar, interview by Yahm, April 2, 2015, transcript. 20 Heydary, interview by Yahm, March 10, 2015, transcript. 21 Namdar, interview by Yahm, April 2, 2015, transcript. 8 Dr. Matthew Shannon also describes the Norwich Iranian Cadets in his book Losing Hearts and Minds. Without saying much, he recognizes that Norwich had one of the largest programs in the US training Iranian Naval officers and that it trained women as well, which was new in the era and especially in the Middle East. He also describes some of the programs at Maine Maritime Academy, The Citadel, the Virginia Military Institute, and the United States Naval Academy. In general, these programs were similar because they were building off of each other's programs; Iranian students studied engineering and business most often while receiving Naval ROTC training and improving their English.22 He finds that Iran sent their naval officers to US military schools because they wanted a standard education, which was difficult when they sent their cadets to numerous other countries to train as Iran did not have an officer training facility at the time. Also, Shannon notes that the US had an interest in training Iranian cadets because of the protection of oil assets in the Middle East.23 The Nixon Doctrine, which was President Nixon's plan to support conflicts in the Pacific through management and materials but not manpower, was also being upheld through the act of training and providing military aid.24 Iranian students throughout the rest of the country were not as lucky as those at Norwich, as protests against them often occurred on college campuses. Will Teague described some of the protests held on college campuses in the South throughout the entire hostage crisis, but mainly in 1979 as the news was fresh in the minds of Americans. Teague documents protests at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, the University of Tulsa, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. These protests included gatherings of hundreds of students marching against Iranians, 22 Shannon, Losing Hearts and Minds, 105. 23 Shannon, Losing Hearts and Minds, 103. 24 Gannon. "25 July 1969: The Nixon Doctrine." https://www.nixonfoundation.org/2008/07/25-july-1969-the-nixon-doctrine/ [accessed 20 Nov 2019]. 9 burnings of flags and images of Ayatollah Khomeini, and derogatory and threatening signs all directed towards the Iranian students that were on these campuses.25 Newspapers were also an outlet for protest, as correspondence and letters to the editor called Iranian students, "savages, barbarians, bandits, and terrorists."26 However, Teague also notes that Iranian students were writing to newspapers as well, trying to show their side of the issue. Overall, they described their confusion about the event, just as much as American students were confused, but they wanted their fellow students to know the Shah was not whom they thought he was, and because they were not the ones who experienced his reign, they should not be quick to let him into the US.27 Besides the protests against Iranians on college campuses, Iranian students in the US themselves were protesting, for other reasons. The Iranian Student Association in the United States (ISAUS) was a student led-group with chapters around the country that organized protests and lobbied against the Shah's actions. Because they were in the US, they were able to use their freedom of speech rights to express their beliefs, where if they were in Iran, they most likely would not have been able to express their opinions for fear of getting imprisoned. Early on in the history of the ISAUS, their goals were to advocate for more democratic practices in Iran, including freedom of expression. They lobbied the Kennedy administration, specifically Robert Kennedy, to try and influence US foreign policy towards Iran and the Shah's regime.28 After news of SAVAK's torture started coming to the US from new students arriving, the ISAUS switched their tactics and started advocating for bringing to light the crimes against humanity that the Shah and SAVAK were committing. The ISAUS issued "On the Violation of Human Rights in Iran," which outlined the abuses under the Shah and called for the US to stop 25 Teague, "Hostages of the Crisis," 115-116. 26 Teague, "Hostages of the Crisis," 120. 27 Teague, "Hostages of the Crisis," 116-118. 28 Shannon, "American-Iranian Alliances," 672-674. 10 supporting him. They were able to get attention in newspapers around the world, but the US continued to support the Shah due to their prior commitments.29 Protests against the Shah continued throughout the US the entire time he was in power. However, both Namdar and Heydary describe what set Norwich Iranian cadets apart from the rest of the Iranian students in the US at the time. Namdar states, "In later years…Americans and Iranians really became friends based on the values…."30 He goes on to say, "I think Norwich taught me a lot in terms of quality and integrity…experiencing life, and trying hard, and just trying to work with others and be friendly."31 At first, things were difficult for the students because of the language barrier and the fact that the Iranian and American cultures were so different. As Namdar recognizes, through time, both the American and the Iranian cadets learned more about one another and grew to respect the fact that they were different, which improved how they worked together. One can hypothesize that this might have something to do with the military training that all students received at Norwich. The military encourages the fact that soldiers need to work together to produce the best outcome in the field, despite their differences at home, which allowed the Iranian and American cadets to look past their many differences and unite on common ground. President Loring Hart described the impact that the Iranian students had on the American students at Norwich as, "They have brought to all of us broader horizons, and a new awareness…. They have provided a current which has flowed through our campus and our town…, reminding us that our college and our community is indeed a part of the greater scene beyond us."32 This statement describes the worldly perspective that Iranian students brought to the school and how it made Norwich students more aware of others who were not like 29 Shannon, "American-Iranian Alliances," 682-684. 30 Namdar, interview by Yahm, April 2, 2015, transcript. 31 Namdar, interview by Yahm, April 2, 2015, transcript. 32 "The Rest of the Story," Norwich University Record. 11 themselves. Like Heydary states, there were instances of discrimination or derogatory slang terms used against the Iranian students at the beginning of their time at Norwich, but once students got to know each other and the barriers were broken down, they were able to become friends despite their differences.33 After all of the unrest occurring in Iran at the time, 1979 was the icing on top of the cake. The Shah left Iran in early 1979, and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a popular religious leader who was incredibly anti-Shah and anti-American and who became an icon for revolutionary voices within Iran while in exile, took power shortly after.34 The entire country was calling for the Shah's return so he could face charges in front of the people he oppressed for so many years. Instead, the Shah sought cancer treatment in the US, which is what most people think caused the hostage situation to occur. A substantial diplomatic issue arose as President Carter considered allowing the Shah into the US, which many Iranians thought was the US harboring their criminal and preventing them from exerting their sovereignty. When the Shah was admitted into the US, the unrest came to a peak, and protesters outside the US embassy in Tehran, Iran, many of which were US-educated students, stormed the embassy and took 66 Americans inside hostage, 52 of which they held for the entirety of the crisis. With so many people protesting the Shah both in the US and Iran, there is much to say about how the media spun the story to make all Iranian's the bad guys in the situation when they faced discrimination in the US themselves. Professor Catherine Scott explained the "captivity narrative" that was portraited throughout the crisis by the media and the government, which convinced the American citizens to hate Iran more than they ever had before. A captivity narrative is best described when a story is portraited in such a way that the victims' actions 33 Heydary, interview by Yahm, March 10, 2015, transcript. 34 Shannon, Losing Hearts and Minds, 70. 12 against the captors are justified because of the actions that were committed against them.35 What she is saying is that the Americans knew they were the victims during the hostage crisis, and they played into it, but they were not willing to take into account the atrocities that they themselves committed beforehand. Retaliation, by any means, was not only justified but also necessary to protect the American people. This only increased the abhorrent treatment by Americans against Iranians because it was for the public good, even if the public included over one hundred thousand Iranians. The fact that the media portraited the US as victims, and the federal government was retaliating against Iranians just made it more acceptable for the everyday Americans to lash out against their Iranian counterparts. Because of the backlash against Iranians by the US public, there was also government backlash as well. President Carter issued Section 214.5, which called for the investigation into Iranian students in the US to ensure that they were abiding by their visas. If they were not, they were to be deported. This turned into somewhat of a witch hunt as Iranian students could be investigated and deported at any point. According to Tinsley Yarbrough, the deportations were supposed to reduce the number of protests in the US against Iranians so they would not get in the way of hostage negotiations.36 However, many people outside of the government sector questioned the constitutionality of the act, including members of the ISAUS, who brought a case forward against Section 214.5 in late 1979. The original ruling on the case by DC District Court Judge Joyce Green was that the students were correct, and the order was unconstitutional due to discrimination.37 The Appeals Court overruled Judge Green's decision because Section 214.5 had to due with foreign affairs, and under the Constitution, the judiciary could not shoot down 35 Scott, "Bound for Glory," 180. 36 Yarbrough, "Federal Alienage Doctrine," 248. 37 Teague, "Hostages of the Crisis," 124-125. 13 any law regarding the handling of foreign affairs by the executive.38 This allowed the deportations to continue without question, and arguably set a precedent that is followed today. While the rest of the country was dealing with Section 214.5, Iranian students at Norwich encountered a different dilemma. Because they were members of the Iranian military, they had different travel visas than Iranian students at other universities around the US. On April 9th, 1980, President Carter issued a deportation order that all, "non-diplomatic and consular officials and employees of Iran in the US leave no later than Friday April 11th."39 This made it clear that the Iranian cadets at Norwich had to leave for good because their visas made them fall under this category. A newspaper article from the Iranian students' departure day describes the fact that President Loring Hart and the administration contacted as many agencies as possible, trying to allow the cadets to remain at school to finish the year, but there were no loopholes they could use as students at the Citadel and VMI also had to leave. The article then goes on to describe the last few days of the Iranian students on campus, their rush to pack and sell their belongings, and the "emotional farewell" that awaited them on April 11th.40 Cadet Kazem Yahyapour stated in an interview on the day he was forced to leave that he wished he could kiss everyone goodbye, and that, "friendships…made at Norwich will never be forgotten."41 The article also says that Cadet Yahyapour hugged Cadet Colonel William Elliott in a "symbolic gesture."42 This symbolic gesture represents the experiences Iranian cadets had at Norwich, and how their time was much different from that of their counterparts at other American universities, as Norwich welcomed 38 Yarbrough, "Federal Alienage Doctrine," 252-253. 39 "Fond Farewell to Iranian Students" Norwich Guidon. 40 "Fond Farewell to Iranian Students" Norwich Guidon. 41 "Fond Farewell to Iranian Students" Norwich Guidon. 42 "Fond Farewell to Iranian Students" Norwich Guidon. 14 these students with open arms despite the hard times in their country, when they could have turned against them as so many others in the US did at the time. Overall, the Norwich program tried incredibly hard to welcome the Iranians into the US by basing their training and education off of other programs in the US and using their misgivings to make their program the best they could be. The values of respect, tolerance, friendship, integrity, and hard work made people from different backgrounds, and even different countries, able to work together instead of hate one another when diplomatic ties between the two countries fell apart. This was not the case in the rest of the United States at the time, when tensions ran high among neighbors, and Iranian students were constantly on edge, wondering when the government was going to send them back to their revolution-torn homeland. Today, diplomatic ties still have not been reestablished, and the situation with Iran created a deeply divided society in which blame was able to be placed on anyone at any time based on where they came from, a sight not unseen throughout history before and since then. However, the precedent set by Norwich students during the crisis could be an example to the rest of the world of how people from different backgrounds can learn to work together when their two countries could not seem to get along. 15 Bibliography Primary Sources Arsalan M. Namdar, interview by Sarah Yahm, April 2, 2015, transcript, Norwich Voices Oral History Project, Norwich University Archives, Kreitzberg Library, Northfield, VT. • Arsalan Namdar was an IIN student at Norwich and faced the issue of deportation in April 1980. His oral history was recorded in 2015, and he looks back on his time at Norwich, as well as his experiences in the US in general and back home in Iran. Benjamin Heydary, interview by Sarah Yahm, Northbridge, MA, March 10, 2015, transcript, Norwich Voices Oral History Project, Norwich University Archives, Kreitzberg Library, Northfield, VT. • Heydary's oral history works alongside Namdar's oral history to describe what was going on at Norwich from 1976 to 1980 when they were both IIN cadets at Norwich. Heydary also explains how he got to Norwich and how he actually went back to do his military service under the Ayatollah before coming to the US. "Degree Status of Deported Iranian Students" Norwich University Record, May 1980. • The article describes a meeting with the Board of Trustees to determine the degree status of those Iranian seniors who were deported but who were supposed to graduate in May or in the summer. It states that they can get their degrees eventually once relations with Iran are restored, which to this day have yet to be formally restored. "Fond Farewell to Iranian Students" Norwich Guidon, May 10, 1980. • In an article written in the Guidon following the deportation of the Iranian students, the author describes the scene in the last few days the students were on campus. They note specifically that the Iranians had to leave because of the Executive Order issued by 16 President Carter on April 9th that all, "non-diplomatic and non-consular officials and employees of Iran in the U.S. leave no later than Friday April 11th." They state the overall good relations that everyone had on campus, even though the rest of the country was deeply divided along the lines of their country of origin. Grimes, Gerard. "Iranian Students at Norwich" Norwich Guidon, October 31, 1976. • A Guidon writer, Gerard Grimes, interviewed an Iranian recruit, Mohammad Zerehi, about his experiences and those of his fellow Iranians during their first year at Norwich. It describes the overall good treatment the students received, although this was before tensions rose too much between Iran and the US. Hart, Loring. "The President's Corner" Norwich University Record, March 1979. • The article describes President Loring Hart's views about the IIN students at Norwich at the time. He mentions how there is currently turmoil in the country, and that he wishes for peace. He also notes how many students are at Norwich and that Iranian women are now enrolled. "Iranian Students Come to Norwich" Norwich Guidon, May 6, 1976. • The article describes the beginning of the program at Norwich after the students arrived and some of their expectations overall, including some of the characteristics of the new students. Report from Deputy Commandant LTC Paul Lafond to President Loring Hart, 7 May 1976. Loring Edward Hart Records, Box 12, Norwich University Archives, Kreitzberg Library, Northfield, VT. • The report states the observations that LTC Lafond made when he went to VMI to go over their Iranian exchange program to see what would work best for Norwich. This 17 bases their program off of the VMI program, based on their mistakes and successes, including how the language barrier made a difference. "The Rest of the Story" Norwich University Record, Winter 2012. http://thenorwichrecord.com/the-rest-of-the-story/ [accessed 20 November 2019]. • This is a story from the alumni newspaper was written long after the Iranian students left campus. However, it takes into account the memories of IIN students of their time at Norwich, departure day, and what it was like going back to Iran. It paints a picture of the Iranian students on campus and when they left. Secondary Sources Chaichian, Mohammed A. "The New Phase of Globalization and Brain Drain: Migration of Educated and Skilled Iranians to the United States." International Journal of Social Economics 39, No. 2 (2012): 18-38. • Dr. Chaichian is a professor of sociology at Mount Mercy University. His article recognizes the "brain drain," which is the emigration of educated individuals that is currently occurring from Iran to other western nations, like the US. He states that this is caused not only by a shift in the internal structure of Iran and its acceptance of western-based education but also the international economic opportunities that are available outside of the country. Gannon, Frank. "25 July 1969: The Nixon Doctrine." https://www.nixonfoundation.org/2008/07/25-july-1969-the-nixon-doctrine/ [accessed 20 Nov 2019]. • This article makes note of President Nixon's words regarding the announcements he made about his plans for Asia, which explains what came to be known as the Nixon 18 Doctrine. He wanted to get away from using manpower and focus more on management and support for countries attempting to fight oppressive or communist regimes than by providing troops. Hamidreza, Arasteh. "A Follow-Up Study on U.S.-Trained Iranian Faculty Members: Satisfactions and Dissatisfactions." College Student Journal 43, No. 4 (Dec 2009): 1037- 1045. • Dr. Hamidreza is a professor of education and psychology at a university in Tehran, Iran, and his study is based on US-educated college faculty in Tehran, giving him access to the information. He notes some of the problems that US-educated faculty have because of the openness of American education and the structured, hierarchal nature of Iranian that do not always agree with each other. However, Iranian higher education is still based on the American system of higher education. Houghton, David Patrick. US Foreign Policy and the Iran Hostage Crisis. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. • Dr. Houghton is a professor of National Security Affairs at the US Naval War College and is an expert on US foreign policy. This book goes into depth about the actions taken both in Iran and the US to solve the Iranian Hostage Crisis, while also going into depth about the causes of the crisis from both perspectives. He analyzes how each group, Americans and Iranians, looked at the historical background of the situation and drew upon different events to support their reasoning for their actions during the crisis. The argument is that it was their own experiences that validated their analogies and their actions. The issue of foreign policy is brought up as there was no precedent for this, so 19 they analyze the information that was used as the basis of American and Iranian decisions. Kessel, John H. "The Structures of the Carter White House." American Journal of Political Science 27, No. 3 (Aug 1983): 431-463. • This article is from 1983 and was written shortly after President Carter left office. Professor Kessel was a distinguished scholar at Ohio State, and he interviewed the members of the Carter administration upon their phasing out, getting information straight from the source. He sets up what the Carter administration did, how it changed over time, and how the goals and interests of the President are carried out through his staff. It never uses the words "Iran Hostage Crisis" at all. Mobasher, Mohsen. "Cultural Trauma and Ethnic Identity Formation Among Iranian Immigrants in the United States." American Behavioral Scientist 50, No. 1 (Sept 2006): 100-117. • Dr. Mobasher is a professor of anthropology at the University of Houston. This article recognizes the shift in pride within Iranian immigrants to the United States during and after the crisis, and how it has affected them to this day. Because of their status as both Iranians and as Muslims, American society automatically looks down on them and makes assumptions, which puts them in a position to suppress their heritage and culture. Scott, Catherine V. "Bound for Glory: The Hostage Crisis as Captivity Narrative in Iran." International Studies Quarterly 44, No. 1 (Mar 2000): 177-188. • Scott is a professor of political science at Agnes Scott College. In her article she describes the use of the media to influence the stories coming out of crises, such as the Iran Hostage Crisis, that made America rally behind the hostages and the President as the 20 victims who were fighting brutal and vicious Islamic captors, changing the narrative for years to come. Shannon, Matthew K. "American-Iranian Alliances: International Education, Modernization, and Human Rights During the Pahlavi Era." Diplomatic History 39, No. 4 (Sept 2015): 661- 688. • Professor Shannon is educated at UNC and Temple and teaches history at Emory and Henry College. He also authored Losing Hearts and Minds about Iranian relations. Shannon tells the story of American-Iranian relations that began and ended with the shah. Iranian students in the US tried multiple times to get the US to dump the shah because of his authoritarian tendencies and campaign against human rights, although the US's international policy regarding them eventually failed. Shannon, Matthew K. Losing Hearts and Minds: American Iranian Relations and International Education During the Cold War. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2017. • By describing the events of the Iran Hostage Crisis and those that lead up to it, Shannon focuses on the importance of education throughout. He recognizes how the Iranian students that came to the US and went back helped to support the White Revolution and how all Iranian students, in turn, became voices for their country outside of its borders because they could not within. The main argument is that it was the students who inevitably brought about the Iranian Revolution and the actions that came with it due to their activeness in government, including how they used their American educations to further their causes and cause the destruction of US-Iranian relations. 21 • The book actually mentions the military programs at the SMCs that were in place and how they inevitably influenced the educational training aspect of both country's diplomacy towards one another. Teague, Will. "Hostages of the Crisis: Iranian Students in Arkansas, 1979-1981." The Arkansas Historical Quarterly 77, No. 2 (Summer 2018): 113-130. • When writing this journal article, Teague was a doctoral student of history at the University of Arkansas Fayetteville, so he had the access and resources to make a clear argument for examples within the state of Arkansas and its experience with Iranian students. He also uses sources from other universities, mostly throughout the South, which painted a picture of what protests were like and how often they occurred on college campuses with Iranian students. This can be used to compare Norwich to the rest of the country. He also adds some of the challenges that came up with deportation, and how America was trying to decide whether or not it was legal, which can be related to past events like Executive Order 9066 and even today with President Trump's Muslim ban. Yarbrough, Tinsley E. "Federal Alienage Doctrine and the Iranian Student Litigation." Human Rights Quarterly 4, No. 2 (Spring 1982): 243-260. • Tinsley Yarbrough is an expert on the mid-20th century US Supreme Court and has published numerous books and articles on the topic. By relating the Iranian student litigation in 1979 to numerous cases and rulings throughout the 20th century regarding immigration issues, he establishes a precedent for the decisions made that can be brought into question in the modern-day by explaining the arguments of the case against Section 214.5.

L'albo lapillo Pier Paolo Pasolini nasce il 5 marzo 1922 a Bologna, prima tappa del lungo peregrinare della famiglia Pasolini imposto dalla professione del padre Carlo Alberto, ufficiale dell'esercito. Carlo Alberto appartiene ad una delle più illustri famiglie di Ravenna, i Pasolini Dall'Onda, nobili degli Stati della Chiesa che da sempre assolvono incarichi importanti in Vaticano. Tuttavia il padre, Argobasto, avvia la famiglia alla rovina a causa del gioco d'azzardo, rovina cui contribuirà a sua volta il figlio Carlo Alberto preda della medesima passione. L'aver scialacquato ciò che restava del patrimonio paterno, lo costringe nel 1915 ad abbracciare la vita militare, carriera che sopperiva ad un destino di degradazione economica. Carlo Alberto aderisce al fascismo e al riguardo, Enzo Siciliano addirittura si esprime con queste parole: "il fascismo apparteneva antropologicamente […] alla sua vanità, al suo evidente vitalismo, all'ombrosità del suo sguardo e ancor di più alla sua dissestata configurazione sociale, alla sua aristocrazia di sangue respinta verso le terre desolate della piccola borghesia" . L'angoscia del fallimento e il senso di solitudine che nasce da una passione non ricambiata spinge Carlo Alberto ai vizi perniciosi del vino e del gioco. Il dramma che suscitò nell'animo di Carlo Alberto lo "scandalo" del figlio, tralignò alla follia e unico rifugio, fino alla morte avvenuta nel 1958 per cirrosi epatica, lo trovò nel bere. Pier Paolo Pasolini nasce pochi mesi prima della storica Marcia su Roma, atto che sancisce la salita di Mussolini al potere. Le velleità dirigistiche e di controllo del fascismo coltivato dalla piccola borghesia che credeva di fare del Colpo di Stato delle camicie nere strumento per i propri fini particolari, viene travolta e rigettata. Questo il clima in cui cresce Pier Paolo Pasolini il quale, stabilitosi con la famiglia alla fine degli anni Trenta a Bologna, termina brillantemente gli studi liceali e si iscrive alla facoltà di Lettere. Pasolini amò profondamente il gioco del calcio, ma nella sua forma "pura": incontaminato, non degradato e inquinato come sarà quello reificato dalla società dei consumi, postindustriale, contro cui lancerà i suoi strali. È risaputo che si teneva in forma: aveva il terrore di invecchiare e negli ultimi anni della sua vita andò addirittura in Romania a fare la cura del Gerovital (a cui sottopone anche la madre). La prontezza del corpo fece di lui, come farà notare il suo amico Italo Calvino, uno dei pochi convincenti "descrittori di battaglie" della nostra letteratura recente. L'apparente normalità della sua vita si spezza l'8 settembre 1943, quando con lo storico armistizio, si frantumano le illusioni fasciste e l'Italia si trova allo sbando. Qui Pasolini prosegue la sua attività letteraria. Divenuto partigiano della brigata Osoppo, vicina al Partito D'Azione, cadrà vittima di quell'orribile episodio della Resistenza italiana che passò alla storia come "strage di Porzus", che vide i garibaldini e gli azionisti uniti contro le pretese territoriali sulle terre di confine delle truppe slovene fomentate dalla propaganda nazionalista e sciovinista di Tito. Questa pagina luttuosa e mesta della vita di Pier Paolo è calata nell'età storica dell'antifascismo segnata dal fenomeno della Resistenza, risultato dell'acuirsi del carattere politico-ideologico del conflitto tra il sistema democratico e i totalitarismi nazi-fascisti e che si traduce in una vera e propria resistenza nei confronti degli eserciti occupanti, sia in forma armata che in forma "passiva" (rifiuto del consenso, attività di intelligence e frenetica attività propagandistica di intellettuali e politici esuli). L'evento bellico della Liberazione attraversa e scuote tutta la penisola italiana, dalla Sicilia alle Alpi, lasciando un paese grondante di devastazione e distruzione. Enzo Siciliano parla di un'"ingenua furia romantica" del poeta Pasolini perché nel suo animo alberga il furore pedagogico di chi crede nella pregnante forza educatrice della poesia, della lingua che si fa storia e cultura attraverso il poeta che la plasma forgiando armi imperiture, vivificando una cultura locale in cui i poveri contadini possano riconoscersi e, insieme, superare l'eclissi e l'oblio dell'arcaicità d'espressione e dei costumi. Discutendo una tesi sulle Myricae di Pascoli, si laurea in Lettere a Bologna con Carlo Calcaterra, professore di storia della letteratura italiana che segnerà la formazione di Pasolini insieme a Roberto Longhi, professore di Storia dell'Arte, fondamentale nella successiva passione figurativa del Pasolini regista. È affascinato dal Friuli, a cui dona il suo cuore. Pasolini aderisce nell'ottobre-novembre 1945 all'associazione Patrie tal Friul, il cui programma politico era dichiaratamente autonomista. Nel 1947 Pasolini si iscrive al Pci, diventa segretario della sezione di San Giovanni di Casarsa e per vivere inizia ad insegnare italiano alle scuole medie statali a Valvasone (dopo una breve parentesi in una scuola privata a Versuta). Il paese lasciato in eredità dalla guerra alla nuova classe politica e dirigente è un paese umiliato, stremato, insozzato dalla ferocia sanguinaria della guerra civile, economicamente dipendente dagli aiuti stranieri; un paese che ha perso la sua credibilità all'estero, governato da una classe politica inesperta, conservatrice, che non ha saputo rispondere alle pulsioni modernizzatrici favorendo la sclerotizzazione della frattura tra un nord vivace, propositivo e attivo, e un sud dove ha prevalso l'impulso reazionario che ha favorito il ripristino del vecchio stato, dove le forze dell'ordine e la magistratura sono tutt'altro che convertiti alla democrazia e dove predominano due partiti di massa tra loro antitetici. Il sogno di una cosa viene visto come "lo sfondo mitico e contadino del romanzo "romano" (per) l'epicità del libro che trae sostanza dal senso di avventura che increspa il vivere dei tre protagonisti: soluzione stilistica a cui Pasolini arriva dopo Ragazzi di vita" . La situazione agraria e contadina, soprattutto nel sud Italia, risente fortemente della distruzione e degli sconvolgimenti causati dalla guerra. La manifestazione organizzata dalla Camera del Lavoro a San Vito del Tagliamento per ottenere i miglioramenti che il lodo prometteva agli agricoltori disoccupati e ai mezzadri danneggiati dalla guerra, è rivolta contro quei proprietari terrieri che si sono strenuamente opposti fino a quel momento all'applicazione della legge. La concezione ideologica di Pasolini si incarna in un personaggio del "romanzo" Il sogno di una cosa: una ragazza borghese, Renata, che abiura alle precedenti categorie di pensiero e all'impianto ontologico tipico della sua classe sociale, "che mai gliel'avrebbero perdonato", per farsi marxista. Pasolini dona così forma al suo "inconscio antropologico" (Enzo Siciliano), affidandolo alle parole di questa giovane ma anche a quelle del prete Paolo quando dice, ho notato quanto siano migliori i giovani del popolo da quelli della borghesia: è una superiorità sostanziale e assoluta, che non ammette riserve. Si insinua insidioso anche un altro tratto autobiografico, che lui avvertirà sempre come una colpa soverchiante e per cui i patimenti emotivi si susseguiranno fino alla fine della sua breve esistenza: l'omosessualità. Trauma inconscio che si riverbera nel suo atteggiamento sessuale adulto per cui Pier Paolo cerca "in folle caccia notturna" i ragazzi, stabilendo una distanza netta dalla sua realtà domestica. Muoio nell'odore di una latrina della mia infanzia, legato per sempre alla vita da una vespa che accende nell'aria l'odore dell'Estate. O anche "ciò che più tortura è il "cedere"/mi trovo al mesto bivio del peccato/e cedo […]". Isolato e epurato dal partito comunista -al tempo duro ed ortodosso in materia-, si decide alla partenza con la madre Susanna. Roma. Pasolini rimane pur sempre un "poeta" inteso, alla Elsa Morante, come scrittore che sa dar voce, anche con irriverenza, al proprio daimon, rimanendo fedele alla propria vocazione. Poeta vicino all'espressionismo, rifugge dalla trasposizione della realtà nella letteratura dove esprime invece tutto il suo disagio esistenziale. Nella capitale della neonata Repubblica Italiana, Pasolini arriva con la madre agli albori degli anni Cinquanta. Nel frattempo avrà l'occasione di un nuovo contatto con il cinema quando Mario Soldati lo invita a collaborare alla sceneggiatura, insieme anche a Bassani, del suo film del 1954, La donna del fiume. La prima opera in omaggio alla romanità è del 1955, Ragazzi di vita. Lapalissiano il fine politico: disvelare una realtà taciuta, volutamente emarginata anche geograficamente nelle borgate, nelle appendici da una società apparentemente riemersa dalle ceneri della guerra, sedicente superstite dell'horror vacui della disperazione e della distruzione che tende a celare a se stessa i propri dolori ed i propri mali. Ciò spiega il perché è addirittura la presidenza del Consiglio dei ministri, Antonio Segni, a muoversi scrivendo esso stesso al Procuratore della Repubblica di Milano, bollando il testo come "pornografico". Contro questi perbenisti piccolo borghesi detrattori di Pasolini, politici e non, Gadda (che definisce Ragazzi di vita una "colonna sonora"), Bertolucci, De Robertis, Bigongiari, Carlo Bo, Cassola, Sereni, Anna Banti, Mario Luzi e con loro altri esponenti della cultura del tempo, costituirono quella giuria che a Parma nell'estate del 1955 assegna al "romanzo" il premio "Colombi- Guidotti". Il plurilinguismo a cui è votato Pasolini lo riporta presto sulle scene con un'opera, forse l'unica che- data l'organicità della narrazione- può essere ascritto alla famiglia dei "romanzi", Una vita violenta (1959). È una sorta di manifesto letterario con cui sancisce il suo riavvicinamento al Partito Comunista. Questo è deducibile dalle parole di Pasolini il quale in un'intervista apparsa sulla rivista "Nuovi Argomenti" nel 1959 dirà io credo soltanto nel romanzo "storico" e "nazionale", nel senso di "oggettivo" e "tipico". Emblematico è a questo fine il titolo di una raccolta di undici componimenti poetici in lingua, Le ceneri di Gramsci, "i più intensi e profondi esperimenti poetici di Pasolini […] una vera e propria summa al contempo delle posizioni ideali del poeta e della sua visione del mondo" "una delle partiture più ingannevoli e più strabilianti di tutta l'opera di Pasolini" il cui segreto sta "nei poemi, che nelle intenzioni dovevano esprimere l'angoscia dell'inafferrabilità e dell'impermeabilità del reale, si trasformano in un flusso che riproduce il reale nei suoi tessuti e nelle sue strutture, come il continuum sintattico riproduce il continuum del paesaggio" , composti tra il 1951 e il 1956 e stampati nel 1957, precedente di due anni il romanzo Una vita violenta e intervallato da una collaborazione alla sceneggiatura di Le notti di Cabiria, a cui lo invita Federico Fellini, come revisore della parte dialettale romanesca (per cui si servirà della collaborazione di quello che diventerà uno dei suoi due pupilli e tenero amico, Sergio Citti). In questa raccolta di componimenti l'obiettivo è quello di dare un volto nuovo alla storia italiana e per farlo Pasolini indulge sul passato con brani dedicati alle origini medievali del canto popolare, al periodo classico, romano greco e barbarico, al periodo comunale: il tutto in un clima quasi di attesa, di sospensione del popolo che aspetta da sempre "mai tolto al tempo" (Il canto popolare) e quindi non obnubilato dalla modernità ma vivo, sopravvissuto nel Presente e emarginato, confinato, ghettizzato in vacui solitari e fatiscenti paesi di collina, in tuguri o baracche, in squallidi quartieri periferici che circondano, con ferina purezza e semplicità, le baldanzose, bislacche città frutto del tempo breve. L'occasione è data da una visita di Pasolini al "Cimitero degli Inglesi", accanto a Porta San Paolo a Roma, a ridosso del quartiere popolare il Testaccio, in cui era stato seppellito Gramsci. Pasolini contempla amareggiato la rovina storica, "in esso c'è il grigiore del mondo / la fine del decennio in cui ci appare / tra le macerie finito il profondo / e ingenuo sforzo di rifare la vita / il silenzio, fradicio e infecondo". In questi versi sono condensate tutte le cocenti delusioni che albergano nel cuore del poeta e la sofferenza per la sorte dell'Italia: i dieci anni di dominio della Democrazia Cristiana al potere, il tradimento della Resistenza, il naufragio delle speranze e la perdita degli affetti. Durante lo srotolarsi del poemetto, Gramsci abbandona le vestigia di ideologo e uomo di partito, di padre e diviene per Pasolini "umile fratello", completamente disarmato, non rivoluzionario bensì il Gramsci della sofferenza riflessiva della prigione da cui gemmano pagine di vibrante lirismo e puntigliosa razionalità, lucidità storica e politica. Confinato nella solitudine dalla mordacità dell'uomo e dalla crudeltà della storia. L'interesse è rivolto al giovinetto Gramsci, umiliato e vilipeso, partorito dalla sensibilità del poeta, non al personaggio storico. La protesta è rappresentata dall'essere "diverso", nella poesia come nella vita. Diverso da chi, da cosa? Diverso dai prodotti della mercificazione, dall'omologazione e dalla massificazione che crea e fa subire al popolo inerme e disarmato l'evoluzione della tecnica. Questo non farà che esacerbare ulteriormente le idiosincrasie all'interno del partito dal quale, in seguito agli scandali legati alla sua omosessualità, era stato espulso. Sono gli anni in cui all'interno del partito domina l'intransigenza teologica dei marxisti ("sono inflessibili, sono tetri, / nel loro giudicarti: chi ha il cilicio / addosso non può perdonare. Nel 1958 pubblica L'usignolo della chiesa cattolica, una summa del suo credo marxista intriso soavemente di pietas cristiana. L'attività critica di Pasolini vede la sua prima momentanea sistemazione nella raccolta saggistica del 1960 Passione e ideologia. Un profondo e drastico mutamento del clima culturale occorse negli ultimi anni prima della guerra. Questo nuovo clima non è infondato ma motivato dalla lotta vittoriosa del paese contro il fenomeno fascista e la riconquista che ne derivò della libertà e della democrazia. Il primo numero compare alla fine di settembre del 1945 e, novità, in edicola perché vuole assurgere subito a organo culturale di massa. Chiude la sua attività nel dicembre del 1947. L'editoriale del direttore Una nuova cultura apre il "Politecnico". Contrasti con la redazione e divergenze di vedute fra Vittorini e esponenti di spicco del Partito Comunista, di cui era un giovane neofita, portò alla chiusura dell'organo. I dissapori con i dirigenti comunisti, in particolar modo con Palmiro Togliatti e lo storico Alicata, ruotano intorno al valore che Vittorini attribuisce alla cultura nell'orientamento della storia e nella rinascita della società, compiti che il partito attribuisce più alla politica che alla cultura. La cultura invece non può non svolgersi al di fuori di ogni legge di tattica e di strategia sul piano diretto della storia. Vittorini tende, esecrabilmente, a mettere in discussione il rapporto organico tra intellettuali e partito che dominerà la vita culturale nei decenni successivi caratterizzando la storia della cultura a sinistra dell'Italia; si rifiuta di porre così dei limiti al suo lavoro, di assecondare i diktat del partito e chiude la rivista "Il Politecnico". Il "ceto intellettuale" svolge una funzione di prim'ordine nell'analisi gramsciana, per la formazione del "blocco storico" perché è l'unico che può condurre al cambiamento la società rifondandola. Da qui, la sua idea di "intellettuale organico" per indicare quell'intellettuale che si lega visceralmente ad una classe sociale e al suo destino e istaura un rapporto dialettico con il suo partito. Una tendenza volta a creare una cultura liberale nell'Italia dopo la Liberazione ma, al contempo, attenta ai problemi del socialismo e della democrazia, corrente di pensiero incarnata da Norberto Bobbio. Per ottenere questo fine, è necessaria la comprensione della realtà. Al cinema e nella letteratura il parlato e il dialetto si impongono sovrani. Asor Rosa parla, per introdurre Pasolini, di "apoteosi e crisi del neorealismo" ricordando al lettore che ogni periodo storico-letterario finisce sempre e comunque o per rottura o per eccesso. Quello fascista, ci dice, terminò bruscamente per rottura e si fa strada l'idea che una nuova fase debba aprirsi per rispondere alle speranze degli italiani, anche nel campo del gusto e della poesia. Si scontra allora con le posizioni ufficiali del Partito Comunista che lo accusa tramite la rivista culturale ufficiale del partito, "Il contemporaneo", fondata nel 1954 e diretta da Salinari e Trombadori, di deviare dalla via del realismo inserendo nelle sue opere elementi decadenti, irrazionalistici e vitalistici. Alla "Guerra Fredda" corrisponde una spartizione del mondo in due parti (a cui nel 1962 si aggiungerà una terza realtà che è quella del blocco dei cosiddetti "paesi non allineati" nata alla conferenza di Bandung), simbolicamente indicate nella carta geografica con due colori differenti, il blu per i paesi schierati con gli Stati Uniti e rosso per quelli che gravitano intorno all'Unione Sovietica. In seguito alla Conferenza di Yalta del 1945, che stabilisce la spartizione delle zone di influenza, l'Italia viene inserita nel gioco di alleanze della potenza americana. Nel nostro Paese, il lungo periodo inaugurato dalle elezioni politiche del 1948, che vedono la vittoria di De Gasperi e della Democrazia Cristiana e l'uscita di scena del blocco delle sinistre, viene vissuto in condizioni di sostanziale equilibrio politico: per quarantacinque anni si succederanno governi a guida democristiana il cui percorso è agevolato anche da quella conventio ad excludendum, grazie alla quale vengono respinte come forze di governo, le due frange estreme dello schieramento parlamentare (Msi, erede delle posizioni della Repubblica di Salò, e Pci) . Un Paese ancora impegnato sulla strada della ricostruzione della propria identità, materiale e spirituale. La quasi totalità degli italiani ancora era impegnata, per vivere, nei settori tradizionali- principe ancora l'agricoltura che all'inizio del 1950 assorbe ancora quasi il 50% della popolazione attiva, concentrata con picchi del 56-57% al Sud (Ginsborg) - a cui corrispondeva un basso tenore di vita legato, nel caso dell'agricoltura, all'arretratezza strutturale che rallentava la crescita e la produzione (unica eccezione quella delle aziende agricole, dinamiche, moderne e produttive della Pianura Padana). Ciò è legato sia ad una perdita di autorità del pater familias, per cui il figlio del mezzadro tende a non voler più seguire le orme del padre sia al fatto che il proprietario, dato il crollo dei profitti e gli alti prezzi del mercato, tende a vendere le proprie terre il più delle volte ai mezzadri stessi. Ugualmente nel sud Italia si avvia un processo di vendita di terra che, insieme alla legge del 1948 che stabilisce il sistema di crediti ipotecari rurali rimborsabili in quarant'anni, agevola la piccola proprietà contadina. La fine del protezionismo diede nuova vita all'economia del paese portandolo, quasi obtorto collo, a rimodernarsi. In breve tempo la produzione industriale, così sollecitata al dinamismo, supera quella di tutti gli altri settori e l'Italia da paese agricolo diviene una delle nazioni più progredite del continente. L'"urbanizzazione" cambia il volto del paesaggio umano e sancisce la morte dell'"homo italicus" (Asor Rosa) legato alla proprietà e alla coltivazione della terra, sovverte totalmente i precedenti rapporti di classe con la crescita esponenziale della classe operaia di fabbrica che sarà al centro delle lacerazioni che seguiranno questo primo periodo di ebbrezza e che trova sfogo nella dura politica antisindacale e persecutoria ai danni di operai di dichiarata fede comunista perseguita dalle imprese. Il clima sociale e politico si scalderà velocemente e le lotte, le manifestazioni, le repressioni e la rabbia sociale che questa realtà esacerberà tingeranno di nero molte pagine della storia politico- sociale della Prima Repubblica italiana. Il "miracolo economico" in realtà cova degli squilibri al suo interno. Ginsborg delinea perfettamente questa situazione: il boom si realizzò seguendo una logica tutta sua, rispondendo direttamente al libero gioco delle forze del mercato e dando luogo, come risultato, a profondi scompensi strutturali. Dunque, l'altro lato della medaglia vede quelle declinazioni obliate dalla vitalità del momento, i contraccolpi che cova al suo interno il "boom" e che, accanto al forte spaesamento culturale, genera bisogni difficilmente soddisfacibili, come la domanda aggiuntiva di case, ospedali e scuole essendo più rivolto alla produzione di beni privati, individuali o al massimo familiari a detrimento dei beni pubblici e dei servizi. Fomenta anche rancore sociale accanto alle rivendicazioni di nuovi diritti dei lavoratori, che cominciano a tradursi in fiammate di combattività, a partire dagli scioperi del 1962- che si concluderà con l'episodio tragico di Piazza Statuto - e soprattutto del 1969 con la rivendicazione di uguaglianza di salario e parità normative tra operai e impiegati (lo Statuto dei Lavoratori è del 1970). Le forme governative non sono pronte alla sfida che questi mutamenti sociali mettono in campo. Avvocato seguace della linea dura, della politica "legge e ordine", opportunista nelle sue strategie di alleanze, Tambroni non si schiera apertamente con l'ala destra o sinistra del suo partito e mantiene buoni rapporti sia con i dirigenti missini che del Psi (anche se sarà bollato come uomo di destra non solo per la politica perseguita contro i manifestanti ma perché ottenne la carica di presidente del Consiglio grazie al voto degli esponenti del Msi e dei monarchici). Tambroni risponde alle manifestazioni che si svolgono a Genova, a Roma e in Emilia Romagna nel 1960 in occasione del congresso nazionale dei missini che provocatoriamente annunciano di tenerlo a Genova, una delle patrie della Resistenza, merito riconosciutole istituzionalmente con una medaglia d'oro. La vicenda Tambroni, ci fa notare Ginsborg, ha il merito di chiarire una volta per tutte una costante della storia politica della nostra Repubblica: l'antifascismo è nel dna dell'ideologia egemone per cui qualsiasi velleità autoritaria o liberticida viene osteggiata fisicamente dalla massa e messa al bando. Inoltre questo episodio favorisce un avvicinamento della Dc con i socialisti con la conseguente avanzata delle sinistre alle elezioni. Nel gennaio 1961 viene eletto alla Casa Bianca il democratico John Kennedy che, dopo il rapporto stilato sulla situazione politica italiana da un suo funzionario, decide di appoggiare l'ascesa del Psi con il doppio scopo di oscurare il partito comunista -che aumenta il proselitismo di massa- e al contempo far uscire l'Italia dallo stallo in cui il vuoto riformista l'aveva incatenato. Un papa ieratico, lontano dal sentire della gente. "Riforme mancate e mancata riforma del sistema politico si intrecciano e si alimentano a vicenda, innescando un "cortocircuito perverso" che agisce in profondità, sotto l'apparente bonaccia che va dal superamento della crisi economica all'"esplosione" del 1968" . Togliatti si aprirà al policentrismo politico e culturale e caldeggerà il superamento dello schieramento ideologico dei due blocchi. Stalin è morto nel 1953 e nel corso del XX Congresso del Pcus, che si tenne a Mosca nel febbraio del 1956, il nuovo segretario Nikita Chruscev diffonde il rapporto segreto sui crimini nefandi commessi da Stalin, favorito in questo dal "culto della divinità" a cui aveva piegato non solo la popolazione ma anche tutti i suoi sodales. La tradizione culturale del comunismo italiano ha allora, con Togliatti e la sua necessità di "vie nazionali del socialismo", l'originalità di confondersi con quella liberale. Quest'ultimo aspetto è interessante perché testimonia un processo di unificazione nazionale frutto sia di un maggior intervento scolastico mirato all'aumento del tasso di alfabetizzazione sia dell'incontro di due realtà fino a quel momento agli antipodi, i contadini del sud e la classe operaia del nord. Affermato poeta e emergente cineasta, interviene nel dibattito sui caratteri dell'italiano nell'epoca del "miracolo economico" e dedica alla nuova questione linguistica una conferenza (apparsa sulla rivista "Rinascita" nel dicembre del 1964) dove denuncia un letale sovvertimento del tradizionale assetto dei rapporti comunicativi, inquinati dall'avvento dell'industrializzazione a-morale e selvaggia e alla diffusione sempre più massiccia della televisione che tende ad unificare al ribasso la lingua italiana dalla cui facies scompare, o comunque si erode irreversibilmente, la genuinità di un dialetto che si vede aggredito dai potenti mass media. I dati statistici sono a questo fine utile: nel 1958 solo il 12 percento delle famiglie italiane possiedono un televisore, nel 1965 la percentuale è già salita al 49, allo stesso modo il possesso di un frigorifero passa dal 13 al 55 per cento, quello di una lavatrice dal 3 al 23 mentre gli italiani che posseggono un'automobile passa da 342000 a 4670000. Cambiano le abitudini alimentari e il modo di vestire degli italiani. Tutto ciò avallato dallo Stato e dal suo lassismo, dalla pigrizia e inamovibilità dei governi che nel ventennio 1950-1960 concedono piena libertà all'iniziativa privata. Fu uno dei pionieri della critica serrata e violenta di questo nuovo stato di cose, sociale e politico e ferventi saranno gli attacchi che lancerà dalle pagine di quotidiani, in particolare il "Corriere della Sera". A lacerare il velo delle illusioni saranno, in campo politico-sociale, atti di terrorismo e violenza vigliacca che dopo il preludio sessantottino, dalla Strage di Piazza Fontana del 12 dicembre 1969 darà il via alla "strategia della tensione", allo stragismo nero e al fenomeno delle Br: vicende che tanto avviliranno la nostra democrazia. Il rifiutato è l'irruzione dell'estraneità e della diversità, l'oggetto inerte e passivo del rifiuto. L'essere del rifiutato è la sua povertà e la sua miseria inseparabili e irreparabili. Pasolini con la sua opera poetica, che contempla non solo la scrittura ma anche il cinema ("la lingua scritta della realtà"), offre al suo pubblico un ampio materiale di riflessione sulla figura del rifiutato, dell'emarginato e sulle sue implicazioni sociali, politiche e morali. Negli anni Sessanta la produzione culturale e artistica si sposta sul cinema perché ha una presa maggiore sul pubblico, è più sensibile alla quotidianità e fedele al paese che cambia. L'avventura del cinema lo porterà a viaggiare costantemente negli anni Sessanta. In Alì dagli occhi azzurri, un volume che raccoglie scritti tra il 1950 e il 1965, c'è un racconto in versi che presta il titolo alla raccolta, Profezia (1962-1964) in cui riversa la sua speranza nelle potenzialità rivoluzionarie dei popoli sfruttati del terzo mondo,essi sempre umili/essi sempre deboli/essi sempre timidi/essi sempre infimi/essi sempre colpevoli/essi sempre sudditi/essi sempre piccoli […] deponendo l'onestà/delle religioni contadine, /dimenticando l'onore/della malavita/tradendo il candore/dei popoli barbari, /dietro ai loro Alì/dagli occhi azzurri- usciranno da sotto la terra/per uccidere-/usciranno dal fondo del mare per aggredire/scenderanno dall'alto del cielo per derubare […]distruggeranno Roma/e sulle sue rovine/deporranno il germe/della Storia Antica. Accanto c'è anche il filone politico, di denuncia: Le mani sulla città di Francesco Rosi,1963, affronta il tema della speculazione edilizia a Napoli, o a Elio Petri, Marco Bellocchio (I pugni in tasca, 1965) etc. Accanto a questi registi Pier Paolo Pasolini è spinto al cinema dalla volontà di dare plasticità visiva alla sua immaginazione antropologica e poetica. Il suo è un cinema tutt'altro che consolatorio, non è foriero di speranze ed è colmo di rassegnazione e amarezza, sentimenti maturati in seguito al sopravvenire della crisi delle ideologie e allo sfigurarsi del mondo del "piccole patrie". Una nuova "Bibbia dei poveri". Un cinema che fa dell'intrattenimento piccolo-borghese una sorta di Moloch e che si staglia contro l'ipocrisia dei benpensanti attraverso l'esibizione del sesso senza veli, almeno finché il consumismo non farà della liberazione dai tabù sessuali un suo imperativo, trasformando lo stigmatizzato Pasolini in corifeo della nuova normalità borghese. In Pasolini il cinema si mostra da subito per ciò che è, "passione per la vita", un mezzo per portare la poesia nella realtà attraverso la chiarezza della prosa. "[…] Io amo il cinema perché con il cinema resto sempre al livello della realtà. Sempre del biennio 1968-69 sono La sequenza del fiore di carta e Porcile (a detta dell'autore, il suo film "che più tende al cinema di poesia") mentre successive altre significative produzioni, dall'Edipo Re (1967), a Medea (1969-'70), da la "Trilogia della vita" (stagione 1970-1974) che contempla Il Decameron I racconti di Canterbury Il fiore delle mille e una notte (una trilogia della "mancanza della vita", affermazione disperata di qualcosa che non esiste più) alla quale seguirà un documento scritto nel giugno 1975 (Abiura dalla Trilogia della vita) dove giustifica il suo gesto dell'abiura con la costatazione della scomparsa di quella gioventù capace di libertà e trasgressione a cui quasi lui inneggiava attraverso questi film. L'innocenza che lui aveva perseguito qui è cancellata dal meccanismo di emulazione dei modelli veicolati dalla televisione, figli della società capitalista che tutto ciò che tocca corrompe; alla violenza disarmante e demistificante di Salò o le Centoventi giornate di Sodoma (1975) in cui la rievocazione in chiave sado-masochista di un episodio della Repubblica fascista di Salò fa da metafora della situazione dell'Italia democratico-repubblicana; a cui avrebbe dovuto seguire Porno- Teo- Kolossal, progetto interrotto, insieme al suo romanzo Petrolio, dalla tragica fine dell'autore all'Idroscalo di Ostia. Riservandoci un'analisi più puntuale in un secondo momento, possiamo tuttavia cogliere la sua convinzione che sia in atto un mutamento socio- antropologico devastante, che oscura la prospettiva popolare della Storia spogliandola così del suo carattere "assoluto". Intuibile è, a questo punto, la sua netta condanna del movimento studentesco del 1968, da cui prende le distanze dichiarandosene estraneo perché avvertito come volontà di emancipazione piccolo- borghese. Lo stato d'animo del Pasolini degli ultimi anni è di "disperata vitalità": sa di non essere compreso. I suoi interventi si fanno sempre più numerosi e appassionati, ruotano intorno a ciò che Pasolini dice soggiacere alla base di questa drammatica realtà: l'esiziale vuoto democristiano, partito arroccato nel Palazzo per semplice tornaconto personale, l'inamovibilità del progressismo e gli errori tattici del Pci, la dissoluzione del mondo proletario- contadino. L'ingordigia dei governi di centro- sinistra che dominano la scena dal 1962 al 1968, rende sordi e ciechi i politici di fronte alle esigenze di un'Italia in rapido cambiamento. Le ragioni salienti del movimento studentesco vanno ricercate nelle riforme scolastiche degli anni Sessanta: con l'introduzione (1962) della scuola media dell'obbligo fino ai quattordici anni, si incentiva un livello di istruzione di massa oltre la scuola primaria ma contemporaneamente vengono alla luce le gravi carenze: dalla mancanza dei libri di testo alle gravissime lacune nella preparazione degli insegnanti, mai aggiornati. Il Sessantotto italiano nasce nelle università con la richiesta di un serio esame di coscienza alla cultura. Nel frattempo, nelle maglie comuniste torna in auge il pensiero marxista con la sua attenzione per i coni d'ombra aperti dallo sviluppo economico e la conseguente condizione della classe operaia. A completare il quadro, si aggiungono presto le influenze "terzomondiste" provenienti dall'America del Sud, a partire dalla morte di Che Guevara in Bolivia nel 1967 che diviene così il martire simbolo della rivolta. Siamo nell'autunno del 1967 e investe gli atenei a partire dalla facoltà di sociologia di Trento a cui seguono quelli di Milano, Torino, Pisa. La nuova lettura che viene data nel Sessantotto è libertaria e iconoclastica del materialismo storico. I lasciti saranno vari, non tutti della medesima natura: innegabile il forte impulso alla democratizzazione, alla modernizzazione e alla partecipazione con l'affermazione del primato dell'assemblea a detrimento della delega. Gli atti dimostrativi, provocatori, violenti e il disprezzo per le regole furono alla base del fallimento. Ebbero però l'intuizione della necessità di avere al proprio fianco gli operai, classe sociale sclerotizzata in una situazione intollerabile. La propaganda incendiaria inibisce qualsiasi istanza modernizzatrice, le modalità di rivendicazione sono corrotte da una torsione del marxismo e del leninismo, per cui la coronazione della lotta di classe si può ottenere solo per mezzo di un furore iconoclasta e casinista. Gli anni dal 1968 al 1972 vedranno un susseguirsi di tiepidi e brevi governi di coalizione, perlopiù di centro-sinistra, che tentano di mediare la protesta con una scialba politica riformatrice che favorirà l'istituzione delle Regioni, la regolamentazione del referendum abrogativo; in campo sociale la regolamentazione delle pensioni, la nascita (maggio 1970) per merito del socialista Giacomo Brodolini dello Statuto dei Lavoratori di cui si comincia da subito a fare largo uso, la conclusione della lunga lotta del Lid per l'introduzione del divorzio in Italia, intrapresasi dopo il progetto di legge del 1965 presentato dal socialista Fortuna, il cui iter parlamentare però venne bloccato dalla Democrazia cristiana. Una condizione di assoluta precarietà su cui si abbatterà la più grave crisi economica dopo quella del 1929 e che influirà sulle politiche economiche internazionali per tutti gli anni Settanta, conosciuta come crisi petrolifera perché generata dalla decisione dei paesi dell'Opec di aumentare del 70 per cento il prezzo del petrolio facendolo schizzare alle stelle e mostrando nella sua drammaticità la totale dipendenza dei paesi occidentali dall'esportazione del petrolio. Questa crisi si abbatte su una situazione internazionale già fortemente problematica: la rottura del sistema Bretton Woods con la conseguente incertezza sui mercati finanziari internazionali, la svalutazione del dollaro, l'esplosione dei tassi salariali europei, un eccesso di offerta sul mercato del lavoro e il rapido declino dei profitti. Interessante è l'analisi che fa dei motivi che soggiacciono a questo estremismo della "nuova sinistra" Silvio Lanaro. Si è molto discettato sull'anomalia del "bipartitismo imperfetto", sul blocco ultradecennale del quadro politico e sul "revisionismo" del Pci, accompagnato dalla tattica terzinternazionalista del far terra bruciata alla propria sinistra: e tuttavia non si è posto l'accento sullo scotoma idiomatico di cui soffre chi vive in un paese privo nel lungo periodo di tradizioni liberali, e dunque costretto ad articolare le proprie concettualizzazioni (e le proprie azioni) a seconda di quanto gli offre il mercato delle idee e dei linguaggi. Immediata l'accusa da parte di polizia e governo alle frange anarchiche con l'individuazione dei responsabili nel ballerino Valpreda (che dopo aver trascorso tre anni in galera, solo nel 1985 sarà prosciolto da ogni accusa) e nel ferroviere Pinelli che "cadrà" dalla finestra dell'ufficio del commissario Calabresi durante l'interrogatorio. Alla strage del 12 dicembre e alla tensione successiva si richiamerà il primo documento del Collettivo Politico metropolitano, da cui nasceranno le Brigate Rosse, gruppo che rimarrà isolato fino alle elezioni del 1972, quando il terrorismo si colora anche di rosso con l'incruento ma emblematico sequestro di un dirigente della Sit- Siemens. Nel marzo del 1972, al XIII Congresso del partito, viene eletto segretario Enrico Berlinguer. Alla strage di Piazza Fontana se ne aggiungono presto altre: Piazza della Loggia a Brescia, attentato al treno "Italicus" nel 1974 e attentato alla stazione di Bologna del 2 agosto 1980. L'unico argine, nell'opinione di Berlinguer, sarebbe stata allora una grande alleanza che si concretizzasse politicamente in un accordo con la Dc, presentandolo come una strategia in cui comunisti e cattolici avrebbero condiviso un medesimo codice morale con il quale risollevare le sorti del paese. Questa strategia avrebbe avuto il merito indiscutibile di porre il Pci al centro della scena politica dopo anni di evanescenza. La sensazione che si ha è di essere di fronte alla nemesi del Partito democristiano, come si coglie dall'esigenza pasoliniana di un "Processo etico" al "Potere", ossia al partito che lo ha incarnato, al fine di riscrivere delle regole civili universali e inviolabili. A Pasolini il "coraggio intellettuale della verità" non manca: Io so. Io so i nomi dei responsabili della strage di Milano del 12 dicembre 1969. Io so i nomi dei responsabili della strage di Brescia e di Bologna dei primi mesi del 1974. […] Io so tutti questi nomi e so tutti i fatti (attentati alle istituzioni e stragi) di cui si sono resi colpevoli. Colpa da cui discende la necessità di un processo, un "Processo come metafora" con cui "determinare nel paese una nuova coscienza politica" sancendo definitivamente la fine di "un'epoca millenaria di un certo potere", rendendo preclara una verità fondamentale, "che governare e amministrare bene non significa più governare e amministrare bene in relazione al vecchio potere bensì in relazione al nuovo potere", ossia alle esigenze etiche della collettività civile. Le successive elezioni politiche, 20 giugno 1976 -le prime aperte anche ai giovani tra i 18 e i 21 anni-, confermano la salita del Pci che con il 34,4 per cento dei voti si avvicina alla Dc che resta stabile al 38,7 per cento, grazie alla grande borghesia che fa quadrato intorno al partito (storico l'invito del più famoso giornalista conservatore italiano e direttore del "Giornale Nuovo", Indro Montanelli, a votare Dc "turandosi il naso") mentre il Psi esce indebolito (nel 1976 il segretario De Martino verrà sostituito da un esponente dell'ala destra del partito, Bettino Craxi). I due governi Andreotti che si susseguono tra il 1976 e il 1978 e che includono il Pci nell'area di governo, passeranno alla storia come governi di "solidarietà nazionale" all'interno dei quali si appannerà la diversità comunista, grazie anche all'abilità del fine statista Aldo Moro, che con l'ambiguità e la sottigliezza del suo linguaggio, favorisce il graduale inserimento del Pci nelle logiche del sistema dei partiti, processo vissuto come un tradimento da quegli elettori che avevano riposto vitali speranze in un partito per cui Pasolini spende queste parole: la presenza di un grande partito di opposizione come il Partito Comunista italiano è la salvezza dell'Italia e delle sue povere istituzioni democratiche. A provocare il fallimento della "solidarietà nazionale" è proprio l'assenza del soggetto "nazionale" con cui unanimemente si indica un agglomerato sociale relativamente uniformato da comportamenti e valori comuni. Questo avvenimento scuote le fondamenta del sistema spingendo alla riflessione parte della società civile sull'importanza di beni immateriali usurati fino a quel momento. La presa di coscienza di Berlinguer del fallimento del "compromesso storico", si ha a Genova dove, nel settembre 1978, durante la festa nazionale dell'"Unità" rivolgendosi alla folla dirà che è giunto il momento in cui "si possono e si devono cambiare" gli equilibri politici del paese. Tuttavia, la rottura della solidarietà nazionale segnerà anche il declino del Pci. Nelle manifestazioni giovanili del 1968, diviene inviso agli studenti, e a larga parte del Pci, per la netta posizione che assume. Individua una forte ambiguità nel movimento, all'interno del quale scorge elementi piccolo-borghesi. La polemica contro/il Pci andava fatta nella prima metà/del decennio passato. siamo ovviamente d'accordo con l'istituzione/della polizia.//a Valle Giulia ieri, si è così avuto un frammento/di lotta di classe: e voi cari (benché dalla parte/della ragione) eravate i ricchi/mentre i poliziotti (che erano dalla parte/del torto)erano i poveri. /Un borghese redento deve rinunciare a tutti i suoi diritti, /o bandire dalla sua anima, una volta per sempre/l'idea del potere. Il "perturbatore della quiete" Pasolini, ospite scomodo della cultura italiana, negli ultimi anni della sua vita sente il bisogno cocente di confrontarsi con l'opinione pubblica, atterrito da ciò che vede: un'omologazione incalzante di costumi e moralità cui si doveva celermente fuggire e contro cui doveva lanciare i suoi strali anche a costo di attirarsi critiche aspre, come fu. Nel frattempo, prende a scrivere caustici pamphlet politici nella prima pagina del "Corriere della sera" (possibilità che gli è data dalla successione a Giovanni Spadolini come direttore di Piero Ottone, più liberale e pronto a violare il moderatismo borghese a favore di una più vivace dialettica politica, al cui fine venne creata una "Tribuna aperta"). I bersagli di Pasolini sono il consumismo, l'esercizio democristiano del potere, il permissivismo nei giovani e la linea ufficiale dei comunisti. Il fine è quello di provocare accese polemiche, assumendo anche posizioni inaspettate, come nel caso del referendum sull'aborto del maggio 1974 la cui vittoria viene aspramente criticata da Pasolini perché dissolve definitivamente l'identità contadina, lasciando un vuoto riempito dalla "borghesizzazione", dai valori vacui ed effimeri di un consumismo sfrenato. La vertiginosa salita del Pci alle elezioni amministrative del giugno 1975, offre a un Pasolini galvanizzato da questa novità politica, da quella che sembra una nuova primavera nata da una restaurazione della sinistra -favorito anche dal consenso accordatogli dai ceti medi, i quali sembrano rispondere a quel sentimento di legittimità costituzionale che suscita nei confronti del Pci il terrorismo di destra-, l'occasione per delineare un suo personale progetto di riforma che prevede l'abolizione immediata della scuola media dell'obbligo e della televisione. Nei confronti del successo elettorale comunista però Pasolini tiene un atteggiamento di distacco . I "fascisti di sinistra" dal punto di vista della prassi, sono frange attive all'interno del partito e simili impurità rischiano di far perdere di vista le necessità della Storia. "Io mi sono sempre opposto al Pci con dedizione, aspettandomi una risposta alle mie obiezioni. Accanto alle passioni, l'eros e le abitudini sono recidive. Nei suoi vagabondaggi notturni si riverbera il deragliamento della società italiana. Sarà vittima di aggressioni, conati di violenze e intolleranza fino al triste epilogo: l'alba del 2 novembre 1975 consegna al mondo il corpo di Pasolini abbandonato su un anonimo terreno dell'Idroscalo di Ostia. Ogni società sarebbe stata contenta di avere Pasolini tra le sue fila. Poi abbiamo perso un regista che tutti conoscono, […] ha fatto una serie di film alcuni dei quali sono ispirati al suo realismo che io chiamo romantico ossia, un realismo arcaico, gentile e al tempo stesso misterioso; altri ispirati ai miti, al mito di Edipo ad esempio, poi ancora al mito del sotto-proletariato il quale è apportatore […] di una umiltà che potrebbe portare ad una palingenesi del mondo. Lì si vede questo schema del sottoproletariato. Lo schema dell'umiltà dei poveri Pasolini l'aveva esteso in fondo al Terzo Mondo e alla cultura del Terzo Mondo. […] Allora il saggista era una novità (che) corrispondeva al suo interesse civico e qui si viene ad un altro aspetto di Pasolini cioè, benché fosse uno scrittore con dei frammenti decadentistici, benché fosse estremamente raffinato e manieristico tuttavia aveva un'attenzione profonda per i problemi sociali del suo paese, per lo sviluppo di questo paese. Gli anni del boom economico italiano vedono un'incontrollabile e apparentemente solida crescita industriale a cui si accompagna un decisivo aumento del reddito e il conseguente espandersi dei consumi privati. Questa visione idilliaca è turbata tuttavia da alcune degenerazioni del sistema. La deflagrazione industriale, l'impennata della produzione settoriale e la diffusione del benessere hanno come contraltare una serie di sovvertimenti sociali che si manifestano sempre in maniera più evidente e che vanno dall'abbandono delle terre nel Meridione alla convivenza coatta nelle città industrializzate tra culture antitetiche e sconosciute sino a quel momento l'una all'altra al vuoto etico generato dalla perdita di quei valori diacronici, consolidati e comuni che informavano la vita relazionale. dove non c'è libertà ma un nuovo "dentro": il "penitenziario del consumismo" i cui "personaggi principali" sono i giovani. Il fenomeno della perdita non risarcita dei valori è devastante sui giovani, è l'ipoteca più amara che grava sul loro futuro e la caduta del prestigio irrelato dei valori culturali non poteva non produrre una mutazione antropologica, una crisi. È un sostituto della magia […] Ernesto De Martino lo chiama "paura della perdita della propria presenza" e i primitivi, appunto, riempiono questo vuoto ricorrendo alla magia, che lo spiega e lo riempie. Nel mondo moderno, l'alienazione dovuta al condizionamento della natura è sostituita dall'alienazione dovuta al condizionamento della società: passato il primo momento di euforia (illuminismo, scienza applicata, comodità, benessere, produzione e consumo), ecco che l'alienato comincia a trovarsi solo con se stesso: egli quindi, come il primitivo, è terrorizzato dall'idea della perdita della propria presenza . Alla distruzione anomica del mondo popolare, sottoproletario e delle borgate che favorisce certi fenomeni di alienazione psichica, è imputabile il clima di criminalità brutale che si diffonderà in Italia. La crisi della cultura fa sì, infatti, che molti giovani siano letteralmente ignoranti. La società viene reificata dalla nuova realtà economica. In una lettera al suo amico Alberto Moravia esprime tutto il suo disagio esistenziale, la sua rabbia e la sua disperazione fisica di fronte al cataclisma che sta investendo la società italiana, Il consumismo consiste in un vero e proprio cataclisma antropologico: e io vivo, esistenzialmente, tale cataclisma che, almeno per ora, è pura degradazione: lo vivo nei miei giorni, nelle forme della mia esistenza, nel mio corpo. Nel delineare il profilo strutturale della nuova società edonistica e consumistica si serve molto della descrizione delle relazioni individuali e del significato che queste acquistano. Pasolini parla di "genocidio" richiamandosi a Marx, intendendo dunque una totale sostituzione di valori, il genocidio: ritengo cioè che la distruzione e sostituzione di valori nella società italiana di oggi porti, anche senza carneficine e fucilazioni di massa, alla soppressione di larghe zone della società stessa. Non è del resto un'affermazione totalmente eretica e eterodossa. Oggi l'Italia sta vivendo in maniera drammatica per la prima volta questo fenomeno: larghi strati, che erano rimasti per così dire fuori della storia- la storia del dominio borghese e della rivoluzione borghese- hanno subito questo genocidio, ossia questa assimilazione al modo e alla qualità di vita della borghesia . La dignità della povertà, elemento caratteristico del mondo contadino e che racchiude quasi in una dimensione sacra il mito pasoliniano, si perde nelle borgate romane degli anni Settanta (unica consolazione per lui sarà la realtà contadina del Terzo Mondo). Sentivano l'ingiustizia della povertà, ma non avevano invidia del ricco, dell'agiato. È attratto dal sottoproletariato di cui delinea il profilo in una delle riflessioni fatte nel corso di una serie di incontri tenutesi nel 1975 con il giornalista inglese Peter Dragadze e che lui stesso definisce un "testamento spirituale- intellettuale", mi attrae nel sottoproletariato la sua faccia, che è pulita (mentre quella del borghese è sporca); perché è innocente (mentre quella del borghese è colpevole), perché è pura(mentre quella del borghese è volgare); perché è religiosa (mentre quella del borghese è ipocrita), perché è pazza (mentre quella del borghese è prudente); perché è sensuale (mentre quella del borghese è fredda); perché è infantile (mentre quella del borghese è adulta); perché è immediata (mentre quella del borghese è previdente), perché è gentile (mentre quella del borghese è insolente), perché è indifesa (mentre quella del borghese dignitosa), perché è incompleta (mentre quella del borghese è rifinita), perché è fiduciosa (mentre quella del borghese è dura), perché è tenera (mentre quella del borghese ironica), perché è pericolosa (mentre quella del borghese è molle), perché è feroce (mentre quella del borghese è ricattatoria), perché è colorata (mentre quella del borghese è bianca) . Pasolini non volge la tua attenzione alla caotica realtà del Nord dove le borgate sono popolate da immigrati spuri, fagocitati dal sistema neocapitalista industriale al quale hanno volontariamente aderito abbandonando le loro terre al Sud. Piuttosto trova analogie tra la cultura del sottoproletariato meridionale e la cultura contadina di quello che chiama Terzo Mondo. Individua l'errore dell'Italia nella rapidità del cambiamento e ricorda spesso nei suoi scritti come il passaggio nel secondo dopoguerra dalla società preindustriale agricola e commerciale a quella industriale sia avvenuta in soli venti anni. Il neocapitalismo è includente, unificante, tende ad inglobare creando una "unità del mondo". Tutto questo perché il neocapitalismo coincide insieme con la completa industrializzazione del mondo e con l'applicazione tecnologica della scienza. Sicché l'unità del mondo (ora appena intuibile) sarà un'unità effettiva di cultura, di forme sociali, di beni e di consumi . (Non so quindi cosa farmene di un mondo unificato dal neocapitalismo, ossia da un internazionalismo creato, con la violenza, dalla necessità della produzione e del consumo) . Per Pasolini appare di precipua importanza rifondare i modelli culturali, teorici rinnovando l'analisi marxista e della sinistra del tempo. Il capitalismo cui si riferisce Pasolini non è più quello statico, meno interessato dagli effetti della tecnologia che caratterizzò la prima fase industriale; non a caso lui parla di "neocapitalismo", dominato da una classe borghese almeno potenzialmente egemone, che informa la società dei suoi peculiari valori e caratterizzato, a differenza del vecchio capitalismo, dalla mercificazione della cultura attraverso l'industria culturale e favorito in questo dalla nascita e dalla rapida diffusione su larga scala di mezzi di comunicazione di massa, tra cui domina la televisione. La crescita industriale schizofrenica non permette dunque alle classi sociali di sedimentarsi ma al contrario le obbliga a formarsi in brevissimi lassi temporali. Giulio Sapelli nel suo testo marca la distanza della realtà italiana sia da quella inglese dove, come Engels testimonia nella sua celebre opera del 1845, Condizione della classe operaia in Inghilterra, la formazione del proletariato prende corpo già nell'Ottocento, sia da quella francese e tedesca dove il proletariato è concomitante all'espansione della borghesia. Non siamo di fronte ad una lenta trasformazione culturale, dice Pasolini, ma ad una vera e propria rivoluzione, una "rivoluzione antropologica". Il rifiuto della modernizzazione è assoluto e disperato. La cultura italiana è cambiata nel vissuto, nell'esistenziale, nel concreto. La tolleranza è l'aspetto più atroce della falsa democrazia . Quello messo in atto dall'edonismo interclassista è in realtà un subdolo razzismo che ha il volto della discriminazione per cui l'unico modello accettato è quello della normalità piccolo- borghese veicolato dalla pubblicità. Che viene dunque mimato di sana pianta, senza mediazioni, nel linguaggio fisico- mimico e nel linguaggio del comportamento nella realtà. […] Appunto perché perfettamente pragmatica, la propaganda televisiva rappresenta il momento qualunquistico della nuova ideologia edonistica del consumo: e quindi è enormemente efficace . Ecco allora cosa rimpiange Pasolini, non l' "Italietta" ma l'universo gaio dei contadini e degli operai prima dello Sviluppo. Io credo che non solo sia la salvezza della società: ma addirittura dell'Uomo. Una orrenda "Nuova Preistoria" sarà la condizione del neocapitalismo alla fine dell'antropologia classica, ora agonizzante. L'industrializzazione sulla linea neocapitalistica disseccherà il germe della Storia . È un marxista sui generis Pasolini, non possiede l'elemento principale dei marxisti: la fede nel progresso sociale. "Illuminismo culturale". Il sacro è l'elemento dell'esperienza sottratto alla materialità della vita quotidiana, alla sua relazione immediata con la sfera della vita biologica, e soprattutto con quella della vita raziocinante […] una "sospensione della ragione" che affida l'uomo ad una potenza spirituale più grande e da lui separata […] rappresenta qualcosa di diverso dalla religione, che è diffusa a livello di massa . La crisi della chiesa diventa crisi del sacro. L'ideologia illuministica del capitalismo fa vacillare una delle due uniche possibili resistenze al suo trionfo, l'atavico sentimento cattolico italiano. Richiamandosi al concetto di Engels (Antiduhring, 1878) per cui il socialismo è l'affermazione del passaggio dell'umanità dalla preistoria alla storia, Pasolini ribatte al giudizio espresso dal suo intervistatore Alberto Arbarsino che valuta la diffusione della ricchezza e l'accesso di larghi strati popolari al benessere mai conosciuto prima un fatto positivo perché segna la "liberazione dal bisogno, dalla paura, dal ricatto della fame", con queste parole: Sai cosa mi sembra l'Italia? Un tugurio i cui i proprietari sono riusciti a comprarsi la televisione, e i vicini, vedendo l'antenna, dicono, come pronunciando il capoverso di una legge "Sono ricchi! Stanno bene!". Alla domanda di Arbasino "Tu cosa vedi?", la risposta è illuminante: Due Preistorie: la Preistoria arcaica del Sud, e la Preistoria nuova nel Nord. La consistenza delle due Preistorie (e la lenta fine della Storia, che si identifica ormai soltanto nella razionalità marxista), mi rende un uomo solo, davanti ad una scelta egualmente disperata: perdermi nella preistoria meridionale, africana, nei reami di Bandung, o gettarmi a capofitto nella preistoria del neocapitalismo, nella meccanicità della vita delle popolazioni ad alto livello industriale, nei reami della Televisione. La marxista liberazione dell'uomo non avviene a seguito della serie di cambiamenti che l'avvento della tecnologia mette in atto, non si entra nella Storia ma in una nuova preistoria, quella del cupio dissolvi, dello stillicidio culturale ben rappresentato dalla televisione e voluto dal capitalismo "caro ai liberali", depositari di un'ideologia tipicamente borghese. Tutti i mali del mondo si identificano per me nella borghesia, intendendo naturalmente non il singolo individuo, ma la classe nel suo insieme e per quello che essa rappresenta . Questa borghesia per la prima volta nella storia della società italiana si pone non più come classe dominante, ma come classe egemonica. Per cui si forma una classe borghese avulsa dalle altre, contraddittoria in se stessa perché mentre dovrebbe essere protestante e liberale, nasce nel segno della Controriforma, in un mondo di contadini. Durante un intervento al congresso del partito liberale, delinea il profilo degli "sfruttatori" della seconda rivoluzione industriale, quella tecnologica, consumistica, che non sono più identificabili come coloro che semplicemente producono merci ma "nuova umanità", nuovi rapporti sociali. b) è un medium di massa […] è manipolata per ragioni extra- culturali, e la sua diffusione deve tenere anticipatamente conto del bassissimo livello medio della cultura dei destinatari, a cui si asserve per asservirli. Non può che dire, da intellettuale, "no" alla televisione (eccetto una collaborazione a Tv 7 che accetta perché la ritiene una forma di contestazione alla televisione fatta dall'interno) perché non individua in questo strumento un'autonomia propria, concreta tipica invece del giornalismo o del cinema o dell'insegnamento (in realtà Pasolini individua un momento autonomo della televisione, la "presa diretta", il cui linguaggio però stenta ad affermarsi). L'idiosincrasia di Pasolini è totale, viscerale. È per questo che Pasolini sente su di sé il dovere civico e intellettuale di proporre una radicale riforma al sistema televisivo e al suo "culturame": Bisogna rendere la televisione partitica e cioè, culturalmente, pluralistica. Ogni Partito avrebbe diritto alle sue trasmissioni […], al suo telegiornale […] e dovrebbe gestire anche altri programmi . La televisione inoltre mette in atto un altro cambiamento: avvia un processo di reificazione al ribasso della koinè linguistica. Pasolini si sofferma molto su questo aspetto perché nella sua analisi la lingua è un elemento imprescindibile dal momento che è dall'ordito del linguaggio che si studia la società nella sua immediatezza. L'ethos borghese tende ad essere introiettato dalla nuova società e ad informare di sé lavoro, disciplinamento sociale e selezione culturale. La cultura italiana è cambiata nel vissuto, nell'esistenziale, nel concreto. Il cambiamento consiste nel fatto che la vecchia cultura di classe (con le sue divisioni nette: cultura della classe dominata, o popolare, cultura della classe dominante, o borghese, cultura delle elites) è stata sostituita da una nuova cultura interclassista: che si esprime attraverso il modo di essere degli italiani, attraverso la loro nuova qualità di vita . Il consumismo altro non è che una nuova forma totalitaria- in quanto del tutto totalizzante, in quanto alienante fino al limite estremo della degradazione antropologica, o genocidio (Marx)- e che quindi la sua permissività è falsa: è la maschera della peggior repressione mai esercitata dal potere sulle masse dei cittadini . Afasia intellettuale, falsa tolleranza, interclassismo edonista: questo il risvolto drammatico della nuova società neocapitalistica che si presenta inerme, come un re nudo agli occhi di Pasolini. Il pessimismo storico di Pasolini è totale (" […] sono disperatamente pessimista"). Nei teppisti meridionali non c'è un'inconscia protesta moralistica, ma un'inconscia protesta sociale: essi non appartengono […] alla classe borghese […] ma al popolo o al sottoproletariato […] non commettono reati gratuiti, ma reati ben giustificati dalla necessità economica e dalla diseducazione ambientale . Il più emblematico cambiamento nelle abitudini degli italiani, il più lento ma al contempo più parossistico, riguarda la sessualità, fino ad allora il più forte tabù sociale. Non si può tornare indietro, la tradizione ha ceduto alla modernizzazione, all'edonè consumista: Pasolini è apocalittico. Un'analisi dettagliata e chiara ce la offre Sapelli che ci richiama alla memoria l'"economia delle aspettative" scoperta dai grandi classici dell'economia, tra cui spicca Keynes i cui studi sulla logica del consumo descrivono a livello teorico i mutamenti individuati da Pasolini. Oggi, la mancanza di determinati beni privati porta addirittura ad una sorta di isolamento all'interno della società" . Troppo manichea, la posizione di Pasolini a tratti si lascia andare forse troppo al catastrofismo, la sua visione apocalittica inficia l'oggettività dell'analisi. Turba il sistema produttivo, è di ostacolo all'affermazione del neocapitalismo nelle sue diverse accezioni, "anzitutto l'omosessualità è totalmente distaccata dalla produttività puramente umana, quella della specie, nel senso che influirebbe piuttosto negativamente sullo sviluppo demografico se si generalizzasse" . Questo fomenta il disprezzo di Pasolini verso la borghesia, lo assolutizza. Il borghese non subisce questa anomia, non partecipa della sofferenza della classe proletaria e contadina, del disagio dei borgatari ma al contrario "non hanno fatto altro che aggiornare i loro modelli culturali" per cui può affermare stentoreamente di non nutrire alcuna pena per una classe sociale che non ha fatto altro, come afferma Marx nel Manifesto del 1848, che mostrare la sua natura solipsistica tesa ad assimilare tutto a se stessa. L'assoluta (apparente) libertà sessuale, ossia il libero arbitrio sul nostro corpo, è alla base di un pensiero complesso, se vogliamo anche distorto, di Pasolini che parte dall'analisi della "nuova donna" calata all'interno della rivoluzione delle classi medie: l'essere-nel-mondo è esattamente questo, sperimentare le nuove realtà e "codificarle" per farne, conformisticamente, delle abitudini. Il meccanismo di codificazione normativa che un tempo era della matrona, della padrona di casa, ora è della "nuova donna", istruita e colta, borghese e libera nelle sue scelte politiche e sessuali. Ecco il cambiamento antropologicamente drammatico indicato da Pasolini: la piccola borghesia fa propri i comportamenti tipici della destra più gretta e intollerante. Nel corso di un dibattito con la redazione di "Roma giovani" del 1974 alla domanda sul ruolo del Sessantotto nella sua critica all'alienazione della società capitalistica e di conseguenza sulla costruzione di un nuovo discorso politico e culturale, Pasolini risponde con un secco "no". La scissione avvenuta, per opera della classe dominante, tra "progresso" e "sviluppo" viene imputata da Pasolini anche alla sinistra e alla cultura cattolica le quali avrebbero dovuto assumere su di loro la responsabilità del momento, avvertirne l'urgenza e impegnarsi al fine di tutelare i valori. Questa esortazione si collega ad uno degli interventi più dissacratori e oracolari di Pasolini, intitolato "Bologna, città consumista e comunista", contenuto nelle Lettere Luterane, una raccolta di articoli e saggi politici molto pugnaci e demistificatori del sistema di potere italiano, usciti di volta in volta sul "Corriere della Sera", su "Mondo" e su "Vie Nuove" nel corso del 1975. Nel saggio sopracitato descrive il suo strazio nel constatare come anche sull' Emilia, e sulla sua amata Bologna nello specifico, si sia diffuso lo spettro della modernizzazione capitalistica che con la sua furia distruttrice ha demolito alla base la possibilità (ai suoi occhi un tempo concreta) di realizza

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

Issue 9.5 of the Review for Religious, 1950. ; A.M.D.G. Review for Religious °~Venial Sin r o P. De LeHer Sensitiveness . Winfrld He;bst On Family Spirit . . ¯ . Gerald Kelly Christ on W)nnincj Friends . Jerome Breunlg ~uestions and Answers Book Reviews Report to Rome VOLUME IX NUMBER RI::VII:::W FOR RI::LIGIOUS VOLUME IX SEPTEMBER, 1950 NUMBER 5 CONTENTS VENIAL SIN--P. De Letter, S.J . ¯ . 225 SENSITIVENESS---Winfrid Herbst, S.D.S ." . 233 FOR YOUR INFORMATiON-- Suggestions for Superiors General; Vocational Questions; Medlco-Moral Problems; Catholic Dailyi C~nfessors' ~Patron; Sisters of St. Joseph; "Mike"; Reprint Series . ~. 236 ON FAMILY SPIRIT--Gerald Kelly, S.J . 237 CHRIST SHOWS US HOW TO WIN FRIENDS--Jerome Breunig, S.J: 252 " BOOK REVIEWS-- Our Way to the Father; The History of the Popes; The Holy See at Work; .Little Meditations on the Holy Eucharist . 256 BOOK NOTICES . . , '. . . ' . 261 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS . 262 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS-- 21. Jubilee Indulgence . , 265 22. Permission for Trips . 265. 23. Authority to Change a Custom . 266 24. What are Norrnae? . 266 25. Collective Nouns Applicable to Sisters . 267 26. Meaning of "the rule." . . 268 OUR CONTRIBUTORS . 268 REPORT TO ROME . 269 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, ,September, 1950. Vol. IX, No. 5. Published bi-monthly: January, March,May, July, September, and November at the College Press, 606 Harrison Street, Topeka, Kansas, by St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas, with ecclesiastical approbation. Entered as second class matter January" 15, 1942, at the Post Office, Topeka, Kansas, under the act of March 3, 1879. Editorial Board: Adam C. Ellis, S.J., G. Augustine Ellard, S.3., Gerald Kelly, S.3. Editorial Secretary: Jerome Breunig, S.J. Copyright, 1950, by Adam C~ Ellis, S.J. Permission is hereby granted for quota-tions of reasonable lengtb, p~ovided due credit be given this review and the author. Subscript,on price: 2 dollars a~year. Printed in U. S. A. Before writin9 to us, please consult notice on Inside beck cover. Venial Sins " P. De Letter, S.J. \ SPIRITUAL authors commonly teac, h that a sure sign of fervor in a religious is the hab.itual avoiding of venial sins, just as tepidity betrays itself in frequent and lightly-committe, d daily faults. Between these two dispositions which are neatly character-ized in their, extreme types is a nearly indefinite number of degrees. The steady effort of good religious aims at approaching the ideal of fervor, which implies a constant care to exclude from one's daily life whatever is sinful. It is worthwhile to consider this negative aspect of the striving for religious perfection, not because it is more important than the positive practice of virtue, especially of charity tov)ard~ God and neighbor, but because this refraining from all that is evil is easily ascertainable and consequently serves as an unmistakable indication of genuine fervor. Concerning this negative aspect of perfection, two questions may be asked: (1) when exactly do we commit a venial sin? (2) what is normally possible, or not possible, as regards the avoidance of venial sins? The first question aims at outlining clearly the scope of the matter under discussion with a view to cen-tering our attention on the really sinful objects and not on what is mistakenly called sinful. The second purposes to define the bound-ari4s within which our efforts may be successful, thus eliminating the danger of expecting what may well be beyond human powers. 1) When do we commit a venial sin? The question is clear and simple. And so is the answer--in the-ory. But how does it work out in practice? When is a thought or a desire or a word or an action a venial sin and not merely a positive imperfection, that is, something which is less good than its opposite .or than its omission but which is not sinful in itself?1 The question lln holding firmly to a distinction between venial sin and positive imperfection, Father De Letter is following what seems to us to be the more common and the better opinion. For a very fine presentation of the contrary opinion, especially with reference to the teaching of St. Thomas and the Thomistic school, see The Morality of Imperfections, by J. C. Osbourn, O.P. We might add here that even theologians holding the same opinion as Father De Letter might find difficulty in agreeing on a list of examples of either small venial sins or positive imperfections. For instance; one of the examples that Father De Letter later gives of venial sin ("deliberate thoughts or words of vanity which reveal an inordinate self-concern or self-esteem") might also be given as an example of a positive imperfection. 225 .P. DE LETTER Ret~ietu/:or Religious is worth asking because-a different, judgment isto be made of what is sinful and what is riot. We commit a sin whene~'er we knowingly and voluntarily go against the manifest preemptive will of God, that is, when we do or choose what He forbids, or neglect what He commands. The sin is venial only, and not mortal, when either the knowledge or advertence or the voluntariness is imperfect or partial (even though the matter be grave), or when the object of the sinful act itself is light whether of itself, as in a harmless lie, or because of parvity of matter, as in a small theft. Accordingly there is a first category of venial sins which may be called defective or miscarried mortal sins. Though of less practical importance for our present purpose, these must be mentioned briefly. They are the sinful actions (or thoughts, etc.) which ordinarily would be grave sins but happen to be venial sins on account of incomplete advertence or voluntariness. In other words, since they are imperfect as human acts, they are also .imperfect as sins. This may be the case with thoughts or desires against purity which are o.nly half noticed or half consented to; or with words or actions against chhrity when the gravity or harm involved is in good faith neither realized nor intended. Though faults of this kind may evi-dently occur in the life of a religious, they are not the ordinary "daily" sins which we are here .considering. Consequently a mere mention of them suffices. The other class of venial sins consists of those thoughts, desires, words, or deeds which of their nature involve only light guilt. Yet, even these are not subjectively sinful unless they are deliberately willed with the realization that they are sinful. In other words, these three conditions must be fulfilled, even in a venial sin: (a) actual knowledge-~either implicit or explicit, clear or confused--that some-thing is sinful; (b) some degree of voluntariness, at least incom-plete; and (c) an evil object, that is, the thing done is, or is thought to be, contrary to a divine command or prohibition. Whenever any one of these three elements is entirely absent there can be no question of even venial sin (except in so far as a culpable negligence might be at the root of them). According to these requirements, an unnoticed distraction in prayer is not a venial sin (as long as it is unnoticed); nor is an unheeded imagination or thought of self-complacency; nor a reflex reaction to some exterior stimulus, such as a sign of impatience; nor an uncharitable thought or unkind word which, without any fault 226 September, 1950 VENIAL SINS of our own, we fail to perceive. In all these cases the first element required for a venial sin--namely, actual knowledge--is lacl~ing. Similarly, the element of voluntariness is absent, for example, in the case of a harassing distraction in prayer which is noticed but not accepted (that is, sincerely rejected); or in a persistent but resisted unkind thought; or in an uncharitable remark that escaped before we could control ourselves. Finally, no positive command of God is disregarded by the omission of an exercise of devotion which is not obligatory; or by not choosing a more perfect andmore difficult way of performing one's duty; or by contenting oneself with what is good without preferring the better; or by recreating well and taking natural relaxation with less supernatural motives; or by talking during times of silence without necessity though not without some usefulness. All these actions .are in themselves good, even though they are less good than other ways of acting. There is not, how-ever, on that score, anything sinful in them. But when thoughts, desires, words, or deeds combine all three elements mentioned: awareness, voluntariness, evil object, they must be called what they are, venial sins. Noticed and accepted distractions in prayer mean irreverence towards the Almighty and consequently are sinful. Thoughts or words against charity which are conscious and voluntary go against the good will we owe all children of God and therefore are sins. The same must be said of a lackof self-control which is voluntary, and of wilful impatience by which we deliberately cause pain to others. Deliberate thoughts or words of vanity which reveal an inordinate self-concern or self-esteem are venial sins because they offend against truth and humility. Thefts of small things, or a lie which is not unjust, a lack of self-control in the matter of food, all these are, supposing some awareness and voluntariness, venial faults because they involve an evil object. Since in all these failings the degree of conscious and free consent may vary, the degree of guilt will also vary accordingly. At times the guilt will be slight, at other times more serious. Often enough it will be difficult for us to determine bow much wilfulness and guilt is involved. But then we may safely leave the estimate to Him who reads the hearts of men. All this teaching of the spiritual authors and moralists looks elementary enough, and so it is. Yet it might be good to stress this one particular point: when in our own daily lives we find defective ways of thinking, speaking, or acting which totally lack any one of 227 P. DE LETTER Ret;iew ~'or Retigious the three conditions of venial sinfulness, we may truthfully and peacefully consider that they are not sins--unless, perhaps, there be some more.or less guilty negligence in their root cause. Consequently, we need not confess them nor endeavor to be sorry for them though we can rightly be sorry for the previous negligence which may be the cause of them. They may well be humbling and unpleasant defects which serve to mortify us. But before God and in our conscience they do not harm us spiritually. No one will doubt all this. Yet it not infrequently happens (as personal experience amply proves) that although we realize full well what we should do from a theoretical point of view, nevertheless, in pr.actice, we are unable to act accord-ingly. If the aforementioned defects are not sinful, there is no humil-ity or sanctity in speaking or acting as if they were. (This does not mean, of course, that there can be no true humility in acknowledging our negligence which is the cause of them.) If they are not evil they do not give rise to th~ spiritually harmful effects which are inherent in venial sins. More particularly, they do not cool the fervor of our charity towards God and neighbor, nor do they prepare the way for serious lapses. Whatever evil is in them lies in their root cause only. Shall we conclude that we need not concern ourselves about them at all? This conclusion would not be fully warrantdd and would not harmonize with the fundamental endeavor of religious life which aims at more than the avoidance of sin. It is right to conclude that we need not see sins where sins do not exist. We should, however, be careful about these morally guiltless defects which may well spring from some not guiltless negligence and easily turn us in the direction of sinfulness. Many of the examples quoted above would cease to be sinless as soon as some degree of awareness and wilfulness would enter into them. The care to be taken concerning them evidently does not consist in directly going against them; in most cases that is practically impossible. But they can be eliminated partially by slowly and patiently building up within ourselves strong psycho-logical habits, which incline us in the opposite direction. For example, if we develop a general disposition of kindness and good will, we slowly create in ourselves a "second nature" that will by itself prevent many an unkind thought or word. As to actual practice, must we believe that it is relatively easy for religious to commit venial sins? At times we are led to believe that we could hardly live an hour or fulfill our ordinary daily duties without committing some venial sin or other. Every idle word, every vain thought, every complacency in success seems to be sinful to 228 September, 1950 VENIAL SINS some extent. May we hope that this fear or opinion is somewhat exaggerated ? Different temperaments and different views may incline different people either to severity or to leniency. But no one will deny the principle which both the severe and the lenient must respect: that the degree of free consent to a forbidden object (which in the case of venial sins is something not grievously evil) constitutes the measure of guilt. Without voluntariness there is no guilt and no sin. The divergencies of opinion will, then, stem from the different estimates as to how much freedom of consent is involved in our defective actions. 2) What is normallv possible, or not possible, in avoiding venial sins? This question may seem somewhat surprising. But it is impor-tant that we ask it and find an answer to it if our endeavor to exclude venial sins from our lives is to be enlightened and effective. It would be useless and harmful in the long run to strive after what is impos-sible. SOoner or later such a course of action would inevitably lead to discouragement in the face of repeated apparent failures. So, too, it would be prejudicial to our spiritual progress if we mistakenly did not try to do what is feasible. In this matter we are not left to personal conjectures and reason-ings or to the teachings of private authors. The Church.has given bet own authoritative and even infallible teaching. Four centuries ago the Council of Trent defined against the Protestants that a man in the state of grace is unable "during the whole of his life to avoid all sins, even those that are venial, except by a special privilege from God such as the Church holds in regard to the Blessed Virgin." And when explaining bow venial sins of their nature do not destroy the state of sanctifying grace the same Council conceded that "during this mortal life men, however holy and just, fall at times into at least light and daily sins which are also called venial." This is a most precious hint which must preserve our endeavor both from presump-tion and from dejection. It clearly states what we'must not expect, and what, therefore need not surprise or disappoint us. We cannot hope to exclude from our whole lives all venial sins; we shall not succeed, however saintly or advanced in the spiritual life we may be. Unless we can count on a special privilege such as our Blessed Lady had received we should be trying and promising ourselves the impos-sible. And who would claim for himself this privileged treatment 229 P. DE LETTER Reoieto /:or Religious which is altogether exceptional (the Council of Trent mentions only one.exception, the Blessed Virgin) ? We need not, therefore, be aston-ished or disheartened if, in spite of our best efforts and after long fidelity to the inspirations of grace, we still at times fall into light or daily faults. This is the common lot, the Church says, of the saints. We surely do not expect to be better than the saints, nor shall we be disappointed when we come to know from experience that we are not. But lest some one might find in this doctrine of the impossi-bility of avoiding all venial sin a pretext for taking things easily, the Church has carefully weighed her words. She has infallibly defined only this: It is not possible without a special privilege to avoid all venial sins during an entire lifetime. Whatever is less than this no longer comes within her infallible teaching. Strictly speaking, therefore, it may be true that some saints, even without a special privilege, would commit, say, only two or three venial sins during their whole lives. Even then the Church's definition would remain intact. But this interpretation obviously minimizes her teaching. Her mind is clearly different. She grants that even saints sometimes fall into light sins. How often, she does not say. But she definitely seems to say, from time to time. And it would follow logically that this frequency will vary according to the degre~ of virtue or sanctity or moral strength which a saint has reached. The Church's. teaching, therefore, cannot offer any pretext for an easy-going life. But it is a valuable safeguard against presumption or discouragement. It pre-serves us from attempting the impossible. But the impossible is a distant limit to which we can always approach nearer and nearer, for we can almost indefinitely reduce the number of our small sins. In this connection we should recall the twofold division of venial sins commonly given by spiritual writers: first, the fully voluntary or deliberate venial sins which one commits calmly and with unham-pered freedom, precisely because they are onltj venial and nothing serious; secondly, the venial sins of weakness in which the volun-tariness is only partial and diminished by surprise, or inattention, or fatigue, or listlessness, or some other reason, but in which there still is a sufficient degree of advertence and free consent to make them guilty and to make us responsible for them. This difference in venial sins is well known from experience; each one can no doubt trace it in his own life. Now. it is clear enough that we are able with God's grace to exclude from our daily lives the first category of venial_sins. We can 230 September, 1950 VENIAL SINS make up our minds and be determined not deliberately to commit any venial sins. Since these are fully deliberate, it depends on our free wills alone to commit or not to commit them. From the very nature of the case, we are not here taken by surprise. If we were, there would no longer be question of fully deliberate faults. And our free will cannot be t:orced into a completely free consent; it is we ourselves who decide. Many theologians, it is true, declare that Christians do not in fact avoid all deliberate venial sins during a whole lifetime with the ordinary graces they receive. Because of our innate weakness we some time or other lose sight of the determina-tion not to sin venially. Yet, with growing fidelity to grace and growing abundance of graces these faults can, in those approaching to perfection and sanctity, be eliminated altogether from their daily lives. Accordingly, it is not this class of venial sins which the Church mainly had in mind when she declared tb~t it is impossible for a just man to avoid them entirely during his ~ hole life. What Trent infallibly declared pertains to the second kind of venial sins, which are not fully deliberate. Even saints cannot with-out a special privilege avoid all such sins of weakness. Will this sur-prise any one? Catholics who believe in the fall of m~n and in original sin with its moral consequences on our human nature and on its efforts for good, will expect this. Our weak human nature would require, in order never to be taken by surprise by attractive and pleasing but forbidden objects, a vigilance and self-control so con-stant and so uninterrupted that ir is normally beyond our human strength. Much, of course, depends on the environment in which we live and on the virtuous habits and moral strength we have acquired. Where little or no occasion or temptation arises it is not hard to maintain the degree of watchfulness which bars complete surprise. And for the advanced in virtue and the strong of character, for the humble and the recollected, the charitable and the pure, invitations to sin will be fewer and less attractive. Even they, however, will " have their moments of weakness when they are caught off: guard and when they ball-knowingly, half-willingly do, say, desire, or think what they should not. We cannot expect that this kind of venial sins will ever be fully banned from our lives. We can never feel entirely safe and secure against their attacks. All we can do, and all we oug~hot to do, is by indirect action to try to diminish their number and to decrease the measure of wilfulness and.guilt in them. This effort can and should advance on a nearly indefinite scale leading us always closer and closer to the limit pointed out in the Church's 231 19. DE LETTER Review For Religious teaching. And this goal is our best endeavor. Venial sins, even the semi-deliberate ones, do spiritual harm in many ways. The harm decreaseswith the decreasing guil't, but it remains proportioned to the guilt. From all this it f611ows that a twofold result can be achieved by all of us in the matter of avoiding venial sins. First, we can with the help of grace that is always at our disposal, bann from our lives all fully deliberate venial sins. Secondly, we are able, with the help of the same grace, notably to diminish the number and the guilt of the half-deliberate ones. As regards the avoidance of fully deliberate venial sins, nothing more need be said. The thing has only to be done. But to avoid the semi-deliberate sins, we must concentrate on indirect tactics. We can increase our watchfulness against surprise attacks and make sure that this watchfulness does not relax to the point of dangerous neglect. We can counterac' the causes of unguardedness. And that practically means to grow in virtue and moral strength; for strong virtue can counterbalance the weakness of human nature which is the root cause of our being caught unawares. This indirect action against venial sins is to be applied according to each one's special needs. Each one has to develop those virtues and that moral fortitude which go against the kinds of venial sin to which he is ordinarily tempted. Some insist on charity because they easily fail in that line; they ought to cultivate a general disposition of kindliness in thought, word, and deed; both in prayer and outside of prayer they can thus build up a habit which will be a permanent counterweight against hasty and almost reflex unkind actions. Others are prone to thoughtless and selfish words and actions which are prompted by a natural urge to self-seeking 'and self-assertion: they should develop recollected self-control with the natural means of peacefulness and will power and the supernatural aids of a living' spirit of faith, a sincere and exclusive desire of what God wants, and a spiritual depreciation of all that concerns self only. These examples indicate what is meant by in-direct action against half-deliberate venial sins. The idea is to coun-teract the roots of weakness and inattention from which these faults normally spring. It is possible to paralyze these causes of sins in an ever-increasing measure.' The more we grow in virtue and holiness, the less become our faults in number and guilt. Religious approach this ideal of purity of heart in the measure of their fervor. And their advance in the spiritual life also depends proportionately on the purity of their lives. It is, therefore, impera- 232 September, 1950 SENSITIVENESS tive to know and to do what can be done .with. regard to our daily faults. The more generous and sincere our endeavor in this regard, the more truly shall we be what the religious profession demands of its followers: .giving our best endeavor to acquire the perfection of the Christian life. SensiEiveness Winfrid Herbst, S.D.S. THyoAuT t hwea ost ha'e rv edrayy c. aInt dseide msesl ft-hreavt ealsa tai orne lwighioicuhs Iy ¯oruec weiavnetd t ofr obme as open as one can prudently be, as ~lear as water in a crystal vase. You tell me that you have marked down sensitiveness, ~/our inor-dinate sensitiveness, as your very character itself, .and that you have made resolutions accordingly. Humility in all its forms was, and is to be, your weapon,against this fault of character. You tell me that your sensitiveness is the direct offspring of pride and self-love, and that already¯ some years ago you recognized it as .the great enemy against which you must fight unceasingly. 7y'ou believe that you have made just a little headway against it but that much still remains to be done. Very frankly you tell me that your sensitiveness injures you somewhat as follows. Following a reproof, a censure, an admoni-tion, sometimes even the slightest, you become intensely excited interiorly; you feel bitter and hard. Then come unkind thoughts, bitter reflections, inconsiderate criticism, plans to drop or change reso-lutions, temptations against your vocation, discouragement. You state that absolute silence is your only safety then; for were you to speak you would become violent and say things which you would certainly regret, but which, because of your pride,, you might never retract, to your great spiritual danger. Often you are thrown into this state by a single look of disapproval or by something which is done by an individual or by the community that is not to your liking. You add that a strange phase of your sensitiveness is that it is often aroused even by things which are not intended as offensive. This being so, something must be done. And you ask me to tell you what. 233 WINFRID HERBST Review ~or Religious I do veril~r believe that you cannot get rid of your sensitiveness as such, as a natural quality. But in your striving after religious perfection you certainly can keep it down; you can direct it into the proper channels. You can be sensitive about your Heavenly Father's business. To say, "I will not let my pride get the upper hand in the future," would be a useless resolution. What you must do is con-vince yourself that there is nothing in you or about you in which you may of yourself glory and boast. In other words, as you your-self s~uggest, you must acquire humility; and since the best way to acquire it is to practice it, you must let no day pass without seeking occasions to do so and you must from time to time make it the sub-ject of your particular examen according to Rodriguez. But I would have you remember that humility is in every way compatible with manliness, courage, 'resolution, magnanimity, a longing to do great things, a will to win. With St. Paul you may say, "I can do all things." But you must not fail to add in all sin-cerity and humility, "In Him who strengthens me." Humility is truth; and this assertion of St. Paul's is always true. In the proper discharge of your duties you must have a certain confidence; in your studies you need a certain ambition. But all things must be with God and for God, not for self and for men. And, of course, this confidence, courage, and resolution should not show itself in self-praise. How can you boast of that which you have not of yourself, of that which has been given you? You have in a special manner received everything from God: your wonderful vocation, your remarkably good health, your mod-erate endowments, your love of order and exactness, your zeal in religious observance. You simply need confidence and resolution. Cultivate it, then, especially interiorly. I would really like to impress it upon you very earnestly that you may and must have con-fidence in yourself, provided always that self is wholly and humbly lost in God and leaning upon Him, upon Him in whom you can do all things. Confidence in yourself--yes; but at the same time be deeply im-bued with the conviction of your own nothingness. Be persuaded that it is vain and ridiculous to wish to be esteemed because of certain endowments received as a loan from God. Practice acts of meekness, patience, obedience, mortification, sor-row for sin, the renunciation of your own feelings and opinions, and the like. 234 September, 1950 SENSITIVENESS If no attention is paid to you, show no resentment but bear it with resignation and tranquillity. Do not condemn the" actions of others, interpret everything charitably, and, if the fault be manifest, strive" to attenuate it as much as possible. .And forget about it, unless your office obliges you to apply a remedy. In open questions do not contradict anyone in conversation; do not get overexcited in arffuing: if your opin, ion be considered of little worth give way quietly and remain silent. When you must defend the truth, do so courageously, but without being violent or. contemptuous. Lay up a good store of gentleness so that in all circumstances you may ~etain your equanimity. Do not nourish in your heart feelings of dislike and revenge against those who offend you. If anyone blames you or speaks ill of you, do not fly into a pas-sion bu't examine your shortcomings and humbly thank God for preserving you from such things. Whenever you are in.clined to be impatient or downcast, fight against such a temptation courageously, being mindful of your sins and of the fact that you deserve greater chastisements from God. If you .commit a fault and are despised for it, be sorry for the fault before God and accept the dishonor incurred 'as an expiation for it. Yes, I think you should concentrate on the practice of humility. Humility is a fundamental virtue, a sure pledge of sanctity, a token of predestination. A most important lesson taught us by the Divine Savior is this: "Learn of Me, because I am meek and humble of heart." In order to practice humility, be convinced that of' yourself you have nothing but sin, weakness, and misery; that all the gifts of nature and of grace which you enjoy you have received from God, who is the principle of your being; and that to Him alone is due all honor and glory---ornnis honor et gloria. But, you may exclaim, the program you outline is simply heroic. I'm glad you feel that way about it. A proper spirit of humility makes you realize that it will be difficult to live according to the out-line given and that you will be subject to many failures. But that should not prevent you from trying or cause you to give up once you have tried. Recently a religious wrote to me with reference to an article'that I had published on rel!gious observance: "I feel that I have you for a 235 WINFRID HERBST friend because of the barbs contained in your article on religious observance. Try as I might to rid myself of those timely printed remarks, I kept coming back and rereading the same. Ashamed is the right word, indeed. Yellow or coward would be the right word too. Why? I kept asking myself. After having to admit the truth the answer seemed to be: not wanting to be considered a goody-goody and not being concerned about being a perfect religious." To which I replied: "It is a good sign, this dissatisfaction with self. I am not worried about you, so long as you accept your short-comings without discouragement and try to profit by them. It is a sign of growth in humility." For Your Information Suggesfion for Superiors General The first annual report covering the year 1950 must be made by all religious superiors general (even by superiors of independent monasteries and houses) on the forms issued by the Sacred Congre-gation of Religious, not later than the end of March, 1951. During that same year all superiors general of lay institutes (Brothers and Sisters) in both Americas must send in the quinquennial report for the years 1946-1950. A new questionnaire has been published for this report. The English text of the questionnaire (342 questions) costs $1. The ten forms for the annual report including an explana-tory letter by,'the Cardinal Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Re-ligious cost fifty cents. These forms and the English questionnaire should be ordered now. Send a bank check or an international postal money order (obtainable at any post office), for $1.50 made out in favor of Sacred Congregation of Religious to: Rev. Giulio Mandelli, Archivist, S. Congregation of Religious, Palazzo San Callisto, Rome, Italy. Be sure to register your letter at your postoffice to avoid losing it in the mails. We hope to publish some practical suggestions regarding the filling out of the annual report in the November issue; on the quin-quennial report in the January issue. gocaflonal Ouesflons An interesting and practical pamphlet is One Hundred Vocational (Continued on page 251) 236 On F: mily Spirit: Gerald Kelly, S.3. ~T IS TRADITIONAL usage in the Church to refer to a religious institute or community as "a religious family." This expression is rich in meaning; and all of us can profit by occasionally reflecting on it. The present article is designe~l to provide a stimulus for such reflections; it is by no means calculated to do full justice to the possibilities. . Leaving the Old In itself, the expression, "a religious family," has a positive meaning. It signifies that the religious community is a family in its own right with the duties and privileges that belong to real family life. But this positive element presupposes something negative: a break with one's natural family. Without separation from the old there can never be complete incorporation into the new. Logically, therefore, our reflections ought first to be directed towards this negative element, separation. It is well to note at the outset that separation from parents and relatives is not easy. It is very difficult indeed. Nevertheless, it is a mistake for religious to think that only they are called upon to make this sacrifice. As a matter of fact, even children who marry must effect the same separation if their married life is to be a success. All the best psychological studies of failures in marriage stress the fact that one of the principal causes is the fact that one or both parties remain "tied to their mother's apron strings." The truth of this research merely illustrates the inspired words of Genesis (2:24): "Wherefore, a man shall leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife." Married people must realize that they are starting a new family, and that they must break definitely with the old. The same is true of religious. In this matter of separation we have both the example and the words of Our Lord to show us the way. When He was twelve He permitted the hearts of those He loved most dearly to be filled with anguish because He must be about His Father's business. Years later He parted definitely with the finest of mothers and the best of com-panions in order to give Himself to three tireless years of His Father's business and to climax it all with His crucifixion. And He confirmed 237 GERALD KELLY this example by strong words about the need of separation. In Matthew (10:37) we read: "He the( loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." And in Luke (14:26) are the even stronger words: "If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." It is obvious that, despite the force of His words, Our Lord is not telling us that we must tear the love of parents and relatives out of our hearts. His own love for His Mother was deep, intense, and tender; and it remained so all His life. Yet it would have been an imperfect thing, and unworthy of Him, had it urged Him to stay with her one moment longer than the divine plan permitted, or had it been allowed in any way to interfere with His apostolate. This is the model of our own affection for parents and relatives. We are supposed to love them. We are bound to them by ties of blood and gratitude. But the love must be well ordered. It must not interfere, even slightly, with the purpose of our religious life, for to achieve that purpose is our Father's business. From the beginning of our r~ligious life we have to set ourselves resolutely to accomplish the physicai and mental separation from parents and relatives that allows us to give ourselves quietly and wholeheartedly to our religious duties. And one of the first and most important lessons we must learn is to entrust our dear ones to Divine Providence. It often happens that a religious has hardly entered the novitiate when he begins to receive distressing news from home. Father has lost his job; mother needs a serious operation; a baby niece has diphtheria; a nephew was in a terrible accident; the black sheep of the family has got .into some new trouble. News of this kind will be more or less frequent all through our religious lives. Unless we adjust ourselves properly to it, it can be the source of constant anxiety that spoils our mental prayer, diminishes the efficiency of our work, and even tempts us to abandon our religious vocation. Of course, it isn't easy to rid oneself of such anxiety. We cannot just.say, "I won't be anxious," and thus put all the worrisome thoughts to rout. But in a positive way we can cultivate the attitude that in leaving parents and relatives, we are putting them into the hands of God, and that if we give our thc~ughts to God and our own vocation, God'will take care of our dear ones. After all, we are not the only ones who need a great trust in Divine Providence. Letter-writing is another test of w.ell-ordered love of parents and 238 8eptembec, 1950 ON I~AMIL~ SPIRIT relatives. It is one thing for a young religious to write home every day; another to write so seldom that parents can justly complain of neglect. It is one thing to write pages and pages of small talk: another to write, "Dear Morn: I'm fine; hope you're the same. Love." These examples are extremes; but not entirely fictional. It is well for religious to cultivate the habit of writing home at regular intervals and to keep that habit as long as ~heir parents are living. The letters need not be long, but they should not be too short, either. A letter is neither a book nor a telegram. We should try to make our letters interesting, without at the same time revealing details that should be kept within the privacy of our community or of telling things that might cause needless worry. There are some mothers who, if they heard their beloved daughter had a sore knee, would immediately think in terms of an amputation. We learn through experience that innocent remarks in letters can easily assume explosive proportions. When I was a young religious I went to the hospital" for a check-up that was little more than routine. I mentioned this fact casually in a letter to a devoted aunt. Three weeks later my superior called me to his room. In his hand was a telegram from the same devoted aunt. She had just heard that her nephew had only a short time to live and she wondered whether she should come at once. That was the first news I had of my desperate condition. Upon investigation, I found that my aunt had told a friend of my check-up, and this friend had told another friend, and so on; and as the news passed from friend to friend my condi-tion grew steadily worse. Finally the original news, transformed by the ghastly details of my incurability, got back to my aunt. Then there are visits. Some time ago I presided at a discussion group made up of mistresses of novices and postulants of various institutes. One of the points discussed concerned the visits to pos-tulants and novices b.y parents and relatives. The customs varied greatly. One of the institutes simply has the absolute custom: no visits till first vows--and this institute has.a two-year novitiate. I am not exaggerating when I say that all the other novice-and postulant-mistresses gasped with envy when they heard this. All agreed that, hard though it seemed, this would be the ideal arrange-ment. All complained that when visits are allowed the day after the visit is like beginning the postulancy or novitiate over again. Some may disagree with me, but I think the religious who is stationed far from home is blest. This is true of monastic institutes because it prevents too much visiting from relatives. And it is even 239 GERALD KELLY Review for Religious more true of other institutes, for it not only prgvents the visiting on the part of relatives, but it helps to preserve in the religious himself the perfect interior liberty which keeps him at the free disposition of superiors. They can send him where he is most needed or most useful without fear of opposition. Occasionally there are good reasons for being stationed near one's home; but such reasons are rather rare and are usually of short dura-tion. Yet it is not unknown that some religious are ingenious at conjuring up reasons why they should be stationed in the shadow of their own home. And sometimes the relatives themselves exert pres-sure to this effect. These relatives have no ill will. They simply do not understand the nature of the religious life; and they need to be set right on this point. The religious who wants to be'a perfectly pliable instrument in the hands of God should not leave the burden of explanation to superiors. He ought himself to assume the respon-sibility of pointing out to his relatives that, in entering religion, he placed himself at the disposal of superiors, and that he wants to work where they think he should work. Living the New The preceding points could be amplified and similar ones added. But, since I have undertaken this article with the purpose of stressing the positive aspect of our family life, I wish to devote most of my space to the elements that contribute to genuine family living in religion. ' The first of these positive elements is paternal government. Some-one has said that government is paternal when it manifests the "gentleness, kindliness, and love of Christ." No doubt that expresses the idea most beautifully; yet, unless we translate "paternal" into terms of ordinary family life, we shall remain in the sphere of mere theory. A good father is supposed to be solicitous for each member of his family, while at the same time seeking the common good of the entire family. This is not easily accomplished even in a family of five or six children; it is certainly much more difficult in a religious community of ten, twenty, thirty, and even more subjects. Never-theless the ideal is there; and it cannot be lowered without prejudice to true family life. This ideal clearly rules out favoritism, as that word is ordinarily understood. But it hardly means that a superior cannot have any especially intimate friends within his community. It is commonly 240 September, 1950 ON FAMILY SPIRIT said that Our Lord had a special regard for St. John; yet no one would dare accuse Him of favoritism. In the best families, parents often have a special love for one child without in any sense neglecting the others. They do not love the others less because they love him more. _And we ourselves, as subjects, often have warm, intimate friendships with a few members of our community without in any way diminishing the charityw'e owe the others. This is human. Supe-riors do not (or should not) cease to be human when they take office. Nevertheless, special friendships present a danger; and superiors, even more than others, must guard, against the danger. Any superior who gives his friends privileges he would not give others, who violates confidences to satisfy their curiosity, who neglects the others Of his community to be with them, who allows them to have undue influence in the managing of the community is certain.ly not governing paternally. Solicitude for the individual must always be subordinated to the interests of the group. All of us, even without having been supe-riors, must have experienced at times the difficulty of living up to this standard. A teacher may have a boy in his class, a thoroughly like-able lad, who is constantly a drawback to the rest of the class in studies and in discipline. Or a prefect may have discovered that a youngster has been stealing or has other bad habits that are infecting the group; and he may be torn between the two unpleasant alterna-tives of having this boy dismissed with the probability that he will not go to another Catholic school or of keeping him in the school with risk of great harm to the others. In problems such as these the ultimate solution must be in terms of the greater good-~and that is usually the common good. We should do all we can to save the individual boy, but not at the expense of the group. And the supe-rior has to solve the similar problems that arise in community life in the same way. He will show great sympathy and tolerance for the wayward or cantankerous subject. But this tolerance has its just limit. The community has a right to its good name and to peaceful living; and its right should not be jeopardized for the individual. A good father likes to be with his family. Every institute, I suppose, prescribes that the superior be present at community meals and community recreations and that he stay home most of the time. This is not merely for the sake of discipline: it is a requisite for good family life. I might suggest, though, that the expression "most of the time" be emphasized. A wise old Father once remarked that a good superior will make it a point to get away from his community 241 GERALD KELLY Ret~iew for Reliqious occasionally. It is good for both the superior and the community. It is clearly a case in which "absence makes the heart grow fonder." And this is also true of ordinary family life. When parents get away occasionally both they and the children benefit by it. When we look back on our childhood, one of the things that very likely strikes us forcibly is the memory of how our parents adjusted themselves to us. When with us they lived in our world, the child's world; and they did not try to force us into theirs. I think that this fact helps to illustrate the full meaning of paternal government in religion. The good superior seeks the interests of his community; he lives in their world, not his own. For instance, he does not monopolize recreation with his own topics of conversation. Or, to put the same example in another way: he does not recreate the brethren; he recreates with the brethren. Paternal government neces- ¯ sarily implies that the superior look upon the members of his com-munity as his children. This is obvious; the correlative of "parent" is "child." But "child" in this context means "son or daughter"; it does not mean an infant or even an adolescent. The paternal supe-rior, therefore, treats his subjects as adults. He has respect for their age, their dignity, and their talents. Many other things could be said about the paternal superior. He can be stern; he is never harsh. He fosters religious idealism by his good example. He is a good provider in accordance with the means at his disposal and the purpose of his institute. He makes sure that his subjects have plenty of time to see him. He tries to employ them according to their strength and their talents. He encourages them to develop their talents for the good of the institute and ultimately for the greater glory of God. And so forth. I cannot develop these points without converting this into an article entitled, "How to be a good superior"-~by one who has ne~er been a superior. The next topic concerns us, the subjects. On the basis of experi-ence, I.should know much more about this. However, it is~rather human to know 'more about the other fellow's job. A friend of mine who was appointed a superior several years ago made a very appro-priate speech on the night of his installation. "A week ago," he said, "I knew everything a superior ought to do. Tonight I'm not so sure." In terms of the religious family, the correlative of paternal gov-ernment is filial confidence. This expression is not easily explained. It seems to signify something that we recognize almost instinctively --like the taste of chocolate--yet are only faintly able to describe. 242 September, 1950 ON FAMILY SPIRIT fundamental element seems to be confidence in the superior's judg-ment. And by this I am riot.referring to the fact that he is in the place of Christ. That tells me merely that I am right in obeying him: it does not tell me he is right in commanding. Religious life would be nothing short of a continuous miracle if all of us lived it day after day and year after year With the conviction that the supe-rior is wrong, but we are right. For ordinary peaceful living we need the confidence that at least generally speaking the superiors are right, that they govern well, that their natural judgment is good. We needn't endow superiors with either infallibility or impeccability in order to gain this confidence. If we may judge from the content of several anonymous letters sent to this review, some religious think that the first requisite for becoming and remaining a superior is stupidity. The attitude of such religious is not readily diagnosed. Perhaps the cause is indigestion, or sleeplessness, or some mental maladjustment. At any rate, it is certainly pathological. And we can all thank God for that: for, if that attitude represented the normal outlook of religious subjects, we should be in a sorry state. I am not saying there are no bad superiors--no unrealists, no martinets, no tyrants amongst them. But I do say most emphatically that there are enough good ones for us to preserve our confidence in the institution, even on a natural basis. And I believe that in saying this I am expressing the view of the general run of religious subjects. As a group we have a basic confidence that our superiors govern well. This does not mean that we do not occasionally, or even frequently, think we could plan things better. Nor does it mean that we never criticize. Most of us, no doubt, indulge in enough criticism of supe-riors to provide matter for a periodic particular examen, for confes-sion, and for good resolutions. We can and we should improve. Nevertheless, some criticism, provided it is not too frequent and especially that it is not bitter, is no major impediment to family life. In considering the paternal-filial relationship, reference, to the manifestation of conscience is inevitable. As has been remarked more than once in these pages, the fact that the Church has forbidden supe-riors to demand a manifestation'of conscience has been stressed to such an extent as to lead many religious to think that their conscience is simply none of the superior's business. The very nature of reli-gious .government shows this to be absurd. Superiors are supposed to assign subjects to places and offices in such a way that the individ-uals can save and sanctify their souls and that the general good of the 243 GERALD KELLY Reoieto t~or Religious institute is promoted. An assignment which defeats either of these ends defeats the purpose of the religious life itself. Yet, how is a superior to make a wise and provident disposition of subjects according to the two-fold purpose of the religious life unless he has an intimate knowledge of his subjects? And how is he to get this knowledge adequately without the help of perfect candor on the part of the subjects? It is very saddening to hear a religious whose assignment is actually proving his spiritual ruin, say: "I just couldn't tell my superior about this difficulty." The fault may be his; and it may be his superior's: in either case, the condition is lamentable and should never have been allowed to develop. Perhaps both superiors and subjects could profit by reflecting on the fol-lowing words of a saintly and experienced spiritual director: "Nothing helps so effectually to engender a paternal attitude toward a subject as the account of conscience; for, when I open my heart to my superior I constrain him to take a fatherly attitude toward me and a fatherly interest in my welfare. Thereafter he cannot remain just my superior if he be a man of normal humanity. Then, this bestowal of my inmost confidence upon my superior will be powerful to effect in my soul the reciprocal relation of filial trust and love. Conversely, when I withhold my confidence from the superior and refuse to open my heart to him, I make his position diffi-cult as far as fatherly feeling is concerned. Sometimes our superiors may seem to us to lack paternal interest. The fault may be theirs; but likewise it may be ours, due to the fact that we have never given them our confidence." Paternal government and filial confidence are the constituent ele-ments of family life in the superior-subject relationship. The third element is the bond of union among the members. ,~,11 that we gen-erally say concerning fraternal charity pertains to the explanation of this element. I shall content myself here with pointing out a few things that seem to have special relevance to our "family" charity. In our mutual relationships there ought to be no quarreling, no offensive teasing, no harsh words. This certainly is the ideal of our charity. Yet, ~i wholesome family spirit can exist among us without perfection in this ideal. Consider again the analogy with the good natural family. The brothers and sisters squabble a bit; the parents lose their tempers occasionally. But they "make up fast"--as the saying goes; a short time after the explosive incidents everyone is acting as if nothing disagreeable had happened. To strive for this is perhaps to have a more realistic goal in our community relationships. 244 ON FAMILY SPIRIT Despite the noblest of resolutions, we get out of sorts, and we fly off the handle. Given a group of normal human beings, these things can hardly be avoided entirely in the close associations that make up community living. But we can certainly avoid prolonged teasing that hurts, continued bickering, harboring grudges, and so forth. These are things that deeply wound family spirit. Our goal, therefore, is to love the members of our community in much the same way as the members of a good Catholic family love one another. It is hardly possible to accomplish this perfectly. There is truth in the old maxim that "blood will tell." On the purely natural plane it is often easy to preserve an intense affection for our blood brothers and sisters even when they possess characteristics that o'thers consider unpleasant. In our dealing with others, even with fellow religious, there is much greaterneed of explicitl~r stimulating motives for love. Certainly there are many powerful motives for mutual love among religious. One of these was expressed graphically by a mili-tary chaplain when he returned to his community after the last war: "You don't know how good it is to sit at table again with a group of men who are all in the state of grace!". These are startling words --perhaps even a bit exaggerated. Yet, isn't it true that they express a profound reason why there should be great peace in the companion-ship of religious? Day after day all of us say Mass or receive Holy Communion--a reasonably sure practical sign that we are living habitually in the friendship of God. There are many saintly people outside of religion, and many others who, if not canonizable, do live constantly in the state of grace. But there are many others who are unjust, obscene, blasphemous; and even good people in the World can scarcely avoid their companionship. In religion our lives and our recreations are spent with companions who, despite many small and irritating faults, are substantially good. Their supernatural goodness is not the only reason why the companionship of religious should be enjoyable. Even on the natural level religious are apt to have more likeable qualities than any average group of the laity. At any rate, that ought to be the case; we are screened for especially undesirable qualities when we apply for admission as well as on the occasions of our .vows. It is true that most of us look back and wonder how we passed the screening; and those of us who entered before the days of intelligence and per-sonality tests may frankly admit in the secrecy of our hearts that, if these tests had existed in our day, we should not have made the 245 GERALD KELLY Reuieu~ for Reliqiou~ grade. No doubt, despite all the screening, some serious mistakes are made. Some pass through t~he screening processes who later become real menaces to community life. But the general percentage of com-panionable characters should be and is much higher than would be found elsewhere. I mentioned before that it is not uncommon for children of the same family to fight among themselves. I have seen two small' boys, brothers, literally mauling each other over the possession of a small wagon. Then another boy appeared and attempted to align himself with one party. But the brothers would have none of that! In a flash their own quarrel was ended and they were united against the intruder. This is typical of good family life. No matter how much the members fight among themselves, they present a united front to outsiders. We religious should have that spirit of family loyalty. In some sense, at least, each of us must have looked on his own ¯ institute as the "best of all" when he entered religion; otherwise we would have joined another. Certainly it is the "best" for us now; and it is not only legitimate but laudable for us to foster a spirit of preferential love. I think it was St. Francis de Sales who sa'id: "For us there is no congregation more worthy of love and more desirable than ours, since Our Lord has willed that it should be our country and our bark of salvation." I have heard that Sisters attending summer school show great interest in the habits of other institutes and that sometimes they exchange habits. But they return to their own with the serene con-viction that, though the others have some good points, theirs is the best. This is not narrow-mindedness. A young man may have the most profound respect for other women yet very reasonably look upon his own mother as the best in the world. So, too, religious may have great esteem for the members, the habits, the customs, and the work of other institutes, yet they prefer and treasure their own above all the others. The well-ordered love of one's institute will not, however, blind us to its deficiencies, or prevent us from trying by legitimate methods to improve its customs. No institute is so perfect as to exclude the need of occasional changes, especially in non-essentials. It is not true loyalty, but sheer obstinacy, that urges us to hold fast to old things just because they are old; that resists any reasonable modi-fication in the habit or any change of customs. Even the general laws of the Church are not so perfect as to exclude change. Family loyalty will not blind us to the defects of our brethren; 246 September, 1950 ON F!kMILY SPIRIT but it will certainly prevent us from criticizing either our brethren or our institute to outsiders. These things are family secrets; outsiders have no right to know them. I am referring here to criticism of one's superiors or fell0w-religious before the boys or girls in school, before the nurses in training, before the p~rish priest, or before the men and women in the parish, and so forth. To reveal to such per-sons the real faults of the community is detraction; and to misrepre-sent the community is calumny. And the harm done by such gossip easily assumes serious proportions. In censuring disloyal speech, I am not thinking of revelations made to canonical visitors or of the unburdening of one's conscience in confession. The canonical visitor is deputed by the Church to ask questions, and in his exercise of this function he is not to be con-sidered an "outsider." The confessor is bound by the most absolute of secrets; and the community is sufficiently protected against harm, even when the religious, in explaining his faults or trials, must inci-dentally refer to the misconduct of others. Further Practical Suggestions I have tried to keep my explanation of the constituents of reli-gious family life from being too theoretical, and I hope I have suc-ceeded to some extent. I should like now to increase the practicality of this article by suggesting a few concrete ways of contributing to the family spirit of our institutes and communities. The purpose of a religious institute is to carry on the work assigned to it by the Church and thus honor God and further His kingdom in the souls of men. In the ordinary providence of God, the supernatural efficiency of the institute depends on its holiness, and this holiness is not some abstract thing; it is, concretely" speaking, the sum total of the holiness of the members. It is very true, there-fore, that each member can say: "The holier I am, the holier is my institute." This truth should be a source of great inspiration and encourage-ment to all religious who are devoted to their religious family. For, in the matter of holiness there is no distinction of grade or work. The general, the provincial, the local superior, the teacher, the nurse, the dean, the housekeeper, the cook, the sick, the retired, the contem-pla. tive, and so forth--all have an equal opportunity of promoting the family cause through an increase of holiness. The saintly cook, therefore, makes a much finer contribution to the most exalted pur-pose of his institute than does the tepid preacher or the worldly 247 GERALD KELLY Review ?or Reliqious teacher. Holiness, of course, includes the whole of one's life--prayer, work, suffering, and so forth--but it refers particularly to the interior life of prayer and penance. In these interior things every religious has great power to help his institute. For one thing, it is the interior spirit that gives the real supernatural value to our own work. Moreover, the interior life of one can have a tremendous influence on the apostolic, work of the others; and it is well for the contemplatives, for those who do the hidden, humble works, and for those who are ill or retired, to note this. This last point is of supreme importance, and I should like to illustrate it by a simple example. A priest seldom goes on'a mission, rarely enters the confessional, without the realization that he may have to de~l with some souls who are "stubborn" or "weak," souls that desperately need superabundant grace for their conversion and salvation. Some of these people seem to have the kind of devil that Our Lord said is driven out only by prayer and fasting. Yet they themselves are too weak or too hard to do the required prayer and fasting. If they are to be saved, someone must do it for them-- at least enough so that they will finally respond to the grace that enables them to carry on for themselves. ~Fhe priest, despite the best of intentions, cannot do it all. On occasions like this, I have always rejoiced in the realization that I have a n~amber of friends who gladly offer some of their pray-ers and sufferings for my apostolate. Shortly after my ordination I was privileged to meet a saintly nun, Sister Agnesetta, of the Sisters of Loretto. We became fast friends, and she was a great help to me until the day of her death. As a young Sister she had been reduced to the state of a helpless cripple. During her last years she could barely lift her tiny knotted hand to blow a whistle when she needed help. Exteriorly she was so cheerful that a casual visitor would think she enjoyed being bedridden. Yet interiorly, for upwards of twenty years she felt not only the physical pain of her illness but the much greater crucifixion of frustration, of "being on the shelf." I cannot express how much it meant to me to begin some apostolic work with the knowlkdge that some of her prayers and sufferings were being offered for me. I have mentioned Sister Agnesetta by name because she has gone to her reward and cannot be embarrassed by my words. I could mention many others and of different institutes, if they were not still living. And I imagine that every priest could do the same. 248 September, 1950 ON FAMILY SPIRIT What has all this to do with family spirit? The answer, at least as regards active institutes, seems obvious. For in the various active institutes, there are teachers who are trying to win wayward pupils, nurses who are trying to bring about deathbed conversions, preachers who must stir the hearts of the impenitent, confessors who must draw penitents away from habits of sin. These and others exercising the apostolate need supernatural help. And what is more natural than that they look for this help from the members of their own institute? I do not mean that our vision should not take in the whole Church, with its entire apostolate; I simply mean that our own institute should normally have the first place in our apostolic intentions. My remaining suggestions will be very brief. First, there is our work. The work of a religious institute is teamwork; it is not the accomplishment of any individual. Each of us contributes to the cause; and it is only by the complete co-operative effort that the desired result is accomplished. In terms of family spirit, this is another consoling truth. It makes each of us realize that his job is important. Then there is charity. The finest act of charity a religious can show his brethren is good example. All of us know the force of example: how easy it is, for instance, to keep the rule of silence when everyone else observes it; and how difficult it is when even a few neglect it. And, speaking of example, I must at least mention our dealings with externs. They are prone to judge a whole institute by one member: hence each member has a tremendous responsibility to his religious family when he deals with them. The religious with true devotion to his institute will always try to act in the presence of externs in such a way as to cause them to esteem his community and his institute. Also, as regards charity, there is the matter of mutual correction. The very fact that we are a family gives each of us an added respon-sibility for the welfare of the others and, of course, for the reputation of the institute. In a family, when one of the children is making a fool out of himself, the other children tell him or their parents about it; and, observing the sound principles of fraternal correction, we religious have to do the same thing. Sometimes religious note that one of their brethren is on the verge of giving great scandal, yet they say nothing either to the individual or to superiors. This is shirking responsibility, a gross form of family disloyalty. Poverty offers a fertile field for the family spirit. The religious 249 GERALD KELLY Review [or Religious who fully realizes that community life is a sharing enterprise--that "he lives off the community, and the community lives off him," as the saying goes--will not refuse gifts just because he "would have'to turn them in," will not spend his time calculating how he might add some gift to his superfluities without sinning seriously against pov-erty. How would we live if no one were willing to. "turn things in"? And in a natural family, would it not be a strange father or mother or sister or brother who would refuse a generous gift because, "Really, I don't need it for myself; all I could do with it is give it to the family" ? Religious with a family spirit do not waste things. They do not leave it to someone else to turn off a radiator when heat isn't needed, to close a window when it is letting in too much cold air or when a storm is brewing and floors or furniture would be ruined. They do not get books, clothing, and other things that they do not need. In other words, like the members of any poor family, they economize. Perhaps I should add, by way of parenthesis, that when I speak of the need of dconomy, I am thinking mostly in terms of men. I have often wondered how we men could get along on Sisters' salaries, or how we could crowd our books, wardrobes, and various junk boxes into the cells or (more often) dormitories that make up the living quarters of our convents, or how we should look were our clothes subjected to the frequent mendings that give Sisters' habits such a long life on this earth. In my religious life I have heard much about obedience, but after the first few years I seldom heard anything new. A few years ago, however, I did hear a retreat master say something new--at any rate, it was new to me. He said, "The obedient man is the available man." This brief statement expresses in a practical, concrete way the whole secret of religious obedience. Our strength lies in the fact that a supe-rior can dispose of us according to the common need; that he can command us, or ask us, or merely suggest to us, and he always finds us ready. We don't shirk a job; we don't dodge responsibility. Few things can be harder for a superior than to have to approach a sub-ject whex~ he knows his request will be greeted by eithe} a growl or an alibi; and I imagine that few things are sweeter for the superior than the realization that his community is composed of available sub-jects, religious who graciously accept any assignment at any time. One concluding remark. To foster our humility, we are often told that if we were gone our place would soon be filled and the 250 community would not even miss us. Perhaps that aspect of our life is sometimes overdone. Perhaps it is good for us to think occasion-ally of how important we are, of how much we, as individuals, mean to the community. The thought can be very inspiring. I trust that some of the suggestions made here will help to provide this inspi-ration. FOR YOUR INFORMATION (Continued from page 236) Questions Asked bg Sisters. It contains questions and answers first printed in a quarterly entitled Vocational Notes for'Sisters. This reprint contains the first htindred questions which appeared in the Notes during 1949 and 1950. The prudent, informative answers are by the Very Reverend Father Clarence, O.F.M.Cap., and the Rever-end Father Jude, O.F,M.Cap. It can be obtained for 15 cents a copy from: St. Anthony's Vocation Club, 220 Thirty-Seventh St., Pittsburgh 1, Pa. Medlco-Moral Problems Modern medicine faces us with numerous ethical problems. Many of these problems are thoroughly discussed in two booklets, Medico- Moral Problems, I and II, by Gerald Kelly, S.J. The booklets are published by The Catholic Hospital Association, 1438 South Grand Blvd., St. Louis 4, Mo. Prices on each booklet are: 50 cents a copy; 12 for $5.25; 50 for $20.00. The Catholic Hospital Association also publishes in pamphlet form Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Hospitals. This is the revised medico-moral code which is now used in a large num-ber of dioceses throughout the United States and Canada. Price: 25 cents a copy: 12 for $2.75; 50 for $10.00. Catholic Daily A group of Catholic journalists are planning to publish a daily newspaper dedicated to reporting the news of the da~r in the context ,6f Christianity. The projected publication date is October 10, 1950. For the staff of this paper, The Sun Herald, the work is a vocation, an apostolate. The founders of the new paper have incorporated as The Apos- (Continued on page 264) 251 Christ: Shows Us I-low !:o Win Friends Jerome Breunig, S.J. SINC, E it was first published about fifteen years ago, Dale Carne-gie s book, How to. Win Friends and Influence People, found millions of buyers and readers and has become one of the most popular works of non-fiction in our time. It is obvious to .religious who have read the book that Dale Carnegie has many good ideas which would help them practice the virtue Christ recommended above all. Equally obvious is the shallow humanitarian viev~point and the mercenary self-interest that is illustrated in most of the ex-ample}. Since many of the people with whom we come into contact - are influenced more by the humanitarian mentality of this book than by the mind that is in Christ Jesus, it'might be useful to observe how much better Christ can teach us how to win friends-~even according to Carnegie's rules. Carnegie gives six rules for making people like you: (1) become genuinely interested in other i~eople; (2) smile; (3) remember that a man's name is to him the sweetest and most important sound in the English language; (4) be a good listener; (5) talk in terms of the other man's interest; (6) make the other person feel important, and do it sincerely. ' But the very idea of making people like you may seem foreign to religious and a sordid thought. The religious works only for God, seeks to be unknown, sees in superiors and others "no one but only Jesus." True enough, but the loftiest supernatural motives should not be high-lighted in such a way that they crowd natural means out of the picture. Christ, the Religious of religious, worked onl~r for God's glory. "The things that please Him, I do." To do this more effectively He tried to make people not only like but love Him. How else explain the Cross! And when man's love grew cold, Christ did not hesitate to dramatize His desire to win men's love by wearing H~s Heart on His breast, announcing to the world through St. Margaret Mary: "Behold this Heart, which has "loved men so much and receives nothing in return but ingratitude and indifference." Christ was "genuinely interested in other people." He was 252 CHRIST SHOWS US HOW TO WIN FRIENDS moved with compassion for the multitudes because they were as sheep without a shepherd. He wept over ,Jerusalem. "How often would I ha,~e gathered together thy children, as the ben dotb gather her chickens under .her wings, and thou wouldst not." Christ's interest extended to individuals as well. He pitied the plight of the leper and healed him: "I will, be thou made clean." What interest He showed in Peter! On at least two occasions He insured a pros-perous catch of fish for him. At another time He cured his mother-in- law. Interest is also shown by prayers. "I have prayed for you that your faith fail you not." Genuine interest in others is a big step towards developing that mind that is in Christ ~lesus. It dispels uncharitable thoughts. "The only person who does not improve on acquaintance is self," observes Father Faber. The same writer notes that kindness is not too diffi-cult, for though there are many unkind minds there are hardly any unkind hearts and that a kind mind can be developed by thinking about, being interested in, others. A kind mind implies much thifiking about others without the thoughts being criticisms. A retreat master developed the same thought by the following illustra-tion. A caricaturist seizes on a character weakness and emphasizes it out of all prop.ortion, while the artist is careful to shade the weak-nesses and make the finer qualities stand out. And the artist always comes closer to a true likeness. Dale Carnegie makes much ot: the. smile, featuring Charles Schwab whose smile was literally a million-dollar one. The Evan-gelists do not record the obvious. There is no written record of Christ's sm.ile, yet there is no room for doubting.that Our Lord smiled when He looked up and saw Zacheus, who had to climb a tree to catch a glimpse, when the quick-witted Phoenician woman an-swered, "Even the whelps are permitted to gather the crumbs," and when He surprised the apostles with the miraculous draughts of fish. More important than the smile is what is behind it, the cheerful, light-hea.rted disposition. Christ was a man of sorrows, but He did not let that cast a gloom around Him. He brought cheer to .the wedding feast at.Cana, did not want the Apostles to fast "when the bridegroom was with them," and celebrated Matthew's joining up by eating and drinking with sinners. Christ's doctrine fosters afun-damentally 'cheerful .disposition. "Come to Me all you that labor and are burdened and I will refresh you." "My yoke is sweet, my burden light." "When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites." 253 ~EROME BREUNIG Ret~iew ~or Religious . Professional personality-developers insist on the practice of saying "Good Morning" to develop the smile. "Good Morning" leaves a smile on the face. Religious should not need to paint a smile by any artificial means. Religious should be the happiest peo-ple on earth, and they are. Smiles come readily. Humility, chastity, and charity thrive in an atmosphere of cheerfulness. The best "propaganda" for vocations is a cheerful religious. An old Father observed that the number of vocations from a particular school was. in exact proportion to the number of cheerful scholastics on the faculty. "Remember that a man's name is to him the sweetest and most important sound in the language." Jim Farley could call fifty thou-sand men by their first name. Christ could call fifty billion by their names. "I am the good shepherd," Christ said, "and I know mine and mine know me." The comparison to a shepherd has a special reference to knowing by name. Shepherds in Palestine then and now have a special name for each of their sheep. The sheep recognizes and answers when its name is called. True Christian charity rather than the wisdom of this genera-tion should prompt a religious to pay the personal respect implied in remembering and using another's name. It is disconcerting to find one who should know our name remembering only our face. The inability to remember another by name leaves the impression that he does not impinge our consciousness to any extent. Our Lord paid this mark of respect to His fellow men. Mary Magdalen did not recognize Christ on Easter morning until He said, "Mary." There are other instances. "Lazarus, come forth." "Martha, Martha." "Simon, son of John, lovest thou Me?" On His very first public appearance we find Christ fulfilling the next rule for winning friends: "Be a good listener. 'Encourage others to talk about themselves." On this occasion we observe Christ as a youth in the temple "listening to them and asking questions." Whenever his enemies were baffled by His wise answers, we always have the assurance that C~ist heard them out first. "Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar? . Of which of. the seven will she be wife at the resurrection?" His enemies thought they had a sure enveloping. pincer movement only to find themselves suddenly disarmed, by the. wisdom of the answer. But in every instance Christ did not inter-rupt them until they had finished. A beautiful instance of encouraging others .to talk about them-selves is seen on the road to Emmaus. While the two disciples were September, 1950 CHRIST SHOWS US HOW TO WIN FRIENDS con;cersing and arguing together, Jesus drew near and went along with them. He began the conversation, "What are these discourses that you hold with one another as you walk, and are sad?" "Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem and hast not known the things that have been done there in these days?" "What things?" Our Lord encourages them. With kindly for-bearance He listens to the entire story. It is only after they have talked themselves out that He begins with Moses and the prophets and interprets to them the Scriptures. Perhaps Father Faber had Christ the Listener in mind when he wrote the paragraph on kind listening. "There is also a grace of kind listening as well as of kind speaking. Some listen with an abstracted air, which shows their thoughts are elsewhere. Or they seem to listen, but by wide answers and irrelevant questions show they have been occupied with their own thoughts, as being more interesting, at least in their own esti-mation, than what you have been saying. Some listen with a kind of importunate ferocity, which makes you feel that you are being put on trial, and that your auditor expects beforehand that you are going to tell him a lie, or to be inaccurate, or to say something of which h~ will disapprove, and that you must mind your expres-sions. Some hear you to the end, and then forthwith begin to talk to you about a similar exl~erience which has bet:allen themselves, making your case only an illustration of their own. Some, meaning to be kind, listen with such a determined, lively, violent attenti6n that you are uncomfortable, and the charm of conversation is at an end. Many persons whose manners will stand the test of speaking break down at once under the trial of listening. But all these things should be brought under the sweet influences of religion. Kind listening is often an air of the most delicate interior mortification and is a great assistance toward kind speaking." Christ, of course, is still listening. He listens to our prayers. He still hears, through His priests, our confessions. Christ "spoke in terms of the other man's interest." Without parables He did not speak to them. And the parables and illustra-tions were taken directly out of the lives ot: the listeners. Fishermen heard truths in terms of nets, farmers, of seed and crops, women, of house cleaning, etc. In the beatitudes Christ took what was closest to most of his hearers, poverty, suffering, lack of property, mourning, persecution, and showed how they could transform these liabilities into assets. 255 BOOK REVIEWS Review for Religious Finally, tracing out the pattern of Carnegie, we observe that Christ "makes the other person feel important and He does it sin-cerely." "You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world." To Nathaniel, "A true Israelite in whom there is no guile." To Peter, "Thou are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church." John and James were called "Sons of Thunder." Christ has a more sublime way of making others appreciate their dignity. "We will come to him and make our abode with him." The dig-nity of a Christian! As St. Paul echoes and reechoes: "You are temples of God and the Spirit of God dwells within you." All of Dale Carnegie's ways to make people like you are merely applications of the golden rule, which is of divine origin. In fact, the golden rule was formulated by Christ Himself in His sermon on the mount. "All things whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you also to them." Of course, Christ both in His example and His teaching (He began to do and to teach), shows other ways to make people like you. For instance, "Greater love than this no man has than that a man gives his life for another." Not only does Christ show us how to win friends. The supreme friend-winner sfipplies the necessary and only adequate and enduring motivation. He seems to make the final judgment at the end of the world hinge on what we do or don't do for others. "As long as yofi did it to the least of my brethren, you did it to Me." Book Reviews OUR WAY TO THE FATHER: Meditations for each day of the year in four volumes. By Leo M. Krenz, S.,J. Pp. xx -I- 518: 411; 535, 516. The Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1950. $15.00 (set of four volumes). In "An Apologia" introducing this rich four-volume series of meditations and readings the author gives an account of "the pur-pose, plan, and method of this course of meditations for religious." Besides that portion of the text which constitutes the meditation proper and is printed in large type there are added paragraphs which in many various ways supplement what is primarily proposed for reflection and prayer. To each meditation is prefixed'a preamble, 256 September, 1950 BOOK REVIEWS consisting usualIy of some verses from Scripture, to strike as it were the keynote that characterizes the exercise. There are always two preludes, three points, and a colloquy. It is highly distinctive of this meditation-course that very often in smaller print there are additions "intended to afford further helpful explanations; to sup- . ply more pointed applications; to furnish pertinent biblical, his-torical, ascetical, theological, or philosophical information; or even to satisfy longings for better knowledge of some puzzling dogmatic truth or fact . It is hoped that these supplementary notes and additions may do helpful service as welcome material for pertinent spiritual reading, and at times even for deep study and possibly for round-table discussion." This expedient of appending further develop-" ments helps the author to achieve what seems to be one of his leading preoccupations, namely, to provide religious who make use of these four hundred meditations with a carefully planned and elaborate exposition of a fairly complete system of spirituality, comprising both instruction and motivation. Hence this work could be used for devotional reading in a way and to an extent that would not be true of typical meditation books. A special effort is made to keep in mind the needs of both beginners and proficients in the religious life and in mental prayer. The ways in which Christ and the Apostles instructed their first disciples are consciously imitated with the design of proposing the highest ideals, of getting them practically accepted, and at the same time of pointing out the discrepancies that are only too likely to exist between the profession and the performance of religious men or women. The epistles of the New Testament are also used to learn and copy the method and means by which the Apostles sought to transform recent converts from Judaism or paganism into "be-lievers . doers . and lovers." With this touch of antiquity goes a peculiar flavor of modernity, in that the spiritual lessons of these volumes are studiously adapted to the conditions of our times and place. Evidently it is the author's most earnest and zealous hope that those who use these suggestions for prayerful reflection will. become just what, in accordance with the highest religious ideals and their own special vocation and under present-day circumstances, they ought to be. The theme dominating the whole series of medi-tations is that God is an infinitely good and great father and is inviting us to" an ever closer union with Him. --G. AUGUSTINE ELLARD, S.J. 257 BOOK REVIEWS Reoieto for Reti~ious THE HISTORY OF: THE POPES. By Ludwig yon Pastor. Translated by E. F. Peeler. Vol. 3S: Benedict XIV (1740-1758). Pp. xllv -I- 516. B. Herder Book Co., St. Louis, Missouri. $S.00. It surely seems like a return to normalcy when Herder resumes the publication of the English translation of Pastor's great'History. This is the very volume that Pastor was working on when death snatched the pen from his hand in 1928. But so much work had been done upon the pontificates up to and including Plus VI (d. 1799), that these materials were later rounded out and .published with the aid of several scholars named in the introduction. There are thus several additional volumes to appear in English; we trust their appearance will not be further unduly delayed. Those who want their Church history to be nothing but "edi-fying" stories had better not take up this volume; those who have enjoyed--and been built up--by the previous ones of the series, will know what to expect here. They will see a Pope, sixty-five at his election, eighty-three at his death, patiently, even light-heartedly governing the Church in a setting of unparalleled diplomatic black-mail. "Our pontificate," he once said, "will be famous for the injuries we suffer" (p. 111). He more than once described himself as "working with a pistol at his head" (p. 273), carrying on in the face of disappointments, insults, frustration. But by every conceivable concession he prevented for those eight-een years all the gigantic conflicts of the day from reaching the explosions that carrie not long afterwards. The chief interest of this volume turns on that slippery story of the ,lansenists, who for a long time had enjoyed immunity and pro-tection, particularly in Fiance, in their defiance of papal authority. Many different factors complicated the "straight" religious issue, but at every turn it was the Church in France that was torn to shreds by parlement and prelates, by Pompadour's open immorality, and Louis XV's blundering ineptitudes. As early as 1750 Parisians were calling themselves "Republicans," and a French bishop recalled in a pastoral letter that an English king had been beheaded in 1649 (p. 225). But as Benedict passed from the scene the 3ansenists were still in the ascendant, and the party's gre~atest hour, the Synod of Pistoia (1786-87), was still in the making. It is almost another preview of history that in the early years of this pontificate a group of people came together in Rome to plot the total destruction of the Society of,lesus (p. 390). One of those 258 September, 1950 BOOK REVIEWS plotters was a young man named Ricci, who later achieved a baleful fame by presiding at the Synod of Pistoia as its bishop. It is one of the ironies of history that he was a nephew of a General of the desuits he had helped to destroy, and who had died in prison in 1775. Even in the Sacred College there were those who said: "Hold Rome in check by Gallicanism, but Gallicanism by means of Rome" (p. 287). In Benedict's lifetime this conspiracy was. contained, but later on the Tanucci-Pombal-Choiseul p~essure, not to mention the monarchs they served, produced the suppression of 1773. Benedict XIV had a scholar's reputation, particularly in histori-cal and canonical fields, when he came to the papacy. His has been an enduring influence, as organizer, legislator, reformer. His regula-tions for beatifications and canonizations still govern those functions. He .was hailed as "the greatest of the canonists" (p. 298), even as Gu~ranger later said of him that no Pope had ever possessed such a knowledge of the Roman liturgy (p. 301). The book's final section, treating of the missions, handles two other famous controversies he settled: the Chinese Rites (duly 11, 1742) and those of Malabar (Sept. 12, 1744). In this connection it is regrettable that the translation mirrors conditions as they were twenty years ago, for, owing to prgfound changes in the religious mentality of the Orient, it is precisely these acts of Benedict XIV that have been changed in our day by Plus XI and Pius XII. But that was in the interval between the writing of the book and this English translation.--GERALD ]~LLARD, S.d. THE HOLY SEI: AT WORK. B~/Edward L. Hes÷on, C.S.C;. Pp. x~v + 188. The Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 1950. $2.50. This book gives us a popular but adequate explanation of how the Holy Father, supreme visible head of the Church, together with his Senate of Cardinals, governs the universal Church through the medium of the Roman Curia. After a brief introduction explaining the nature and meaning of the terms: Pope, Curia, and Cardinals, the author passes on to the most important part of the book--a one-hundred page account of the various Roman Congregations--in which he discusses the Con-gregations, first in general and then in particular, giving the origin, history, competency, and personnel of each. Part three does the same for the Tribunals ot: the Holy See: the Sacred Apostolic Penitentiary, the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signature, and the Sacred Roman Rota. The fourth and last section treats of the Offices of the 259 BOOK REVIEWS Revieu~ for Religious Holy See: the Apostolic Chancery, the Apostolic Datary, the Rev-erend Apostolic Chamber, the Secretariate of State with its associated Secretariates of Briefs to Princes, and of Latin Letters. A chapter on the Code of Canon Law, the official bod~ of ecclesiastical law for the Latin Church, and one on the election of a new Pope bring the work to a close. The Holy See at Work contains a wealth of interesting details, such as the process of a petition through one of the Congregations from beginning to end, the meaning of "the secret of the Holy Office," the appointment of bishops, the relation of the Churches of the Orient to the Latin Church, the various steps by which a diocesan religious congregation obtains the approval of the Holy See and becomes pontifical, the evolution of a mission from an apostolic prefecture to a diocese, steps to beatification and canonization, special procedure of the Sacred Penitentiary, process of a marriage case through the Rota, kinds of papal documents, the election of a new Pope. Priests and religious, as well as the interested laity, are indebted to Father Heston for having made all this information available in handy form and at a reasonable price. Twenty-two illustrations and three charts enhance the usefulness of the volume. --ADAM C. ELLIS, S.J. LITTLE MEDITATIONS ON THE HOLY EUCHARIST. By Rev. Thomas D. Williams. Pp. 319. The Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, Wis-consin. $3.50. The Holy Eucharist deserves our whole-hearted appreciation and highest esteem. Yet, because it is shrouded in mystery, and our senses fail to penetrate the veil which hides the Real Presence of Jesus on our altars, we often fail to value this priceless Gift of God as we should. How can we become thoroughly acquainted with so inestimable a treasure, how acquire a conscious security of faith? By frequently meditating on the Real Presence, on the value of Holy Communion, and on the significance of the Sacrifice of the Mass. To make this easy and attractive, Father Williams offers a short meditation for every day of the year on some phase of the Eucharistic mystery. These considerations, based on the words of Scripture and the teachings of theology, are so clear and simple, so attractive and devotional, that any one who ponders them slowly and prayerfully will continually grow in knowledge and love of the Holy Eucharist. The author makes excellent and practical use of Scripture texts, which lend a stimulating touch to every paragraph. Throughout 260 September, 1950 BOOK NOTICES we sense a mellow tone of ~olid piety, and nowhere is there the least evidence of sentithentality or pious exaggeration. We highly recom-mend the book for use in visiting the Blessed Sacrament. --HENRY WILLMERING, S.J. BOOK NOTICES WE LIVE WITH OUR EYES OPEN is a sequel to the earlier work by Dom Hubert van Zeller, O.S.B., which was entitled We Die Standir~g Up. In his first book Father van Zeller treated chiefly the obstacles encountered in the quest for holiness. In the thirty-nine essays of the present volume he centers our attention on the means to sanctity. Here as before the treatment of his theme is straightforward and stimulating. Most of the essays discuss the use of creatures, in-terior prayer, mysticism, asceticism, and the proper orientation of the virtue of love in general and as applied to the sacrament of matri-mony. (New York: Sheed ~ Ward, 1950. Pp. x -q- 172. $2.00.) Richelieu's France of the seventeenth century was the scene for the life and work of Charles de Condren, the second superior of the Oratory in France. M. V. Woodgate's CHARLES DE CONDREN iS not a mere pious biography in the old tradition, but a balanced, though brief, account of a very human, holy, and at times, weak personality. (Westminster, Md.: The Newman Press, 1950. Pp. xi + 155. $2.25.) LITURGICAL PRAYER: ITS HISTORY AND SPIRIT, by Msgr. Fer-nand Cabrol, O.S.B., is an offset reproduction of a liturgical classic which first apeared in its French original in 1900. It was later trans-lated by a Benedictine of Stanbrook in a 1921 edition. The litera-ture and the notes cited are, therefore, of the last years of the last cen-tury, but the text, by a man who could combine deep knowledge with popular presentation, is as timely now as when first written. (Westminster, Md.: The Newman Press, 1950. Pp. xiv -t- 382. $3.50.) The important role of congregations of religious women in the development of the Church, and especially of Catholic education, in the United States cannot be overemphasized. One of the latest his-torical studies dealing with this theme is Sister Maria Kostka Logue's SISTERS OF ST. JOSEPH OF PHILADELPHIA. This carefully docu- 261 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS Reoieto for Religious mented, highly objective, and interesting work covers a century of growth and development of the Congregation in the eastern states from 1847 to 1947. (Westminster, Md.: The Newman Press, 1950. Pp. xii q- 380. $5.00.) Religious, by profession particularly interested in the hidden life of Christ with its message of self-effacement, obscurity and obedi-ence, should be grateful to Dr. Patrick J. Temple for PATTERN DIVINE: OUR LORD'S HIDDEN LIFE. This book fills a real need, for too many books on the childhood of Christ are either apologetic or piously exaggerated, while chapters in standard "Lives of Christ" are generally too meagre. Dr. Temple gives a detailed account of the exterior life of the Holy Family at Nazareth and presents the Jewish life, society and thought that affected the youthful Christ. Every page of the book is documented, and the explanations in the foot-notes justify the claim that the story of PATTERN DIVINE is not imaginative and fictitious, but sober truth and reliable fact. The devotional tone, which pervades the whole account, is conspicuous in a concluding summary paragraph for each chapter. A very copious bibliography and a detailed index are additional assets of the work. (St. Louis: B. Herder Book Company, 1950. Pp. xii-k 389. $5.00) PRAYER FOR _A_LL TIMES, by Pierre Charles, S. J., and trans-lated from the French by Maud Monahan, is a reprint of a spiritual classic that has already gone through seven editions. The publishers are to be congratulated for combining the former three separate vol-umes. into one. Each of the ninty-nine chapters of two and one half pages deals with some important point in the spiritual life. The book can be used either for spiritual reading or for points for medi-tation. One chapter at a time is sufficient since each chapter demands reflection, application, prayer. The deep spiritual insight and many practical suggestions are brought home in a kindly spirit and a graphic style. (Westminsier, Md.: The Newman Press, 1950. Pp. 328. $3.50.) BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS [For the most part, these notices are purely descriptive, based on a cursory exam-ination of the books listed.] THE GRAIL, St. Meinrad, Indiana. THE HOLY RULE OF ST. BENEDICT. Pp. xiv q- 95. $1.00 (paper) ; $2.00. (cloth). 262 September, 1950 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT8 SAINT BENEDICT THE MAN. By Dom I. Ryelandt, O.S.B. Translated from the French by Rev. Patrick Shaughnessy, O.S.B. Pp. 102. $1.25. The first book, a second printing, besides the Rule contains a Short biographical sketch of St. Benedict by Aidan Cardinal Gasque~ and a sermon on the saint by Pope Pius XlI. The second contains three studies of the inner life, "the moral physiognomy," of St. Bene-dict. The studies are based on an analysis of his Rule, on St. Greg-ory the Great's life of th~ saint, and on a comparative study of St. Benedict and St. Francis de Sales. B. HERDER BOOK COMPANY, St. Louis, Missouri. CHRIST THE SAVIOR. By Rev. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. Translated by Dom Bede Rose, O.S.B. Pp. iv + 748. $9.00. This is the English edition of Ft. Lagrange's Latin textbook, DE CHRISTO SALVATORE, a commentary on the Third Part of St. Whomas's SUMMA THEOLOGICA. A thirty-page "Compendium of Mari-ology" rounds out the volume. ISTITUTO PADANO DI ARTI GRAFICHE, Rovigo, Italy IL DIRITTO DELLE RELIGIOSE. By Rev. Louis Fanfani, O.P. Pp. xxii + 346. L. 1500. This is the third edition of the author's Italian LAW FOR RELIGIOUS WOMEN based on his larger Latin work, DE IURE RELIGIOSORUM. "It has been brought up to date with the most recent decisions of the Holy See, and has been improved in some points by a more accurate exposition of the canons of the Code referring to religious women." NEWMAN PRESS, Westminster, Margland. REVOLUTION IN A CITY PARISH. By Abb4 G. Michonneau. Pp. xxi -~- 189. $2.50. The city parish is in the mission of France among the working class population in the Paris suburbs. A co-worker, Father H. Ch. Ch4ry, O.P., and the Abb4 discuss in dia-logue form the needs and difficulties, the objectives and methods in their missionary apostolate. SAINT PAUL AND APOSTOLIC WRITINGS. By Sebastian Bul-lough, O.P. Pp. xviii q- 338. $3.00. This latest volume in the series of Scripture textbooks for use in Catholic schools in England deals with the Pauline Epistles, the seven Catholic Epistles, and the Apocalypse. Ft. Bullough's exegesis and commentary provide a valuable background for a more intelligent and fruitful understand-ing of these important New Testament writings. 263 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS Ret;ieto for Religious SERMON NOTES ON THE SUNDAY PROPERS. By Rev. F. H. Drinkwater. Pp. 119. $2.00. A reprint. The author derives useful themes from parts of the Mass propers exclusiye of the epistles and gospels. SOME RARE VIRTUES. By Raoul Plus, S.J. Translated from the French by Sister Mary Edgar Meyer, O.S.F. Pp. vi q- 213'. $1.75. All virtues are rare, but some that Fr. Plus treats of are especially rare, such as "Knowing how to be grateful," "Good use of time" and "Pity for the sick and afflicted." It is the first English publication of this work. THE. SUPPLICATION OF SOULS. By St,f Thomas More. Edited by Sister Mary Thecla, S.C. Pp. xiii -{- 187. $2.50. This book is Thomas More's refutation of the heretical work of Simon Fish,' SUPPLICATION FOR THE BEGGARS. This is an instance to prove Father J. J. Daly's remark "More's was the" only pen at the service of the Church to do battle in the vernacular against heresy." In the book St. Thomas defends the clergy against irreverent and unfair attack and upholds the doctrine on purgatory, making a moving ap-peal for the poor souls. The book is mostly, but not exclusively, of historical interest. FOR YOUR INFORMATION (Continued from page 251) tolic Press Association, a non-profit organization. One departure from existing journalism is the financing of the paper. Instead of advertising it will depend on circulation revenue. And for initial expenses the founders are enlisting the charity of those Catholics who believe there is a need for such a paper. There will be five issues weekly, and two editions: one local and one national. The national edition will be delivered by air cargo and should reach most subscribers on the day of publication. Prices for one year are: $14.00 for the national edition; $12.50 for the local. For the scale of prices on shorter terms, as well as for other informa-tion, write to: The Sun Herald, 702 East 12th St., Kansas City 6, Mo. Confessors' Patron St. Alphonsus Liguori, founder of the Redemptorists, has long (Continued on page 280) 264 ues!: ons Answers ~2 Im We wish to gain the Jubilee indulgence. Our local ordinary has made no pronouncement on the subject. Have our i:onfessors the authority to prescribe the necessary conditions for gaining this indulgence? Is it neces-sary to go to confession and to receive Holy Communion each time? As Father Bergh pointed out in his article on "The Holy Year of 1950" in the January number of the Reuieto, the general require-ments for gaining the Jubilee indulgence in Rome are: reception of the sacraments of Penance and.the Eucharist,-and visits to the four major Roman basilicas in which certain prescribed prayers must be said. Outside Rome, for those who are entitled by way of exception to gain the Jubilee indulgence at home (all women religious among others), the local ordinary or any confessor delegated by him may substitute other works, of religion, piety, and charity in place of the visits to the four Roman basilicas. In places where the local ordinary has, made no provision, confessors may presume that they have received tacit delegation to make the substitution. Confession and Holy Communion are required for each gaining of the indulgence. ~22m Is it in accord with canon law for religious 1o be given permissibn ÷6 take trips during the summer if their relatives pay the expensesmeven if those trips are pilgrimages to Rome and to various shrines? The obligation to common life which is imposed upon all reli-gious by canon 594 forbids superiors to allow certain members of the community to take a trip (even though it be a pious pilgrimage) merely because parents, relatives, or friends are willing to pay the expenses. Common life requires that the community supply a reli-gious with whatever he needs, just as everything which comes to him as a religions must be put in the community funds. Common life also requires that, generally speaking, equal opportunities be given to all members of the community. Hence a superior could allow the members of his community to make a pious pilgrimage provided that he supplied the necessary expense money for such members of his community as do not have relatives or friends who are willing to pay for them. Again, the constitutions of the community would have to be consulted to see whether such trips, pious or otherwise, are allowed. An article explaining this matter of common life in 265 QUESTIONS AND ~NSWERS Review for Religious detail will be found in this Review for January, 1948, pp. 33-45. When we say that common life generally requires that equal opportunity be given to all, we do not mean that it is a~ainst com-mon life to allow certain privileges (like a pilgrimage) to jubilari-ans, to the perpetually professed, and so forth. In such cases, how-ever, the use of the privilege should be extended to the whole group and should not be limited to those who can procure the necessary funds from relatives or friends. --23- Has a meeting of provincial superiors presided over by the superior general and his councilors the authority to change a custom which has been observed in the congregation for over one hundred years, or is such a change reserved to the general, chapter? Only a general chapter can change customs which are common t~ a religious congregation. The constitutions could give the power to the superior general and his councilors, but this would have to be stated explicitly. --24~ What precisely are the Normae, so often referred to in leglslation for religious communities? How much authority is aHached to them? Must all constitutions and custom books of nuns conform to these Normae? About the year 1860 the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, then in charge of all religious orders and congregations, began to establish uniform regulations for the new religious congre-gations, especially of women, which were increasing in number. More or less uniform sets of constitutions were given to them on trial, until they took permanent shape for each congregation in the draft which was given final approval. In the course of forty years some things were changed, others were added, and some were dropped. These regulations, in the shape of a set of model constitutions for religious congregations with simple vows, were published on June 28, 1901 under the title of Norms according to which the Sacred Congregation o~ Bishops and Regulars is accustomed to proceed in the approval of new institutes with simple vows. The Normae did not establish any formal legislation for religious congregations, but were published for the sole use of the Sacred Congregation as a guide in the composition and construction of constitutions for new congre-gations with simple vows seeking the approval of the Holy See. Thus most of the congregations approved during the last part of the nine- 266 September, 1950 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS teenth century and first part of the twentieth (until the new Code of Canon Law in 1918) are based exclusively on the Normae. These old constitutions had to be revised in order to bring them into con-formity with the new Code of Canon Law. However, most of the matter contained in the Normae was incorporated into the Code, with modifications, omissions, and additions, of course. Hence the Normae are useful even today because they give us a better under-standing of the canons of the Code which deal with similar matters, as well as of the constitutions themselves in which the wording of the Normae has been retained in great part. To answer our question-: New constitutions and customs need not and should not conform to the old Normae but exclusively to the present Code of Canon Law. --25~ Is ÷here any difference in ÷he meanlncj and in the use of the followin9 words applicable to Sisters taken collectively: community, order, sister-hood, congregation, institute? In everyday life these general terms are used indiscriminately to signify a group of religious women. Canonically speaking, how-ever, there is a difference in their meaning, which is contained in the definitions provided for us in canon 488 of the Code. Thus: (1) An "institute" (religio) is any society, approved by legitimate ecclesiastical authority, the members of which tend to evangelical perfection, according to the laws proper to the society, by the profes: sion of public vows, whether perpetual or temporary. (2) An "order" is an institute whose members make profession of solemn vows. (3) A "religious congregation" or simply a "congregation" is an institute whose members make profession of simple vows only, whether perpetual or temporary. The canon does not define the terms "community" and "sisterhood," but it does define (4) "nuns" as religious women with solemn vows or, unless it appears other-wise from the nature of the case or from the context, religious women whose vows are normally solemn, but which, by a disposition of the Holy See, are simple in certain regions; whereas "sisters" are reli-gious women with simple vows. The term "community" is not used officially in canon law. It popularly indicates either an "institute," which is a general term in-cluding both orders and congregations, or it is used to identify a local group of religious, classified in canon law as a "religious house." "Sisterhood" is a popular term for an institute of religious women, 267 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS whether of nuns or of sisters, though technically it should be restricted to an institute of sisters only. 26 Do the words: rule, holy rule, constitutions, and customary, represent distinct thlncjs, or has the term "the rule" the same meanincj as "constitu-tions"? Technically the term '"Rule" always refers to one of four great rules which most religious orders followed down to the sixteenth century, and which they still follow, and which are followed by a number of modern religious congregations. These are: the Rule of St. Benedict, the Rule of St. Basil, the Rule of St. Augustine, and the Rule ot: St. Francis. To these four rules, which are stable and unchangeable, other regulations regarding details not contained in the rules have been added, and these additions were called "constitu-tions." In the sixteenth century the new orders of clerics regular who did not adopt any of the four great rules, introduced a new system whereby the fixed and stable parts of their legislation were called "constitutions" while other minor regulations which were changeable were called "rules." Modern congregations, even though they follow one of the four great rules, have a body of practical legislation known as "constitu-tions," and approved either by the local Ordinary or by the Holy See. Minor observances are called "regulations" or "rules." The term "customary," or "book of customs," and the like, indicate observances usually brought into being by custom or usage, first in one community, then in another, and finally in a whole insti-tute. These may be changed by a general chapter, but no general chapter has the right to change the constitutions approved by the Holy See or by the local ordinary. OUR CONTRIBUTORS P. DELETTER is a member of the faculty of St. Mary's theological college, Kurseong, India. WINFRID HERBST, writer, retreat master, former master ot~ nov-ices, is on the faculty of the Salvatorian Seminary, St. Nazianz, Wisconsin. GER-ALD KELLY and JEROME ]~REUNIG are members of the editorial board of the REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS.Fr. Breunig succeeds Father Alfred Schneider as editorial secretary. 268 Report !:o Rome [In the following pages we conclude the publishing of the List of Questions to be answered in the quinquennial report by pontifical institutes. We have printed these questions, not only as an aid to superiors who must answer, them, but also as a means of giving all religious a better knowledge of the Church's law concerning religious. The questions are published exactly as they appear in the official English trans-lation. Questions marked with an asterisk (*) concern only institutes of men: those marked with a cross ('1") refer only to institutes of women. For information about the means of obtaining the copies of the questions, see p. 236.--ED.] ARTICLE III Coneernlncj those who have departed or been dismissed, and others who leave the Institute Concerning those who haue gone out from the Institute 248. a) How many in the Institute and in each Province, at the expiration of their vows did not renew them, either because they chose not to do so or because they were not allowed to do so. b) How many of the professed of temporary vows were dis-pensed during their vows, and how many of the professed of per-petual vows were dispensed. 249. Were those who were dispensed from tbeir vows at their own request or with their consent, forced, or without serious and grave reasons and precautions permitted, to leave the religious house before the rescript was duly executed. 250. How many transfers, if any, were there to another In-stitute. C6ncerning apostates and fugitiues 251. a) How many apostates and fugitives, if any, were there during the five-year period. b) Did the Society or Institute observe the provisions of law concerning apostates and fugitives, by seeking them (c. 645 § 2),and if this proved fruitless, by proceeding against them according to law, so that their juridical condition should be clearly defined. Were the provisions of law regarding those who came back observed (cc. 2385, 2386), and is watchful provision made for their spiritual good. Concerning those dismissed bg Superiors and those not admitted to profession 252. a) Since the last Report, how many of the professed of 269 REPORT TO ROME Review for Religious temporary v, ows and how many of the professed of perpetual vows have been dismissed, according to Provinces. b) In the dismissal of religious, whether of temporary or of perpetual vows, were the norms of the common law (cc. 647 § 2, 649-672) as well as those of the Constitutions observed. c) Was the same done in regard to not admitting the professed of temporary vows to the renewal of their vows or to perpetual profession (c. 637). 253. Were the dismissed of temporary vows, while the recourse duly made within ten days was pending (c. 647 § 2; S. C. of Reli-gious, 20 July 1923, AAS, XV, I923, p. 457), and the dismissed of perpetual vows, before the decree or judgment of dismissal had been confirmed by the Sacred Congregation (cc. 652, 666), forced to leave the Institute. 254. Are the dismissed who are not in sacred orders released from their vows by the dismissal (c. 669 § 1); and if the vows remain, does the Institute show solicitude regarding their condition (c. 672 § 1). Concerning those dismissed by the law itself and those sent back to the world 255. What were the cases, and the causes which led to them, for both the professed of temporary and those of perpetual vows, where they were either sent back to the world on account of grave scandal or very grave harm (co. 653, 668) or dismissed by the law itself (c. 646). 256. Were steps immediately taken according to the Code (cc. 646 § 2, 653, 668) to determine the condition of those dis-missed by the law itself and of those sent back to the world. 257. Is there any such person whose condition still r~mains undetermined. 258. What cases if any have occurred of the reduction to the lay state of religious who had received sacred orders; how many were voluntary and how many penal. Concerning those who were exctoistered 259. How many cases of exclaustration were there, if any; are the causes carefully and conscientiously pondered in the presence of God before the petition is recommended and the rescript executed. 260. Does the Institute take care: a) That if it seems necessary to ask for an extension of the 270 September, 1950 REPORT TO ROME indults, they be renewed in due time. b) That the persons who are excloistered lead a worthy reli-gious llfe and return as soon as possible to some house of the Insti-tute. 261". Likewise does the'Institute take care regarding those who have been secularized on trial, and regarding their return to religion if at the expiration of the three-year period the indult is not renewed or they are not accepted, by the Ordinary. Concerning absences from the house ¯ 262. Do Superiors see to it that subjects remain out of the house only for a just and grave reason and for the shortest possible time, according to the Constitutions (c. 606 § 2). 263. For absences which exceed six months, except for studies or ministries according to law and the Constitutions, was the permis-sion of the Holy See always obtained (c. 606 § 2). 264. Is it allowed by reason or under color of a vacation, that time be spent with one's parents or outside a house of the Institute. Concbrning the deceased 265. Were the prescribed suffrages faithfully and promptly per-formed for all the deceased. ARTICLE IV Concernincj the various classes and conditions of religlous § 1. - CONCERNING CLERICS (This is dealt with in the Report on formation and studies). § 2. - CONCERh~ING Conversi OR COADJUTORS Concerning their education and training 266. Do Superiors, in accordance with c. 509 § 2, 2° give to those religious who belong to the class of conversi, instruction in Christian doctrine; and do Superiors, both before and after their pro-fession but especially during the earlier years, carefully attend to their spiritual, intellectual, civil and technical education according to the functions which they have to fulfill. 267. Are the religious allowed to engage in works which do not seem to be suitable to the religious state. 268. Do Superiors with paternal charity diligently provide also for the bodily health of the conversi or coadjutors. 271 REPORT TO ROME § 3. CONCERNING THOSE WHO ARE APPLIED TO MILITARY SERVICE Concerning the profession of those who are to be called for the first time to active militarg service 269*. Did Superiors regulate according to the decrees of the Holy See the temporary professions of those who are to be called for the first time to active military service or its equivalent. 270*. Were perpetual professions permitted before the first active military service or its equivalent, to which the young men are liable to be called. Concerning the religious during their militarg service 271". a) Did Superiors take care of their members in the service, watch over their life, communicate frequently with them, requiring a periodical account of their conduct, their actions and exercises of piety, etc. b) What special means were used to secure their perseverance. 272*. In cases of dismissal for just and reasonable causes, or of voluntary s.eparation from the Institute, did the Major Superior fol-low the p~escribed procedure and faithfully conserve all the docu-ments in the Archives. Concerning the renewal of temporarg profession after military service and the making of perpetual profession 273*. For admission to the renewal of temporary profession, was everything done which is prescribed by the common law and in the decrees regarding this matter. 274*. Was the prescribed time of the temporary profession com-pleted after military service, and also the time of the temporary vows which is prescribed by law and by the Constitutions before the making of the perpetual profession. CHAPTER III CONCERNING THE WORKS AND MINISTRIES OF THE INSTITUTE ARTICLE I Concerning minis÷ties in general Concerning the special end and the works of the Institute in general 275. Were the ministries proper to the Institute abandoned or neglected. 276. Were any works engaged in which are not contained in the 272 September, 1950 REPORT TO ROME special end of the Institute; if so, with what permission was this done. Concerning abuses in the exercise of ministries 277. Were any abuses in the exercise of ministries introduced during this time; if so what were they. 278. Is all appearance of avarice carefully avoided on the occasion of ministries. 279. Was begging from door to door, according to law (cc. 621, 622) and the Constitutions, done with the required permissions. 280. Moreover, in begging, were the rules of law (c. 623), the instructions of the Holy See (c. 624) and the norms of the Consti-tutions observed. 281. By reason of or under pretext of ministries, are an excessive or too worldly communication with seculars and frequent and pro-longed absences from the religious house permitted. 282. What precautions are taken in this communication in order to avoid harm to the religious and scandal to seculars. Concerning difficulties with the secular clergy or with other Institutes, etc. because of the ministries 283. On the occasion of the ministries did any friction occur with ecclesiastical Superiors, with pastors and the secular clergy, with other Institutes or with Chaplains. What were the chief instances of such difficulties and where did they occur. 284. What probable reasons can be assigned for these difficulties. and what remedies can be suggested for their avoidance. ARTICLE II Concerning special ministries Concerning Missions among infidels and heretics 285. In the Missions, or in any one of them, did the religious life suffer any harm, and if so, what were the reasons for this. 286. What safeguards were used or should have been used so that in the apostolate the faithful observance of religious discipline and the care of one's own sanctification be better secured. 287*. In the Missions, is the internal religious Superior distinct. from the ecclesiastical Superior. 288*. Did this union of offices in the same person result in advantages or rather in disadvantages. 273 REPORT TO ROME Review for Religious Concerning Parishes, Churches and Sanctuaries 289*. For the incorporation or union of parishes, was an indult of the Holy See obtained, according to cc. 452 § 1, 1423 § 2, so that there should be a union or incorporation properly effected. 290*. In what form were Parishes united to the Institute: pleno iure (absolutely, at the will of the Holy See), in temporalibus, etc., and from what date. (A copy of the document should be sent if there is one). 291". Was an agreement made with the Ordinary of the place to accept any parish. (Send copies of the agreements made during the five-year period). 292*. How do Superiors watch over and assist those of their subjects who are pastors (c. 631 §§ I-2), and in case of need admonish and correct them. 293*. Was the office of local Superior ever united with that of pastor, observing c. 505; did this union give rise to difficulties, or was it on the contrary attended with good results. 294*. Did the Institute obtain from local Ordinaries that Churches or Sanctuaries should be entrusted to it; if so, with what permission and on what terms and conditions was this done. 295*. How do all Superiors see to it that religious discipline suffer no harm from the ministries engaged in by the religious in parishes or in public churche~ which are entrusted to them. Concerning Colleges, Schools and Seminaries 296,*. Has the Institute entrusted to it any Seminaries of clerics, and if so on what terms. (Documents and agreements entered into regarding this matter during the five-year period should be attached). 297*. In these Seminaries, are there any difficulties with the Ordi-naries, concerning either the religious life and discipline or the gov-ernment of the Seminary. 298*. What measures and efforts are employed toward the sound and thorough training and religious education of the students. 299. Are there houses for the residence of young people who are attending public schools. 300. In these cases is very special care taken to see that the schools are safe from the standpoint of both instruction and education; especially is a careful supervision maintained over the instruction and religious education; and if there are any deficiencies are they carefully remedied. 301t. Are there schools which are attended by both sexes; 274 September, 1950 REPORT TO ROME as regards fixing the age beyond which boys may not be admitted or retained, have the prescriptions made by the Ordinaries been observed. 302. Do Superiors strictly see to it that Rectors, Prefects, Teach-ers and Professors receive adequate preparation for their work: a) Scientifically, by acquiring knowledge which corresponds adequately to the grade of the class, and by obtaining degrees and certificates, even such as are recognized outside ecclesiastical circles. b) Pedagogically, by the study and practice of the art of teaching. c) Spiritually, so that they may exercise the office of teaching with a genuine zeal for souls and make it a means of sanctification for themselves and others. 303. Do Superiors carefuIly see to it that the work of teaching be properly harmonized with religious discipline. 304. Did they promptly remove from the office of teaching those who in practicing it make light of the religious life and are not a good example to the students. Concerning the practice of the corporal works of mercg 305. Does the Institute practice the corporal works of mercy toward the sick, orphans, the aged, etc. 306. Are there: a) Guest-houses and hospital

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Solt, 2nd Floor Spangler Building, dfhe fashionable dfailc: Satisfaction Suaranteed. Prices to Suit (h? Tine:. I Webster's Send a Postal for Specimen Pages, etc. International Successor of the " Unabridged." Dictionary; c THE BEST FOR TEACHERS AND SCHOOLS BECAUSE IN THIS DICTIONARY It is easy to find the word wanted. It is easy to ascertain the pronunciation. It is easy to learn what a word means. It is easy to trace the growth of a word. o _ Sic:—elarrcl of the TJ. S. Supremo Court, of all the State Supreme Courts, of the (■) u. U. Government Printing Ofiice, and of nearly all tho Schoolbooks. Warmly com- I "otl by Stato Superintendents of Schools and other Educators almost without number. 'The Pennsylvania School Journal says:—The Internationa] Webster is a tTCCCuro Itouse of universal knowledge to which all the world, in all its ages, has made ccatri) , and any ono of us may nave it at his elbow. Of itj half hundred bpeoial-cf value and importance, the most attractive to uo i.i itj otymolopy, an un-failin :. i iiirce of interest and enjoyment, ofteu of surpriseand wonder.—OCTOM'EI:, 18%. G. & C. HEKRIA9I CO., Publishers. Springfield, Mass. The College Metcufy. fOL. V. GETTYSBURG, PA., JULY, 1897. No. THE COLLEGE MEfiCUfiY', blished each month during the college year by the Students of Pennsylvania (Gettysburg) College. ■ SMITH, 'g8. : E. FLECK '98. : W. WOODS, '9! STAFF. Editor: E. L. ,KOLLER, '98. Associate Editors : J. H. MEYER, '99. J. H. BEERITS, '99. H, C'. ROEHNER, '99. R. D. CLARE, 1900. Alumni Association Editor: REV. D. FRANK GARLAND, A. M., Taneytown, Md. Business Manager: J. W. WEETER, '99. Assistant Business Manager: j. A. MCALLISTER, '98. T f One volume (tell months), . . . $1.00 1 ERMS ■ j Single copies, . . ' . . 15 Payable in advance .11 students are requested to hand us matter for publication, he Alumni and ex-members of the College will favor us by sending information concerning their whereabouts or any items they may think would be interesting for publication. All subscriptions and business matters should be addressed to the Business Manager. Matter intended for publication should be addressed to the Editor. Address, THE COLLEGE MERCURY, Gettysburg, Pa CONTENTS. COMMENCEMENT WEEK, - 79 BACCALAUREATE SERMON, - - 79 ADDRESS TO Y. M. C. A , 80 CONCERT BY THE MUSICAL CLUBS, 80 JUNIOR ORATORICAL CONTEST, 81 CLASS DAY EXERCISES, 8r CLASS AND FRATERNITY BANQUETS, - - - - 82 COMMENCEMENT ORATIONS, 84 GRADUATES AND HOME ADDRESSES, - - 85 DEGREES CONFERRED, 8? CLASS POEM, '97, --■-• --- .*.* g- UGHTH ANNUAL TENNIS TOURNAMENT, - - - - gg A RESUME OF ATHLETIC MATTERS, - - . 86 COLLEGE LOCALS, . 87 MOVEMENTS OF OUR ALUMNI IN THE PAST FEW WEEKS, - SS AMERICA'S NOBLE SON, - " STATE POLITICS IN PENNSYLVANIA. - - - - - 9o COWIWIENCEIVIENT WEEK. SUNDAY, MAY 30 TO FRIDAY, JUNE 4. Commencement is over. The class of '97 have been graduated and have gone. The ex-ercises of the past week have been of the most enjoyable nature, and everything has been done without a flaw—truly a grand success. For the greater part of the week we were fort-unate in having the most perfect days for our Commencement, especially Wednesday, and. this added in no small degree to the magnifi-cent success of the whole occasion. The Senior class who have just been gradu-ated, will indeed be missed from the ranks of old Gettysburg. Their successes in literary matters and in athletics have raised them to such a position in the estimation of all the un-dergraduates that we feel as if the vacancies occasioned in all departments of college ac-tivity by their departure will indeed be hard to fill. While we do not believe in all this talk about "fighting the battle of life," etc., yet the MERCURY hopes that each and every member of the class of '97 will attain the best of success in whatever they undertake. The order of exercises during the week will be followed in the recounting, just as they oc-curred, and the most important events will be given. BACCALAUREATE SERMON. COLLEGE CHURCH, SUNDAY, IO.30 A. M. The Commencement exercises of the Col-lege and Seminary opened in Christ Lutheran church, Sunday morning. The Baccalaureate sermon was delivered by Rev. M. Valentine, D. D. LL,. D., President of the Theological Seminary, to the graduating classes of both institutions. He based his remarks upon the 18th verse of the 4th chapter of the Second 8o THE COLLEGE MERCURY. Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, "While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen ; for the things which are seen are temporal ; but the things which are not seen are eternal." The theme of the discourse was based on the right relation of the things of life to per-manent good. Life has its rightful setting in the perspective of eternity. Every life is a failure which is not directed toward the invisi-ble things which endure. The discourse was a masterful one and no partial report could do it justice. Dr. Valentine, in all his many scholarly sermons from the College church pulpit seldom, if ever, surpassed the effort of Sunday, May 30th. ADDRESS"TOT. M. C. A. COLLEGE CHURCH, SUNDAY, 7.3O P. M. In the evening an earnest and forcible ad-dress was delivered to the Young Men's Chris-tian Association of the College, by Hon. W. N. Ashman, of Philadelphia. His discourse was founded on answers to certain objections to religion as raised by men of business and men of science. The speaker argued that the principles and truths of the Christian religion could be fully established when tried by the same tests as are applied in the determination of ordinary busi-ness propositions. The element of the supernatural in religion prevented the application of the rules and methods of scientific investigation where ma-terial facts and substances alone are dealt with. The scientific man is therefore unfair when he applies his methods to the examination of re-ligious questions. The large audience was highly edified with the Judge's clear, forcible, earnest and ex-haustive presentation of the subject. The music at the morning and evening serv-ices was an attractive feature of the session. It was furnished by the highly efficient choir of the church, assisted by Miss Leopold, in-structor of vocal music at Wilson College, who sang several beautiful solos with fine effect, Mr. Segrist, of Lebanon, playing the organ accompaniments. 1 » » CONCERT BT THE MUSICAL CLUBS. BRUA CHAPEL, TUESDAY, EIGHT P. M. The concert this year was a grand success in every way. The audience was without doubt the largest that has ever attended a concert by our musical clubs, and their ability to appre-ciate the selections of the clubs was shown by their judicious applauding, enthusiastic for the humorous songs, and appreciative for the more classic selections. The best selections render-ed were the opening ones of each part, "Schu-bert's Serenade," arranged by C. Kuntze, and "Lead Kindly Light," by Dudley Buck, al-though the humorous encores seemed to elicit the heartiest applause from the boys. Our glee club is to be congratulated upon its excel-lent taste in the selection and rendition of music that is undoubtedly far above that sung by the average glee club; and the college may well feel proud in having had a glee club of such pronounced ability during this year. Four of the eight have been graduated this commencement, Messrs. Ott, White, Arm-strong and Manges, and they will be greatly missed. Our hope is that the next year's class may have excellent material to fill the breach, The stage on Tuesday evening was very taste-fully decorated with potted plants, palms, with the class flower of '97, the daisy. The whole affair was one of beauty, both to the eye and ear. PROGRAMME. PART I. i. Schubert's Serenade, - - arr. C. Kuntze GLEE CLUB. 2. The Serenade, VIOLIN CLUB. 3. Recitation—The Swan Song, Miss GERTRUDE SIEBER, 4. Solo—The Old Grave Digger, • A. G. Henderson MR. MANGES. 5. The Phantom Band, - ' - - A. W. Thayer GLEE CLUB. 6. Violin Solo-Obertass, - - - H. Wieniawski MR. ERDMAN. THK COLLKGK MERCURY. ,r- Lead Kindly Light, Dudley Buck Selected Franz Abt GLEE CLUB. 2. Quartette—(Instrumental) VIOLIN CLUB. 3. Solo—Because I Love You Dear, Mr. NICHOLAS. 4. The Wandering Minstrel's Patrol, - Willis Clark GLEE CLUB. 5. Quartette—(vocal) Selected. Messrs. NICHOLAS, WHITE, KOLLEB and MANGES. . 6. Good Night, - Frank Thayer GLEE CLUB. ORGANIZATIONS. GLEE CLUB. 1st Tenors, C. M. Nicholas, '98 17. W. Ott, '97 1st Bass, E L. Roller, '98 C. T. Lark, '98 2nd Tenors. C. G. White, '97 E. A. Armstrong, 2nd Bass, Lewis C. Manges, '98 Harry Musselman. VIOLIN CLUB. H. B. Erdman, '96 C. T. Lark, '98 John M. Gates, '01 A. T. Smith, '00 ELOCUTIONIST, Miss Gertrude Sieber, '97 PIANIST, Geo. A. Englar, '97 JUNIOR ORATORICAL CONTEST. BRUA CHAPEL,, WEDNESDAY, IO A. M. The contest this year, by the six members f the class of '98, for the Recklig prize iu ora-tory, has been pronounced, by those who are competent judges of such matters, better than any for the past few years. There were but Ex contestants, three from each of the Liter-ary societies, but the number was large enough |o make the exercises interesting and not tire-me. The music for the intermissions was famished by the Harrisburg orchestra. The attendance was very large, and, with the ex-ception of the stir and bustle made by those coming and going, excellent order was ob-served throughout. It might be well to say, a word, to the coming Junior class, that they fcould do well to start early to make their preparations for next year's Junior Oratorical, and not only get their best men to compete, put also see that these men do their best. PROGRAM. MUSIC—' Gay Coney Island March"—M. Levi. PRAYER. MUSIC—"Anita" (Mexican Waltzes)—Barnard. The New Slavery, CHARLES E. FLECK* New Kingston Tragedies of the Present. CHARLES M. NICHOLAS,! Beerett, Md. MUSIC—A Kansas Two Step—Pryor. The Emancipation of Cuba, CHARLES B. KEPHART,* Taneytown, Md. True Nobility, ALBERTUS G. Fuss,t Williamsport, Md. MUSIC—Intermezzo (Cavalleria Rusticana)—Mascagni. America's Noble Son, IRA G. BRINER,* New Bloomfield The Present Social Discontent RALPH L. SMITH,! Pittsburg MUSIC—March, "The Girl of '99"—Zickel. BENEDICTION. *Phrenakosmian. fPhilomathsean. The judges, Dr. Weigle, of Mechanicsburg, Pa.; Rev. A. R. Steck, pastor of St. James Lutheran church, Gettysburg, and Rev. D. W. Woods, pastor of the Presbyterian church, Gettysburg, made their decision as follows : REDDIG PRIZE IN ORATORY. IBA G. BEINEB, New Bloomfield, Pa. WITH HONOEABLE MENTION OF CHAELES E. FLECK New Kingston, Pa. CHAELES M. NICHOLAS Beerett, Md. Mr. Briner's oration, "America's Noble Son," is published in the Literary Department of this issue. CLASS DAY EXERCISES. COLLEGE CAMPUS, WEDNESDAY, 2 P. M. To some, these exercises by the graduating class constitute the most enjoyable feature of the whole Commencement. And they really are a diversion from the somewhat heavy na-ture of the matter of Commencement week. It lias been the custom to hold the exercises on Tuesday evening of Commencement week, but the change to Wednesday afternoon, has certainly been to make it more convenient for everyone concerned. On the occasion of this year's Class Day exercises, everything seemed to join to make them successful in every way. The afternoon was the most pleasant that could have been desired—not too warm and a slight breeze through the branches above the speakers' platform and the audience made these out-door exercises a delightful affair. 82 THE COLLEGE MERCURY. The platform was decorated with the '97 class colors, nile green and pink, and with potted plants, and the class flower—the daisy. Benches and chairs were provided for the large crowd that was present and all were comfort-ably fixed. The music was furnished by the Commencement Orchestra. The Seniors, in cap and gown, were all seated on the speakers' platform, and certainly made an imposing spectacle. In spite of the general strain of humor and roasting notice-able in all the speeches, there was nevertheless an under-current of sadness at parting, deep down beneath this gay exterior of mirth. Many of the parts were excellent, and we are sorry that space will not permit our pub-lishing several of the papers, for a very meagre idea of the character of them can be gotten from the program. PROGRAM. Muster 01' Ceremonies,.:.: :.: :::: BIKLK MUSIC. Class Roll ^!V.K-.::-.:::::y.v.w.v.-.-.v.-:.v.v. WHITE Ivy OMitIo&i:::'.v.»»i:»u:s'.u.'.u»usisn ENGLAR Ivy Poem,.; :.OTT MUSIC. . Ciass History,. '■■'■ • KAIN Class Poem FRIDAY-Our Absent Ones, BUTTON ■ MUSIC. The Loving Cup ERB Conferring of Degrees , MILLER Miintlc Qrationv, .'. LEISENKING Junior Response LABK MUSIC. Presentation of Gifts,. WOLF Prophecy WHEELER MUSIC. At "the close of the exercises, after the mo-tion for adjournment had been put and passed, the class yell was given. (LASS AND FRATERNITY BANQUETS. TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY NIGHTS. This Commencement was made especially interesting by the several reunions of classes and fraternities, thus bringing back to the old walls those who have been away for many years. Three of the classes, '82, '87 and '93 held reunions, and two of the fraternities, the Alpha Tau Omega, and the Phi Delta Theta. The seniors, also, held their banquet, Thursday night. THE FIRST REUNION OP '93. TUESDAY NIGHT. [Written for the MERCURY by Rev. Diffenderfer, '93.] In reply to the call of the Secretary of the class, Rev. A. J. Rudisill, of New Bloomfield. twenty of the survivors of the class assembled at the Eagle Hotel, on Tuesday evening, June 1st. At 8 p. m., they attended the concerto: the musical clubs in Brua Chapel, in a body. There was a strong temptation to renew old-time customs and habits when some familiar faces entered. An occasional "guy" and out-burst of friendly joking, and a hearty applause for the clubs were the only features of interest. Immediately after the concert was over, the class gathered at the tower door of the chapel and gave their good old yell with a vim and ring, that made the dead spirits of former days arise and hover about them in eager expecta-tion for some old-time trick, or class-rush. At 10.00 p. m., all went to the dining hall of the Eagle Hotel to partake of the splendid "banquet" which "Mine host" Eberhart had prepared. The dining hall was beautifully decorated with plants and palms, and bloom-ing flowers. In the centre of the room, at tie head of the table, was placed a beautiful dis-play of colored electric lights, on a background of Class colors. The bill of fare was elabor-ately prepared, and served in the best style. Mr. Eberhart and his efficient corps of waiter-did all they could to make the banquet a grand success. Well, did we have any fun? There U Niels L. J. Gron, our Danish brother, with his sedate and dignified bearing; dreaming of some fair and beautiful form which had presented to his sight in some far off across the sea. "Niels" looks as genteel refined as ever, ready at a moment's noticett| say "maecanos el evis," etc. Then "Bisl Grimes' calm, sedate, peaceful countenance wondering why Prof. Himes didn't call 011M to recite, as it was his "turn up," and Frank' THE COLLEGE MERCURY. 83 Melanchton Bortner with his favorite ■Penn'a Dutch" brogue, saying to Dr. Martin, "I am sitting on the front row, and never of-fered any criticism, but made that noise.'' And I'Judge" Alleman, with his serious counte-lance and dignified demeanor, wondering 'What the deuce we can get up to start a racket." And "Bill" Vastine, the Catawissa iase ball magnate, singing his beautiful ('falsetto," to "The Old Oaken Bucket," and leclaring that either he or Prof. Nixon must |ake more physical exercise, or travel with a Dime Museum. Then think of "Sail" Tur-ber "kicking" about the bill of fare not pro-biding the extras, "Mumm's Dry," etc., rais-ing a row about everything in general, then laughing at the excitement he had caused. Ime old "Ajax," boisterous and demonstra-te Andrew Jackson Rudisill, who always vas the "noisiest" man about the Dormitory. Then all the others, Geesy, Kline, Hilton, 3aum, "Neudy," "Whiskers" Ehrhart, oh, they were all boys back to college again, and "Diff," the Proctor, as lenient as ever. A beautiful menu card had been engraved by E. A. Wright, the class cut on first page, ind menu in class colors next, toast and offi-cers following: Toast master, Hilton. "Our First Reunion,'' E. Gettier; "Our Alma Mater," G. M. Mffenderfer; "The Future Prospects of a Col-lege Widow," E. E. Parsons; "Daw: What it is, and What it Does," F. M. Bortner; "The Traveller in all Eands," N. L. J. Gron; "Gos-pel: What it is, and what it Does," M. J. nine; "Eife in a University," E. E. Seyfert; "The Blessings of a Bachelor," E. E. Neude-vitz; "High Eife at Washington," J. C. Bow-rs; "Fun we had in College," W. M. Vastine; "Pleasures of a Doctor's Eife," M. S. Boyer; "What '93 Did for Athletics," G. E- Hipsleyj 'Our Honored Dead," W. H. Ehrhart; "Our lost," A. J. Rudisill. In the "wee small" hours of the morning ye adjourned, after having passed a Resolu-tion to meet again in 1900, the same commit-tee to be continued. What a pleasure it was to meet again amid these old familiar scenes; even the town "kids" recognized us and shouted "there goes '93." Let us all endeavor to be present in 1900, if we live, and make it the occasion of our life, and aii epoch in the history of the College. REUNION OP '82. [Written for the MERCURY.] The reunion of '82 was held at the Eagle Hotel, on Wednesdaj' evening of Commence-ment week. The menu was excellent—such as the Eagle knows how to arrange—and all the old fellows who were back enjoyed this part immensely. The banquet was not marked by its lengthy addresses or "toasts," but there was a general good social time had, and the whole affair was very informal. Of course we all had to tell what happened since we met last, and this really constituted a greater pleasure than "toasts" would have af-forded. The proposal of a reunion at Phila-delphia in the near future was met with ap-plause. Of the twenty-three living members of the class, there were thirteen present at the banquet. . REUNION OF '87. [Written for the MERCURY by Rev. H. C. Allemau, '87.] The announced reunion of the class was abandoned because so few of the boys could be present at Commencement this year. Charles E. Stahle, Esq., invited the six faithful who made the pilgrimage to his home Wednesday evening, where an impromptu reunion was en-joyed. Those present were Parr, Crouse, Sny-der, Snively, Wolf and Alleman. After re-freshments the silver class-cup was presented to Harold F. Snyder, the first son of'87, born May 19, 1891. Regrets were read from Hol-zapfel, Coover, Croll, Brame, Fishburn, Fisher, McDermod, Dreibelbis and Bateman. "Non vi sed saepo cadendo" was again ex-tolled, and pledges made for social meetings every year and a reunion every decade. ALPHA TAU OMEtJA BANQUET. WEDNESDAY NIGHT. The Banquet was held at the Eagle Hotel at 11.30. Many of the Alumni of the Chapter ,84 THK COU,EGK MKRCURY. were present, making an attendance of twenty-three in all. The toasts were as follows : Franklin Menges, Ph. D., '86, Toast Mas-ter; Geo. M. Hosack, Esq., "TheFraternity;" L. DeWitt Gerhardt, Esq., '84, "Our Early Days;" Morris T. Brown, '92, "A. T. O. in Business;" F. M. Bortner, Esq., '93, "A. T. O. in the Professions;" Win. O. Nieklas, Esq., '94, "College Reminiscences of an A. T. O.;" W. H. Menges, '96, "The Spirit of Our Alumni;" C. B. Erb, '97, "Our Ladies;" J. A. McAllister, '98, "The Goat." PHI DELTA THETA BANQUET. WEDNESDAY NIGHT. The Hotel Gettysburg was the place of the banquet. The Ahunni of the Chapter helped to add to the spirit of the occasion by their presence. The toasts were as follows : Rev. H. H. Weber, Toast Master. "Why We are Here," Rev. L. S. Black, '88; "Our Position in the Fraternity World," J. S. Eng-lish, '94; Our Alumni Phi's," G. H. Eckels, '95; Our College Phi's," J. H. Beerits, '99; "A Phi's Start in Life," J. W. Ott, '97; "Our Bumper Billy," B. F. Carver, '00; "My New Guardians," Rev. M. J. Killian, Va. Alpha; "Phi Recollections," B. R. Lantz, '94; "Next Year's Chapter," J. C. Markle, '00. SENIOB CLASS BANQUET. THURSDAY NIGHT. A very fitting close to the existence of '97 at Gettysburg, was the Banquet held at the Hotel Gettysburg, on Thursday night. The intention was to have a final reunion of the class and its ex-members before the class leaves. Ten ex-members were invited to be present, some of whom responded. The Ban-quet was a purely informal affair, its object being, as expressed by one of the Seniors, to have "a good time;" and from all accounts they had it. There were twenty present, and little informal addresses were made by R. N. Stable, H. Sheely, and C. G. Smith, M. D., ex-members of'97, and by C. B. Erb, White Hutton and P. J. Shriver, of the graduating class. The menu was an excellent one, and from many sources and for many reasons, we know that everybody had "a good time." (OHMENCEM ENT ORATIONS. BY THE TEN MEMBERS OF THE GRADUATING! CLASS, BRUA CHAPEL, THURSDAY, 9 A. M. Up to Thursday, the weather during Com-I mencement week was of the finest, but on the■ morning of Commencement day, it rainedl quite heavily for some time. However, the I audience that assembled in the Chapel to hear the orations, did not seem to be at all fright-ened by the unfavorable condition of the elej rnents and the Chapel was well filled. ORDER OF EXERCISES. MUSIC—March "Corps do Sards"—Oodfrej. PRAYER. MUSIC-Melody in F-Eu.binstein. Latin Salutatory GEORGE F ABEL, Philadelptil Chri-tian Socialism, ELKANAH M, DUCK, Spring Mill The Extiniof the Laborer'sGrievance, ARTHUR B. COBLE, Lyki«| MUSIC— "Pilgrim Chorus" (Tannhaonser)—Wagner. The Unification of Science GEORGE HAY KAIN, Vat| State Politics in Pennsylvania,.HORACE E. CLUTE, Harriskil The Chief Religious Problem of the Age, HENRY R. SMITH, Chamberslui|| MUSIC—March, "The American Girl"—Herbert, Physical Training for the Twentieth Century, CLIFTON G. WHITE, Manhtii| Greece and the European Concert, ROBBIN B. WOLF, Gettysbnil MUSIC—"Bolero" (Spanish Dance)—Moszkowsky. Sixty Years of Queen Victoria, A. GERTRUDE SIEBER, Gettysbin| The Curtitls for To day, with Valedictory, HENRY WOLF BIKLE, Gettysteq| MUSIC -"Im Tiefen Keller" Fantasie—Lovenberg. CONFERRING OF DEGREES BY THE PRESIDENT. MUSIC-March, "Old Club "—Schremser. BENEDICTION. HONORS AND PRIZES. FIRST HONOR. HENRY WOLF BIKLE Gettysburg. GEORGE F. ABEL Philadelphia. ELKANAH M. DUCK Spring Mills. SECOND HONOR. HORACE E. CLUTE, Harrisburg. G. HAY KAIN York. ANNA G. SIEBER, (two years) Gettysburg GR/EFF PRIZE, FOR BEST E9SAV ON 7HE RELIGIOUS FAITH OF ROBERT BURNS. AS SHOWN IN HIS PO*' GEORGE F. ABEL Philadelphia. | WITH HONORABLE MENTION OP HENRY WOLF BIKLE Gettysburg. THE COEEEGE MERCURY. 85 HASSLER GOLD MEDAL, JUNIOR LATIN PRIZE. B>MUND W. MEISENHELDER York. WITH HONORABLE MENTION OF b. L. KOLLER, Hanover. BtALPH L. SMITH Pittsburg BAUM SOPHOMORE MATHEMATICAL PRIZE. feRTHUR S. BRUMBAUGH Roaring Spring. BOS. N. K. HICKMAN Steelton. WITH HONORABLE MENTION OF &ACOB D. SNYDER McKnightstown. J(HIX F. STALEY, Middletown. [WHEN 0. DIEHL Bedminster. MUHLENBERG FRESHMAN PRIZE. FOR BEST GENERAL SCHOLARSHIP. OTHER A. WEIGLE Mechanicsburg. WITH HONORABLE MENTION OF [WILLIAM W. FREY York. BEDDIC PRIZE IN ORATORY. [iKA G. BRINER ; New Blcomfield. WITH HONORABLE MENTION OF EA.RLES E. FLECK, New Kingston. 3ARLES M. NICHOLAS, Berrett, Md. ♦—♦—♦ I GRADUATES AND HOME ADDRESSES. BACHELOR OF ARTS. George Ferdinand Able, Philadelphia, Pa. [Ernest Adelbert Armstrong, Hellam, Pa. [Henry Wolf Bikle, Gettysburg, Pa. :harles Roy Coble, Eykens, Pa. jthur Byron Coble, Lykens, Pa. Elkanah Maximillian Duck, Spring Mills, Pa. [George William Englar, Linwood, Md. Frederick Whipp Friday, Jefferson, Md. White Hutton, Chambersburg, Pa. Bamuel Jacob Miller, Edgemont, Md. John William Ott, Rocky Ridge, Md. Pearl Johnston Shriver, Gettysburg, Pa. Anna Gertrude Sieber, Gettysburg, Pa. Henry Rouzer Smith, Chambersburg, Pa. William Rufus Stahl, Hay's Mills, Pa. Philip Thos.Em'y Stockslager,Funkstown,Md. William Edward Wheeler, Baltimore, Md. [Clifton Glemm White, Manheim, Pa. [obbin Bayard Wolf, Gettysburg, Pa. BACHELOR OF SCIENCE. Horace Edwin Clute, Harrisburg, Pa. Charles Eeroy Boyer Erb, Boyertown, Pa. George Hay Kain, York, Pa. Fran'l'n Schoch Eeisenring,Chambersburg,Pa. r^wis Clarence Manges, Felton, Pa. John Elmer Meisenhelder, Hanover, Pa. Class Motto—Pertinax Animo. Class Colors—Pink and Nile Green. Class Flower—Daisy. Class Yell— Pertinax Animo, Rah ! Rah !.! Rah ! ! ! Ninety-Seven, Ninety-Seven, Gettysburgia. ~*-~^ ♦- DEGREES CONFERRED. COMMENCEMENT DAY JUNE 3. A. M. Prof. H. A. Allison, '94, Rev. R. W. Mottern, '94 " c- p- Bastian, 94, • koehuer, c f. Burns, p Herman, 1. f. Brown, r f. Spealman, r. f Wolf, 1. f. Loudon, r. f. Lawyer, r. t Gettysburg College, Opponents, 273 ::s 63 269 19 12 S". .11 .125 .875 .292 .171 .340 .233 .304 .222 .000 .200 .000 .143 .231 .15fi Pastor of the Quincy charge, in Franklin ounty, Pa. '94- Rev. Matthew S. Kemp, of Hazleton, Pa., has received a call from Smithsburg, Pa. Mr. Kemp graduated last week from Gettys-burg Seminary. '94. Fred. Bloomhardt, of the University of Pennsylvania, spent a short time at his home Tiring the latter part of May. >" AMERICA'S NOBLE SON. JNIOR PRIZE ORATION BY I. G. BRINER. We are to-day standing upon sacred ground. Q the war of '63 these hills and mountains echoed and re-echoed with the cannon's awful roar. For three days the mighty columns of the Southern Confederacy surged against our hues. Sometimes our phalanx faltered. Some-times it broke. But in the final and awful charge, made by Pickett's men, victory was forever emblazoned upon our immaculate ban-ner. To-day, behold ! how changed. The gory and tattered flag has been cleansed by more than three decades of sweet peace and wel-comed prosperity. In our National Cemetery those, who loved their country and their homes better than their lives, now repose in silent sleep. Their tombs are covered with earth's richest mantle. By their side stand stately trees with waving boughs and wide spreading branches. Over them the happy children scatter fragrant flowers, while the sun looks down, from the vaulted sky, and smiles. The relatives and friends of the heroes come close to those mounds and shed a loving and parting tear. But even weeping will not make sacred this ground. In his dedicatory speech Abraham Lincoln said, "We cannot hallow this ground, the brave men living and dead who fought here, have hallowed it far above our powers to add or detract." Not only do we revere and honor the meni-of those who sleep here, but we would hold in grateful remembrance every man who has p'-oven a friend and defender of our national faith and honor. Many there are to whom we can point with pride. Men, who, on the bat-tlefield, exhibited the greatest skill, bravery and courage. Those, when duty called, pressed forward into the thickest of the con-flict, that our freedom might be won and our beloved Union preserved. Those, when en-trusted with national honor, had dignity and manhood enough to keep it pure and unsullied. Among the host of such Americans shines, in undimmed splendor and glory, the name of* Ulysses S. Grant. His deeds of courage and bravery, his genuine high statesmanship and Christian character will ever be remembered and held in high esteem by all men who love the land of the free and the home of the brave. In our sister state, only four weeks ago was dedicated to his memory a beautiful and mas-sive memorial. By this act a premium was placed upon the actions of great and good men. This silent witness, as its beauty is reflected in the peaceful waters of the Hudson, is but a slight token of the Nation's gratitude for him. Historians tell us, as a soldier General Grant stood without a peer. To him was entrusted the closing scenes of an awful conflict. In him the nation saw a leader fearless and un-daunted as well as tender and kind. When his forces stormed Fort Donelson with heavy charges, the commander asked for terms. THE COLLEGE MERCURY General Grant replied : "No terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I purpose to move immediately upon your works." On the other hand, when Lee was over-powered and the Southern army shattered, it was General Grant who proposed that the soldiers who had horses should retain them. He said, "The men will need them in plowing their fields, when they return to their homes." During the four years of this civil strife he had the confidence and esteem of soldiers and officers. With a unanimity that was never disturbed by an audible voice of dissent, the two million veterans gave to him supremacy over all the other officers under whom they served. The battles of the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor and Five Forks have immortalized his name among the greatest generals of the earth. How beautiful thus to see blended in one man true humanity, mingled with pure patriotism and undaunted courage. When our beloved country was yet tremb-ling and groaning from the shock received by the Civil war, news came to General Grant that he had been nominated for President of the United States. In his letter of acceptance he penned the words which are sweetest to those who have seen the horrors and ravages of war: ' 'Let us have peace.'' But this man was opposed to even having peace until he was sure it would be universal and abiding. Later in his official capacity he affirms that he would have "no policy to enforce against the will of the people." His entire adminis-tration is a living testimony that these words came forth from a heart radiant with truth. The character of this great man stands out clear and strong. Those that know him best saw in him a man in the truest sense of the term. Other men might be swerved from the path of duty by the temptations so numerous and strong in public life, by disappointed and coveting office seekers, by streams of immor-ality and waves of infidelity, but General Grant turned these discouragements and sins into stepping stones by which he arose to where his character to-day shines with tin-dimmed luster. When he assumed the functions of the Presi-dential office his highest ambition was to prove a worthy and trusted leader. He had learned through the great and far-reaching lessons taught by Jesus of Nazareth, "he that is greatest among you shall be your servant." He possessed abiding confidence! the honesty and intelligence of his coiuitr men, and always retained his deep holdup their affections. With Washington and Li: coin, Grant has an exalted place in our com try's history. When his monument was dedicated tha were present representatives from all brands of our Government, the resident officials < foreign nations, the Governors of the state and the sovereign people from every sectio of our common country. What a glowii tribute thus to pa}' to one who has reachedti; highest pinnacle of human distinction. Tt story of this man's life is worthy the conten plation of the ages. Now that beautiful memorial, honor of this General, Statesman, and Christian Gentleman, risees majesty before us. May it thus point us a individuals, and as a nation, to a higher splie of living, and clearer and more sublime fellow-ship with the God who rules the destiny rf Nations. erected i: President in siletl STATE POLITICS IN PENNSYLYANIl SENIOR ORATION, BY HORACE E. CLUTE, ') In examining the political situation in Pen sylvania we must feel, first of all, the needo! liberal point of view. If our position be thati patriots, we must consider all sides. It is nea less to say that this is, in its very nature, « a party question but one appealing to the leji imate interest of every loyal citizen of ti "laud of Penn." At a time when so much:: terest is being taken in the political affairs! our own Commonwealth, a broad basis for criticism must seem important. A certain gree of conservatism on the one hand, anda the other, an insistence on a full and da light on every part of our political svstea should characterize our consideration. In a question of this kind, the compart view will be found helpful to the broader bas we have referred to. What conditions at problems are met and settled in other state Nor need our range be confined to this con-try. European systems will be found uioreo less rich in political suggestion, when co: pared with our own. And we can readilyni derstand how a foreigner should be able! take this comparative view better perhaps tb any of us. The question touches us • closely. Professor Bryce, an Englishman eminence, furnishes, in his "American Cd THE COLLEGE MERCURY. 9i The! IS legit- I lb stec rafc bas ; as .ate :oE mi co: yd ile: tkjl ■an |Cc: I mwealth," an excellent illustration of this, onsiders the working and conditions of j"r political institutions in relation both to Hose of his own country and to each other in |e different sections and Commonwealths in ,is country. He says: "The spirit and force fcarty has, in America, been as essential to lie action of the machinery of government as team is to the locomotive engine. His view i briefly this: "in Europe the parties stand for jiiciples, in America they do not;" in the one 1'issues have never been lacking which Sought their respective principles into opera- En:" in the other "the chief practical issues which once divided the parties have been set-fled." In spite of the heated discussion and the definiteness in issue of the last-presidential campaign, we Americans cannot deny that fhere is much truth in his view and particu-larly as applied to State politics. What great principle does the Republican or the Demo-cratic party stand for in State elections? Does the citizen vote on some State issue or because R: wants his party to get the spoil? Bryce aptly says: "Bringing men up to the polls is like passing a stone roller over stones newly laid on a road." As the angularities in the stones are pressed out so individuality is merged into party. We fear this is what has happened very largely in Pennsylvania. Yet if asked to analyze the present political condition, we should say that it is perhaps nearer a transition, a revolution, from the existing order of things, than a solid-fying in them; recent indications seem to point in that direction. Prominent among these we might mention the withdrawal from power of a. U. S. Senator whose sway has extended for a number of years; though a candidate put forward by a boss took his place it was not without comparatively formidable opposition and the absence of the impliciteness with which many former behests were obeyed; and it is believed by some that if brought up now this candidate could not be elected. It is prob-ably true, as some one suggests, that the pres-ent legislature —the House at least—is more its own than in some former sessions. Citizens Reform Leagues and Associations, though aim-g more especially at municipal reform, show a marked tendency, not always appearing on e surface, to wipe out political corruption. The recent formation of Business Men's Leagues throughout the State, whatever news-papers may say about the aims of the leaders Jf the movement, shows a rebellion on the part 'fa very substantial proportion of our citizen-ship against the existing order of things. The recent exposure, on the part of contractors and others in possession of the facts, the waste of the people's money in "padded" bills, appro-priations, &c, may also be added to the gen-eral indications. We may think that a great hue and cry is raised about the corruption and degradation of Pennsylvania politics, and that the real con-dition is exaggerated. Perhaps the way to get anything like an accurate idea, is to investigate along the line of just what a real reform would mean, how many points it must touch, and how fundamental it must be, to cope with the enormousness of the task. It is not an overstatement to say that the system of bossism has in this State received flattering encouragement. (It is a continuation of the medieval "sale of indulgences" and we need a Luther to expose it!) It is the people we ought to censure, to censure the boss is a waste of breath. Yet we would not say this without two words, one as to the boss, the other from the side of the people. To one who says to us : "We need men of executive ability, bosses if you please," it is sufficient to reply simply by distinguishing the term "leader and boss;" by the former is suggested the idea of one who by natural selection or otherwise leads a new movement, by the latter the foreman of a gang of foreign laborers out in some Western railway cut; the arguments of the one are listened to; the orders of the other are mechanically obeyed. Why do the people endure it? Well, first of all, they have arrayed against them a machine, and to resist its clock-like movement is 110 easy matter. You will perhaps meet one class of persons who speak of "necessary evils." We deny their existence ! There is no reason under the sun, save the weakness of men, why our Commonwealth should not be a perfect Utopia! Eltwood Pomeroy, in the April Arena, char-acterizes another class." "I know of men," he says, "honest, honorable, capable, who have refused to vote for over a quarter of a century. They say it is no use." As cit-izens, however, we must remember that the use of that silent weapon, the ballot, is not only a privilege but a duty. Let us be sure that there are thousands in Pennsylvania who have not in their heart of hearts bowed the knee to the Baal of bossism. Perhaps no bet-ter counsel can be given to the true citizen than the words of the poet: "Be noble and the nobleness that lies In others, sleeping but never dead, Will rise in majesty to greet thine own." ADVERTISEMENTS. Classical Course for the Degree of A. B. II. Scientific Course for the Degree of B. S. III. Post-Graduate Course fcr the Degree of Ph. D. IV. Special Course in all Departments. V. Elective Studies in Junior and Senior Years. VI. New Testament Greek and Hebrew in English Bible Departinj Observatory, Laboratories and new Gymnasium. Four large buildings. All b heated with steam from central plant. Libraries, 25,000 volumes. Fine Museum. Expi low. Department of Hygiene and Physical Culture in charge of an experienced physid Accessible by frequent railroad trains. Location, on BATTLEFIELD of Gettysburg;" pleasant and healthy. PREPARATORY DEPARTMENT, in separate buildings, for I and young men preparing for business or college, under special care of the principal andtl assistants, residing with students in the building. For full particulars, apply for catalog^ HARVEY w. MCKNIGHT, D. D., LL. D., ?m\ F@ras]?(]w*iiiiia (MUtege, Gettysburg

Issue 45.3 of the Review for Religious, May/June 1986. ; REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS (ISSN 0034-639X), published every two months, is edited in collaboration with the faculty members of the Department of Theological Studies of St. Louis University. The editorial offices are located at Room 428:3601 Lindell Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. REview ~oR RELIGIOUS is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus, St. Louis, MO. © 1986 by R~v~w ~oR RELiGiOUS. Composed, printed and manufactured in U,S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, MO. Single copies: $2.50. Subscription U.S.A. $11.00 a year; $20.00 for two years. Other countries: add $4.00 per year (postage). Airmail (Book Rate) $18.00 per year. For subscription orders or change of address, write REVtEW FOIt RELIGIOUS: P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Richard A. Hill, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Review Editor Contributing Editor Assistant Editor May/June, 1986 Volume 46 Number 3 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to REVIEW I~UGtOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the department "Canonical Counsel" should be addressed to Richard A. Hill, S.J.; J,S.T.B.; 1735 LeRoy Ave.; Berkeley, CA 94709. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from REVIEW Folt RELIGIOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. "Out of print" issues and articles not published as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. A major portion of each issue is also available on cassette recordings as a service for the visually impaired. Write to the Xavier Society for the Blind; 154 East 23rd Street; New York, NY 10010. Our Lady of Wisdom Donald Macdonald, S.M.M. ,, Father Macdonald's "The Price of Poverty" appeared in this year's January/February issue. Last May/June saw another Marian article by Father Macdonald entitled "Mary: Our Encouragement in Christ." Father's address rdmains: St. Joseph's: Welling-ton Road: Todmorden: Lancashire OLI4 5HP: England. ~ recall being kindl~, received in a convent, but the longer I stayed there the more uncomfortable I felt, because for apparently aesthetic and liturgical reasons ~there was no room in the chapel for a statue or picttire of Our Lady. It was frankly embarrassing to pass Our Lady presiding over a hymn-board ~n the corridor outside while i was free to go into the chapel without a blush. It°made no sense. One should not exaggerate the place of Our .Lady but neither should she be underrated. So, in a generally compli-mentary book-review, the reviewer remarked that while the author rightly spol~e of devotion to Our "Lady as inseparably part of Christian life he "rather overstresses the idea of Marian m'~sticism." One wonders how he knows that, since mysticism touches levels of e~perience much of which must be left unsaid. Can anyone throw a tight ring around personal expe-rience particularly at those depths? On the day his engagement was announced, G. K. Chesterton wrote the woman he was to marry that "I think it is no exaggeration to say that I never s~iw you in my life without thinking that I underrated you the time before." t This is a superb compliment for anyone to receive, especially from a mindsas rich as Chesterton's. Clearly he saw depths in the girl 321 ~122 / Review for ReligiouMs, ~Iiy-June, 1986 unseen by her butcher or dressmaker. Lo~,e, presumably,' gave him the necessary insight: Such God-gi~en insight is needed to understand anything of Our Lady in the providen.~e of God, particularly if we accept that "insight is an attempt to think in the present a. .breakthrough requiring much intellectual d~smanthng a, nd dislocationa .c.c.ompanied by a sense of surprise., genuine perception . He who thinks that we can see the same object twice has never seen. Paradoxically, insight is knowledge at first sight." 2 This is surely borne out by experience. Father Peyramale, the parish priest of Lourdes, knew more ,of the faith than Bernadette Soub~rous, just ¯ as the superiors of the novice Catherine Labour+ had a wider experience of religiouslife than did she. NO ldoubt, too, biblical scholars in the time of Th~r'ese Martin knew more al6out Scripture than she did, but who today among the contemporaries of!those three girls could claim to approach their insights into the ways of God? Can anyone quantify their subsequent influence for God and for g~od? One spoke patois, another not 9t all publicly .u.ntil shortly before she died; while the third wrote of what she knew in three note-books onl~ because she was as.ked to. Eacti of these women's lives was illumined by a vision of Our Lady who left her distinctive mark on all three, not least in their wholly sane, understated, selfless lives. What Bernadettelsaid of herself could be said of all of them including Our Lady "When 3~ou have finished with the brush you put it behind the door"--except th~at God has other plans. Their influence widens. The risk for thee c,ontempor~ry religious might be in leaving "the brush behind the door." What has been called "chronological snobbery" can obtain here to3. The insights of the latter part of the twentieth century are assumed to be superior to thos~ of peasant, country or middle-class ,y, oung women in nineteenth~entury France. Following the sam~ ~qogic, Our Lady can be dismissed as possil inevitably~limited by her lack today, and by her geographical God is present in each life. It is tliese women are to be conside ~ly a Galilean peasant girl whose insight was of formal ~ducation,~as this is understood locafion~ That assumption should be tested. this that makes the difference and by which red. Of each of the four women it could be said: "She was a woman uprig, ht, outright." "Her will was bent at God'](G. M. Hopkins, "Margaret Clither'ow" an unfinished poeo). The strengthl,.vulnerability and powerful pulse httracting them can be felt in that last monosyllabic line. There is no need of any Cultural baggage in order to sl~are what they see. Neither the water-tables feeding the wells of Nazareth n~or the politics of nineteenth-century France m.atter. Anyone in the company of these~ women may.be drawn by what Our-l_ady of Wisdom / 323 they see, glimpsing in each cage~perhaps "the Christ-ed :beauty of her mind" (G. M. Hopkins op. cir.). They travel light. The will of God is the point: "Let it be done to me according to your word" (Lk 1:38). Perhaps we cannow consider Our Lady as a reflection of the presence of God. The Gift of Wisdom It has always been difficult to speak of the presence of God not least because a finite mind is trying to express an awareness of transcendence. One biblical, tradition which attempted this was the ~Wisdom literature (includihg Job, Proverbs, Qoheleth, Ben Sira, Wisdom and some Psalms), Beginning in cultures outside Israel as basically advice to the young man Who would make his way in the world (a "Young, Upward Mobile Man's Guide to the Galaxy" perhaps), when taken into Israel it was inevitably recast through belief in the underlying presence of God as the basis of reality. So "the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom" (Ws 9:10), that is putting God first as against the practical atheism .of the person for whom '~'there is no fear of God before his eyes" (Ps 36). From this standpoint, God's presence was seen in creation, the history of Israel and in individual lives under the guise of wisdom, latterly personified'in a. female figure. God's presence as expressed in Wisdomwas to be seen everywhere:' "She herself walks about looking for those who are worthy of.her . in every thought of theirs coming to meet the~m" (Ws,6:16-17). "Wisdom is quicker to move than any motion; she is so pure, shepervades and.perrfieates_all things. She is a breath of the power of'God . untarnished mirror of God's power, image of his goodness . Herself unchanging, she makes all things new" (Ws 7:24-27). "l resolved to have her as my bride, I fell in love with her beauty" (Ws 8:2). "My counselor in prosperity, my comfort in care and sorrow. I love those who love me; those who seek me,eagerly shall find me" (Ws~9:17). Slowly to reflect on those lines is to glimpse the intimacy and reality of God's presence in a sacramental world. Such insight is a personal possession. They know of whatthey speak. So in the creation of the universe by God: "I was by his side, a master ~craftsman delighting him day by day, ever at play in his presence, at play everywhere in his world, delighting to be with the sons of men" (Ws 8:30-31). Such a universe, then, is no alien, monolithic force hostile to mankind but a place in which God is present, delighting to be with his creation. Experiencing life in this way, God's presence is seen as delightful, as life now obviously has meaning since it is underwritten by God. "I came forth from the mouth of the Most .High and I covered the earth like mist . Then the creator of all things instructed me . He said, 'Pitch your tent in Jacob'. I have breathed out a scent like choice myrrh. I am like a 324 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1986 vine putting out graceful shoots. ApprOach me you who desire me, and take your fill of my fruits, for memories of me are sweeter than honey, inheriting me is sweeter than the honeycomb. They who eat me will hunger for more., they who drink me will thirst for more. Whoever listens to me will never have to blush, whoever acts as I dictate will never sin" (Si 24:38, 13, :17, 19-30). Again, such reflection on life in the light of faith findsGod's presence everywhere awesome and mysterious, yet beautifully attractive. As the figure of Wisdom is now personified it might be dismissed as yet another imperfect image, a crutch to lean on when looking for God's presence in the mystifying world. But surely there is no need nor is it intended to imagine anything at all. This is no television commercial with a female figure ,cavorting across the screen advertising some product. The insight given by Wisdom and remember, following Abraham Heschel, that insight is to see for the first time--is so much richer and nuanced and is to be understood on another plane: Insight not eyesight, and imagination is wanted now, to see beyond and above the imagery. The gift of Wisdom is meant to give just this taste for and insight into the presence of God in every aspect of reality. God is there in every moment eager to make his presence known. Having "pitched" his tent among us, his presence is such that once tasted one can only "hunger for more." Obviously:for the Christian this. speaks of Christ in every line, particu. larly as Paul and John present him, but, traditionally this was seen too in the person of Our Lady of Wisdom. Such Wisdom writings were to be found in the liturgy of her feasts. The personified figure of Wisdom was seen in'her, and as expressed in the liturgy, the faithful were invited to delight in her as a. supreme expression of God's presence among us. Cen-turies of meditation on the Wisdom writings instinctively suggested Our Lady. It was a delightful, pleasant, accessible world combining the world of transcendence with the encouraging familiarity of a faithful mother. God's presence as reflected in her indicated that potentially there were no heights we could not scale even though our insight was at best imperfect. It was a lovely atmosphere she brought with her as she was seen among us as one of us, rejoicing in God her Savior (Lk 1:47), and we with her. Few would deny that that is less so now. The atmosphere has changed. In Catholic liturgical, literary and devotional life the lovely, wondering, ever reiidy to be surprised insight of an earlier time seems to have been replaced by the prim, puritan regimentation of an old-fashioned school-room. Instead of an ever-deepening insight needing all the resources of Wisdom literature to try and express what was felt and experienced, today one has the impression that not afew of our pastors, teachers and cate- Our Lady of Wisdom / 325 chists who occupy the commanding heights and lower slopes of everyday teaching in the Church, have seen Mary once--and seen her "plain." They might have come ashore from The Mayflower yesterday. The approach to Our Lady today reeks of the catechical-center and schoolroom. It is all reminiscent of a certain type of teacher so accurately sketched by Charles Dickens, who asked a girl who had spent her young life with horses and knew and loved them, to describe one. She was incapable of coming up with the only answer he would accept: "Quadruped. Gramini-vorous. Forty teeth~ namely twenty-four grinders, four eyeteeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in the spring . Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with iron. Age known by marks' in mouth. Thus (and much more).''~ How many of those who flock each year to the Kentucky Derby would recog-nize that either? Though the teacher is perhaps overdrawn, it does not mean that the point is overplayed. The issue was real and perhaps still is. To present Our Lady chiefly in terms of Model Christian or Model of Believers is not wrong but deadens a relationship. To speak of anyone in such categories isolates them from the rest' of us. Models automatically distance themselves. They are to be looked up to, rarely made part of oneself. To speak principally of Our Lady in such terms is to put her on a pedestal in a most damaging way: apart from, static, of yesterday rather than today; whereas traditionally within the Catholic community she was of God and of us, truly a present inspiration as we delighted in her com-pany. So Mary, Model of the Church, while true, is of the classroom not of life. It is, too, not unfair to remark that when she is spoken of as "Woman of~Faith" or "Model of Believers," this carries strong overtones of the contemporary defeatism wherein faith, before it can~be reckoned as authentic, is laced with a strong solution of doubt. None really sees, so the best that can be done is to pool. insecurities, as even the best of us are in the dark. Our Lady, by association, is correspondingly diminished. Yet faith in biblical terms was never the vague hope that Someone might be there to make sense of life in an at times frighteningly puzzling world. Rather was it the bedrock assurance that God is there and we are real to him, even though often unfelt and unknown by us. Trust, therefore, is at the heart of the biblical reality, and on this the Jewish and Christian communities were built. The best of both communities enfleshed it. Our Lady too embodied the prophetic vocation, helping us in the task .of realizing that ~we live in the universe of His [God's] knowing, in the glory of attachment" (Jr 1:5).~ So the community enjoyed her company, welcomed her and delighted to hear anyone speak well of her. She could appeal to anyone, whether from the cachot of Bernadette, the countryside ~126 / ReviewJ'or Religious, May-June, 1986 of Catherine, :or the middle-class household of Th6r~se. Today the colors are subdued, a pale reflection of what they once were. The use of the 'W, isdom writings to express what was felt about her has given way to such warmth as there is to a winter's sunlight. Now she is almost exclusively spoken of as "Mary," and one cannot help feeling that much has been lost in the contemporary would-be organized Church that was freely available to everyone in an earlier, possibly more untidy home. The wonder of insight is missing. ~.It is, of course, explained that one owes it to non,Catholics to be careful in the way we speak of/to her. This is true. Yet it should be recognized that there are real differences between .us both in faith and atmosphere, stemming from faith as a way of life not an academic code. The ethos of the evangelical Protestant, for example, is not easily expressed in terms of Greek Orthodoxy's devotional life. Both are valid traditions, but they are undeniably different. Yet if one has the good fortune of belonging to The Ecumenical Society of.the Blessed Virgin Mary it may prove a revelation to see and hear how easily Christians of every denomi-nation speak of her. I, too, very much value the invitation given me some years ago to belong to the Methodist Preachers' Fellowship, and find within its integrity, respect and support that it is possible to speak of Our Lady. (The Methodist Neville Ward, it will be remembered, wrote in Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy, a very fine book on the rosary). It is "megaphor~e diplomacy"---publicly shouting at one another--tliat is to be feared, not in expressing how one genuinely bdieves and lives within a context of respect and understanding: I wasat a Protestant school until I was twelve and have,the highest regard .for what I was taught there, The local minister would drive us in his car to Mass, unasked, on really_wet wintry Sundays--and he later became moderator of the Church of Scot-land. So perhaps I may claim first-hand experience of the Protestant ethos and .am far from unsympathetic to it. It is a strange paradox.that while the eighth chapter of Lumen Gentium and the later Marialis Cultus, to say nothing of the present Holy Father, express a recognizably Catholic feeling and continuity, so unlike much of current teaching and. devotional life, somehow there has been a break from what once was, and the person of Our Lady has been almost lost in the concept. To see Our Lady then reflected in the feminine figure of Wisdom is to see in her a transparent reflection of the transcendence and immanence of God's presence, She is n6where and she is everywhere. This may puzzle some who consider in so broadening her significance that it may somehow Our Lady of Wisdom / 327 lessen her value in the'community. This might be so if she is seen as just. one specific piece on the chessboard, somehow .to be welded into aft'overall strategy. But the reality of theoChurch, of course, is of a community created and indwelt by the Spirit of the living God. It is a living organism in which we each relate to'one another in 12hrist through grace-enlightened knowl-edge and love. Our Lady; supremely orie with the will of God, is therefore an influential channel of ttiat life: "And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the babe leaped .in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy. Spirit" (Ek 1:41). Seen in this light; therefore, coming from the heart of the Christian community, she is never an inquisitive aunt, obtrusive neighbor nor cling-ing friend. Nor is she a static figure with. her own particular niche in the wall, to be referred to now and agai'n. As th6 lovely feminine figure of Wisdom Owing more to insight than eyesight or imagination is lost in the wonder of what she suggests, so too Our Lady. Sowhen G. M. Hopkins in a well-known poem comparing her to the air we breathe, spoke to her as, World-mothering air. a'ir wild . Fold home. fast hold th3~i'child. he is talking of life and limitless freedor~ not limitation. He is not-advocat-ing a stranglehold distancing one from God, caught up in Mary's apron strings in'a state of permanent adolescence. Rather does she, as ~lid Wis-dom, mediate the presence of God that perhaps has to be experienced to be understood. The traditional prayer, "Virgo respice, Mater, adspice, audi nos, O Maria. " perhaps.puts it at its simplest. One scarcely needs a translation to feel that prayer convincingly suggesting on her part atten-tion, anticipation, concern, fellow feeling, x+hich, while relishing her company, is at the same time an act of faiih in the underlying reality that "He who is mighty has done great things for me. and holy is his name"(Lk 1:49). Gift of The Spirit Perhaps the °point may~be further underlined by considering God's presence as expressed in the experience of Spirit,, A thesaurus could find many words to 'express it life, breath, wind describing an intangible reaiity. As an expression-of God's presence it indicates that it can be experienced everywhere but never held. The Spirit of God brought this universe into being, and the: same creative Spirit was responsible for the existence of the community of Israel, inspiring within it particular individ-uals to, perceive the presence and guidance of God~ So "God would speak with Moses face to face, as a man ~peaks to his 'friend" (Ex 33:11). As a result of this intimacy he was instrumental in helping to build the commun- ~121~ / Review for Religious, May-June, 1986 ity. Similarly, on receiving the prophetic spirit, "Elijah arose like a fire his word flaming like a torch" (Si.48:1), empowering.,him almost single-handed to hold ca'fly Israel together against colossal! odds. This influence of the Spirit of God suggests that a man is taken out of himself, often despite himself. As Amos, probably the first of the writing prophets, put it: "The lion roars: who can help feeling afraid? The Lord God, speaks: who can refuse to prophesy?" (Am 3:8). Enlightened by the Spirit of God .withinthe community of Israel, such people were given such insightSnto their own age that in the name of God they felt compelled to speak and act. The eyesight of most of their contemporaries was blind to what their God-given insight enabled them to see in a world illumined by~ God's spirit. As the Spirit of God dwelt within the heart-,of Israel so no less emphati-cally says St.~-Paul. was the Spirit present within the Christian cgmmunity. As God was present in the Holy of Holies of the Jerusalem temple so Paul tried to open the eyes of the Corinthians to the° wonder of his presence among .them: "Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you. God's temple is holy, and that temple you are" (1 Co 3:16-17). God present among s~uch people individually and collectively points the wonder of it all in view of who they we?e: "not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful., of noble birth" (I Co 1:26). Nondescript, marginal people for ~he most part--as was said of the unfortunate boxer. '~not even a household name in his own house'--God evidently "chose what is foolish . . . weak . . . low and despised" (I Co 27-28). Enlightened by the wisdom and Spirit of God as a member of that community, Paul does not apologize for its surface crudi-ties as his insight enables him to see within to the Spirit's indwelling presence. It is a creation of God, and like all his gifts "can only be under-stood by means of the Spirit" (1 Co 2:14). Reflecting long and often as he must have done on what was being created in and around himself, Paul comes to see that "the Spirit reaches the depths of everything, even the depths of God . . . Now. " . fie have received the Spirit that comes from God, to teach us to understand the gifts that he has given us" (1 Co 2:10-12). This is a phenomenal insight as Paul wrestles with the almost inexplicable to aid the Corinthians' self-under-standing. Their lives are radically touched and empowered by God, mo~Jing from the depths of his Spirit to theirs. Meaning little to others in view of their lack of status, they mean everything to God. And it was this same Spirit. which enabled Paul never to be quite beaten by the constant bread and butter inconsistencies, and. to see the reality beneath._ It is all, Paul reflects,, ~eminiscent of the wisdom of God which so often seems to stand logic on its head. lts linchpin is the crucified and risen Christ "whom God Our Lady of Wisdom / 329 made our wisdom" (1 Co 1:30) in the face of a disbelieving world. Such insight~does not come from the schoolroom or marketplace. It is a gift from God enabling "those'who are called. [to see] Christ thepbwer of God and the~visdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men" (I Co 1:24-25). This same pattern is true of Our Lady. She is to be understood ihen from within the community. An ostensibly nondescript person from unre-markable Nazareth if one considers the circumstances of her calling, yet the inner reality can only be gauged insofar as one is given to see what is meant when "The Holy Spirit will come upon 'you, and the power of the Most Highs:will 6ve'rshadow you" (Lk 1:35-36). The creative spirit of God which once brought this universe'into existence, now through her willing co6per-ation (see Lk'l:38), brings to birth a new creation in her Son. Such is the effect of the Spirit's power and presence that "the child to b~ born will be called holy, the Son of God" (Lk 1:35). This is the defining feature of her life: Mother and Son are inseparably linked. One with him at birth, home and crucifixion, she is found within the early Christian community pray-ing. So it has been for centuries as she ~is seen among us preeminently lovable and faithful, empowered by wisdom and the Spirit. The Christian community has responded accordingly, as in every nation under heaven all generations have called her blessed (see Lk 1:48). Today in much contemporary .teaching and practice, the brush appears to have been put back behind the door. It is not without significance that this has happened at a time when the values of the numinous, transcend-ence, silence and worship are under severe pressure. Mainstream liturgy, teaching and devotion have virtually nothing to say of the contemplative. Such a need is fostered from the edge, not the center. When influential numbers of our pastors, teachers and opinion-formers generally, seem to lack any obvious feeling for the contemplative, it may beno surprise that they display or encourage little warmth for Our Lady, Seat of Wisdom. ~Vhen meaning has to be on the surface and immediately comprehended, it is perhaps inevitable that so rich and varied traditions of the Church, not least as regards Our Lady, have given way to a subdued monochrome world. : Let Your Gaze Become My Prayer Perhaps all of this may be finally summarized in a few lines from a prayer of St. Anselmto St. John the Evangelist, asking for the love of God: "Ifthen, sir, your gaze has more good in it than my prayer has devotion, let your gaze become my prayer."5 This is a very fine expression of the role of Our Lady, the saints and our fellow-Christians in the Church, one person 331~ / Review for Religious, May-June, 1986 in Christ. with ourselves (see Ga. 3:25-28). The individual Anselm asks the aid of the evangelist .John, whom he sees in faith to be now wholly caught up in G6d:.So he asks th~it his own self in his prayer be taken up into sharing what St, John sees. °He speaks to John but looks beyond him following the evangelist's gaze. Love has been described as two people looking in the same direction. What they see draws them togetherenabling them to live as one in a new reality. This we have here. Anselm's prayer is felt to be inferior to John's vision so he asks that "your gaze become my prayer." This, inthe main, is what is meant by Our Lady's patronage. Filled from her conception with the ~,isdom and Spirit of God in vieW of her voc~ition as Mother of God, her whole being reflects the Orie who has mad~ her who she is as she rejoices in God her Savior (see Lk 1:47)i One person in Christ with her, the Christian; and anyone genuinely.asking her he!.p._;'_w.a.n._t.s_t_.o~be taken into her being and held by what she sees "Let your gaze become my prayer." So easy to relate to, inviting, the individual to come in his or her own way, her life is givenomeaning by her Unflinching attachment to the will of God in good days and bad. Such a person is no obstacle between us and God if her gaze becomes our prayer, as the words and images drop away before the holiness of God. One can, of course, with the apophatic tradition, which maintains that it is impossible to say anything of God other than that he is, try to put everything that is not God into a "cloud .of forgetting" leaving only a naked intent for God. So our Lord, sacraments, Our Lady, Scripture, saints--:-~ everything must go. "If you see the Buddha kill him." Well yes, but even the Engiish mystic who expressed this so supremely well, giving as the bottom line between oneself and God, "Worship God with all you have got. All-that- you-are-as,you-are worshipping ail-that-he-is-as-he-is," has his reality first defined in Christ, and must recognize therefore that "it is God for his own loving purpose who puts both. the will and the action into you" (Ph 2:13):6 Whether he adverts to it or not, the ontological reality underpinning his:every movement and prayer is Christ in whom "all things were created. :. He isb(fore all things and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the Church,' (Col. 1:16-18). Reality is thus held in the overarching Christ who reconciled us to God by "making peace by the blood of his cross., by his death" (Col 1:20-22): Blood and death together are irrevocable, costly and messy (so much so that the sensitivities of the Jerusalem Bible translators cause them to omit "blobd"), ~butit was precisely in Christ's crucifixion and resurrection that he can now "present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him [God]"(Col 1:22)? We are unforgettably marked with the sign of the cross, In Christ, therefore, is found 'the very oxygen enabling us to breathe the air Our Lady of Wisdom/~ 331 of God. One admires the climber attempting Everest, but one knows that he could not set foot on the lower slopes, far less reach the summit without-oxygen. It is never seen but it is always there, and in Christ we are sup-ported by a whole ~loud of ~vitnesses, prophets, apostles, saints among whom is preeminently the Mother of God. They interact with us in Christ in every moment of every day whether we are conscious of it or not. There is no need of mental images of Paul, Our Lady, or even Christ himself. Attachment to Our Lady in this context should not be seefi as a limiting form of prayer. To see her so is possibly to have a fixed, static view of Christian reality not unlike the wooden, materialist outlook of popular nineteenth-century science. The truth of science as glimpsed today is so wonderful and mobil~ that much of it cannot even be imagined, yet its beauty clearly enthralls many, light years away from the earlier approach. Immaturity ~s the problem. We are, for the most part, too pedestrian. But in this lies our salvation. Everyone in Christ is for us. It may be a sign of the times that in an .age full of self-assertion we find it hard to believe that anyone can be self-effacing. But the GOspel reality is just that, "For all things are yours." whether Paul, Bernadette, Catherine, Th~rEse or Mary, "or the world or life or death or the present or the future, all are yours; and you are Christ's; and Christ is God's" (1 Co 3:21-23). We are, perhaps most of us, infants in Christ, with at best an.imperfect, grasp of God loving us i.n Christ, unable without wisdom and the Spirit to see the simplicity of ,Paul's insight, holding all of reality in the present moment in-Christ. But we know the claim that the child has on Christ. And in this above all, surely he is at one with his mother. NOTES tMaisie Ward, Return to Chesterton, Sheed and Ward, 1952, p. 34. 2A. Heschel, The Prophets Vol. 1, Harper and Row, 1971, p.x6. 3C. Dickens, Hard Times, Chap. 2. 4A. Heschel, op. cit. Vol. 2, p. 267. 5B. Ward, The Prayqrs and Meditations of St. Anselrn--Pfayer to St. John the Evan- 'gelist (2), Penguin, 1975. ~ 6C. Woltors, The Cloud of Unknowing and Other Works and The Epistle of Privy Counsel, chap. 4, Penguin, 1978 . 7C. A. Anderson Scott's plausible observation with regard to St. Paul in general is instructive: "The allusion to the blood of Christ, here (Rm 3:25) as in other passages~in Paul, is probably connected with.the overwhelming impression which Paul had received as a spectator of the Crucifixion." Footnotes to St'. Paul (CUP, 1935): Personality, and Religious Adjustments in Older Candidates Matthias Neuman, OS.B. Father Neuman, well known to our readers, whose latest contribution, "The Holiness of Saint Francis: Spiritual Vision and' Lived Suffering,, ~appeared in the issue of September/October, 1985, contin'u6s to teach at Saint Meinrad Seminary; Saint Mein-rad, lndiana :47577. For the past four years my primary occupation has involved directing the pre,theology program in our s.,eminary. This special year-long program ffims to prepare a certai:n group of young men for entrance into a regular course of theological studies for priesthood. These are candidates who already possess their college degrees but who have had no course work in philosophy or theology--or any exposure to a regular spiritual formation program, The very existence of college-graduate or pre-theology years in seminaries bears witness to a significant shift in recent vocational patterns. Fifteen years ago my first-year theology course would have had one or two "older" individuals; they were routinely mixed in with the students who had graduated from various college seminaries. In a decade and a half those one or two have swollen to better than half the first-year classes in many theologates around the United States. This means that a significant portion of today's priesthood candidates are waiting to "test" their possible ~voca-tions until after the college years and after some significant work and societal experience, A similar phenomenon appears among applicants for religious orders of women and men. Almost any meeting of formation personnel deals with some issue or problem concerning "older vocations." Indeed it is not uncommon for a formatiOn directress to be younger than several, of her charges. 332 Adjustments in Older Candidales / 333 While many observers applaud this shift in vocational process, and both priestly and religious recruiters have begun to plot ways of casting their nets in these newly-discover6d waters, the formidable challenges of providing a solid and effective regimen of formation should not be glosse~l over quickly. These men and women come to seminaries and religious houses at a considerably different stage in life than do graduates right out of high school or college. It will not suffice to merel~ ~transfer previous spiritual, academic and social formational methods to ~this new wave, for they bring quite different problematics for spiritual formation, academic programs and general adjustment to religious institutional life. The first year of formation in particular needs to pay.close attention to: l) the backgrounds of these people, 2) the life transitions they are experiencing, and 3) the adjustment problems they will most likely encounter. The first three sections of this article ~ill address these topics in more detail,~and the concluding section will offer some suggestions for helping the candidates themselves to manage this initial transition period more effectively. Backgrounds The ages of these older vocations may range from the mid-twenties to the mid-seventies. (Several were even ordained irf their 80s!) However the bulk of such callings has been in the 25-45 age bracket and I will focus most of my comments on that group. *~- ' 0 Perhaps the first major item format.ion personnel should~-~recognize is that these people-~'even at age twenty-five generally possess a somewhat. solidified personality structure. This doesn't necessarily imply that their personality structures are well-shaped oreven healthy, but simply that they have been hardened to an extent by the pressures of work, societal survival and recreational interactions. Educational research has tended to show that the first two years after college exert, a significant hardening, and even. a temporary halt, to attitudinal and conceptual growth. This can be seen as a natural result of mov~ngfrom the more fluid world of college into a societal context where work-pressures demand a~more fixed cast to one's goals, plans and attitudes. Thus, these individuals differ from the far more malleable candidates trained in the seminary or academy systems of years past. Even though they are obviously considering a major career shift by investigating a priest-ly or religious calling, they usually retain a good deal of .their solidified personality structure. They may not-even be aware of how habitual they have become in. patterns 9f relationship, daily routines and general atti-tudes. Those who have lived alone for even two or three years have devel-oped private habits of socializing and personal recreation which mayclash 3~14 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1986 strongly with the regular demands of community living. These st~rongly formed !ife-patterns also emerge in the realm of spiritu-ality,. It is not unusual for these men and women to have already expe-rienced in a variety of ways a verY powerful presence of Godin their lives, a Eresence that has been both sustaining and nourishing, a divine presence that has been greatly responsible for calling them to a switch of life-tasks. Many older candidates attest to some kind of "conversion experience" that brought them to this new way .of life even if they had been "possibly considering it." for years. This conversion experience and presen~c.e of God usually has shaped.their personal .spiritualities to a great extent. In particu-lar, the styl~es o.f prayer they favor are generally associated.with the qualities of that particular presence of God, e.g., God in nature~and an individual mystical prayer, God° in a conversion from sinfulness and a prayer of penance, God in~ .familial tradition and a structured devotional prayer. Without. being reflectively aware of it,osuch reasong have usually con-jured up an image of either priesthood or religious life that is primarily an intensification of their personal spirituality. (For example, one young man, age 30, who was converted by his reading of the New Testament~defined the primary task of the priest as teaching the Bible to people.) A formation direct_or may find these candidates to have imperceptibly meshed together~a particular style of prayer, a favored presence of God, and an implicit image of priesthood or religious life. The tight interweaving, of these factors .can cause average to severe problems in the adjustment to a formation pro-gram; the tampering with one item (e.g., teaching different prayer styles or a v.ariant image of religious life) may be perceived by candidates as a threat to the spiritual background and religious experience that gave them their new spiritual impulse. Perhaps the most-common example of the above dynamic occurs in trying to instill a sense of the value and importance of common prayer. Few of my priesthood candidates come with much appreciation or experience of the Liturgy of the Hours. Living as individuals in society, they have usually forged strong patterns of private prayer. Introducing them into the common morning and evening prayer of the semin.a.ry occasions a crisis for some each year. Common prayer does not,meet their "personal needS"; it co~mpetes with private prayer; their former sense of closeness to God gets worn away. Some begin to feel very hostile toward the seminary for ruining their intimacy ,with God:and thus threatening their vocation. It will have to be a sensitive formation program that can "deconstruct" a. person's reli-gious background, i.e. break it into its compon.ent parts, so that the indi-vidual may assimilate'in a healthy~way.the spiritual components of a sound priestly, or religious-order spirituality. Adjustments in Older Candidates 335 People who have worked for even a few years at a competitive job in the societal labor force will accumulate some, highly fixed patterns of routine daily life. The schedule of most jobs mandates some regularity. Daily and weekly habits of work, r~creation and friendships give rise to a network of personal supports that soften the challenges of life. These supports, or "strokes" in the recent psychological lingo~ help to carry a person°through ~the down times of regtilar living. Similarly persons who in an-intefise occupational setting, such as a social case worker, personnel rfianag~r or teacher, may have silently linked part of their adult identity to these supports. - One of the standard planks for a personal identity is the positive affir-mation we receive from the,. significant individuals in our lives (family, friends, mrntors, students).We call on this affirmation regularly~if the pressures ~of our job consistently erode bur well-being and identity. The entranize into a seminary or religious house removes persons from both the comforts of their habitual routines and the necessary strokes of signifi-cant others. This abse~ce may give rise'to a profound gense of loneliness or even abandonment. Perirds of confusion and depression soon compliote matters even more. An insightful formation program needs to be con-stantly alert to these possibilities, and d~velop ways of ?egularly informing and assisting candidates to understand and' process these and similar experiences. A report from a meeting of Midwest seminary rectors in 1981 summa~i"- ized nicely a g,bbd numbef of additional background issues which these priestly candidates bring to the seminary (and religious life). ,. Experience indicates that the can~didate who has made applicatipn for theology school without previous seminary experience possesses all or some of tile following characteristics: he has little or~' no experiefice, in community living; he has not had or.has had little experience of spiritual direction and is concerned about his ability to use the direction offered him; he perceives' himself as very much an outsider in the seminary com-munity; he is unfamiliar with the special language employed both in the professional life of the seminary, e.g., academics and liturgical practice, as well as commufiity living experiences; often he is a man of practical expe-rience. with varying ability to deal with issues on a speculative level; if he is older, he might well have an exaggerated sense of his age; he is more conservative in his spirituality particularly if a recent "conversion expe-rience" has led him to ~hear the call to priesthood; he has high anxiety conceriaing the de~cision which he has recently made to enter the seminary.1 Although much more could be said about background, I will limit my observations to the preceding comments. Formation personnel should 356 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1986 remember that these older candidates may be more mature and worldly-wise than ~th0se fresh .o~ut of college: but they bring their ~unique bevy of problems with them. Many of these difficulties are frequently connected to a hardened personal and religi6us identity and the unconscious manner in which various factors get meshed (e.g., prayer style, validity of conversion, and expectations). Frequently these problems boil to the surface when candidates get fitted into the regulated worlds of the ~eminary or religious community. (NB. Seminaries and religious houses may ~be psychologically highly regulated even without minute daily schedules. Long periods of the day may be free and unstructured, but those hours are also 7"filled" .with pow.erful academic, ministerial and spiritual expectations. Such a day is regulat.ed not by schedule but by official expectation.) None of the above.problems should be considered insoluble. In my experience the great majority of candidates can successfully negotiate these personal and religious challenges. But the formation program as such needs to positively assist.,these men and women to identify accurately what is happening in their lives. These transitional adjustments are not usually vocational crises, and sudden hostility toward the seminary, religious community or individual superior is not always a problem with authority. To understand what is happening emotionally a clear presentation to them of the range of personal transition going on needs to be conveyed. Multiple Transitions As the previous section mentioned, a young man or woman coming to seminary or religious community after several years of work and societal experience will confront a variety of transitions. Usually the candidates are somewhat aware and a bit apprehensive about the challenges ahead and they are ~bgnizant Of what they have "given up." Howeverl up6~ arrival at their new place of r~sidence they can be overwhelmed with the thrill of a new religious start.Having left the world where one struggled to survive religiously in a secular and cynical culture, they begome exhilarated in the environment of a supportive, like-minded community. Even the most dis, tant hopes of spirituality and ministry suddenly seem possible. (Every year each new group ,of candidates within .the first two weeks wants to add even ¯ more prayer services to the school's. Eucharist, morning rand evening prayer.) Thus the man~, transitions of life get forgotten ina tidal wave of religious fervor, but the transitions are still going on silently and relent-lessly. In time they frequently turn that tidal wave into a scorched desert of barren feeling. The transitions' are frequently more complicated and subtle than the Candidate realizes. The first transition is the move from a secular world Adjustments in Older Candidates / 337 with its pockets of popular religiosity into an encompassing ecclesiastical religious world. In the former situation faith and religious practice have served as powerful, value-laden forces ttiat supported, protected and nour-ished the individual; in the latter situation religious practice is :a constant, pervading element of almost every waking activity. An ecclesiastical reli-gious world often fails to separate the trivial and the important, the special and the ordinary, the cynical and the solemn. It's religion twenty'four hours a day! One ~young man said, "I've talked more God-talk in the last six months than in my previous twenty~six years combined. It's blowing my mind!" This religious overload takes its toll on the psychic system: the young man or woman may begin to feel he or she has lost that "something special" which faith provided. When all'is religious, nothing is religious! They may become distressed by their first in-close dealings with religious practices that are, routine, cynical and sometimes blatantly hypocritical. Their inexperience at differentiating motives and practices within a total ecclesiastical world can make them feel that the only way out is global rejection. The formation program needs to regularly help the candidates express and process their feelings towards the total religious community. Individuals obviously vary, but my students generally show signs in three weeks to a month of inner turmoil over their newfound ecclesiastical world. ,The transition to an ecclesiastical world will slowly induce other nega-tive ramifications. Young ,adult candidates begin the initial year with an amount of confidence they have built up in maintaining their faith com-mitment against diverse social presst]res. It is not unusual for some to have had to justify their vocational change to family, friends and coworkers; repeated justifications build in them a certain sense of well-being about their commitment. Other people publicly acknowledge them to be more religiously oriented for going to a seminary or convent. But upon entering the total ecclesiastical world, they soon perceive themselves as complete novices in more.ways than~one, They listen to conversations or classes filled with" church jargon and they soon judge themselves to know practically nothing about faith or religion. Liturgical customs befuddle them and they are embarrassed to ask names of objects, vestments or devotions that ¯ everyone else seems to know"intimately. Three months ago they were explaining many aspects of the Catholic faith to' coworkers; now they can easily perceive themselves as religiously dumb or incompetent. This partic-ular transition may contribute to their conservative stance, which is really a means of salvaging some vestige of religious dignity from their past. This transition, likeo all of them, can be jolting, but it can also be worked through. ~i31~ / Review for Religious, May-June, 1986 Another key transition is the movement from one fixed social setting to another. Seminaries and religious communities tend to be enclosed, regu-lated societies (by laws or general expectations or both). Daily schedules and societal routines, such as meals, common prayers and social relation-ships can be vastly different from the social style that older candidates have become accustomed to. The-predominance,of same-sex relationships causes real hardships to some; the absence of children or family settings may be bothersome; the lack of free, unstructured evenings or weekends or the lack of a car and its freedom disrupt.the previous.ways that individuals had dissipated tension. That tension now accumulates and begins to boil within. ¯ I have found that on6 of the largest and most troubling transitions for young adults is the entrance into a trainin.g'program where theend is preparation for a. public role, along with the public evaluation that role requires. The priesthood as public leadership in the Chtirch and the eccle-sial witness of a religious community both demand evaluations of, persons seeking to enter those positions. Many older candidates have never thought of their religious pursuit through this lens,~-having confined their religious practice to a predominantly interior, individual and privatized realm (as is the fashion ofmost religious practice in the United States).2 The communal environment of seminaries and religious communities is saturated by the air of evaluation. Evaluation procedures are everywhere in current practice: academic, personal, spiritual, and so forth. All individuals must evaluate themselves (and others).on an annual basis. Each priesthood candidate will undergo an overall evaluation by faculty, and formation personnel on such matters as intellectual competence, social skills, pastoral abilities and spiritual growth. Externalization of what has often been a highly privatized religious realm can be terribly upsetting for the young adult. Some simply cannot see that,such matters should be evaluated publicly; the intense individualism of their religious background and expe-riences reacts strongly. Others become oversensitized, fearful. They worry about expulsion for unknown: reasons or accusation .by some Grand Inquisitor. Still others .may become hesitant because they°'fail to separate the realm of public behavior and standards from interior faith and direc-tion. A criticism about their lack of social abilities~can be "understood" as a criticism about °the integrity of theif~faith. A good. formation program should work with candidates to help them both understand and interiorize the meaning and demands of assuming a public leadership role, or the public demands of community~belonging. One young man said, "I just don't ~want to. be ste.reotyped~." I responded. "Sorry, it comes with the job." Many of these young adults who grew up in Adjustments in Older Candidates / 339 the age when traditional Catholic distinctions had slipped into shadows do not know the distinctions between "internal" and "external" forum. This must be carefully spelled out, and repeated from time to time. Even with all this, the appreciation of what a public religious leadership role demands does not occur without prayer, struggle and guidance through spiritual direction. The appreciation and interiorization of a public religious respon-sibility (beyond that of a private, personal spirituality) possesses all the elements of a significant conversion experience in life.~ To truly recognize the priestly ministry or the vowed religious life as constituting an ecclesial figureis also to accept thgse lifestyles as embodying~a responsibility to the whole Catholic world and Catholic tradition; this reaches considerably beyond a personal arid private" religious obligation. It requires an accep-tance and interiorization of public behavior, skills and attitudes which relate as much to the community of the Church as to my personal relatiom ship with God. Life transitions do pile up on the young adult who arrives at a seminary or religious community and seeks to discern a prssible calling to priest-hood or vowed life. We have considered several of the major ones: into an encompassing ecclesiastical world, from one fixed social setting into a quite different one, arid into a ~climate of higlfiaiablic evaluation. The anxieties generated by these transitioris can become severe, as the rii~xt section will show. For the l~resent fie simply need to note them and recognize that a Victic of directly addressing these transitions needs ~to be a constant com-ponent of both the formational and spiritual-direction program for these young adults. The Trauma of Transition For more than a decade the Alban Institute in Washington, D.C.I has studied the dynamics of "transition technology" in ministerial situations (e.g. from seminary to par!sh; from associate to pastor,,from one parish to another)) Leaders of the°institute recognized that those occasions when a person moves from one "known" social setting into a new and relatively unknown social setting constitute some of the most ~vulnerable periods in an individual's life. Although many organized-church traditions have fre-q uently moved, individuals from place to place as a matter of policy, little has been.done to help them make effective transitions to their new ministry or enable them to manage the sometimes severe traumas which may occur. (Th'e "grace of obedience"~was thought to effect the desired rebalancing:) The research of the Alban Institute has shown tl~at beginmngs in a pastoral situation are important; that the first months of adjustment frequently determine one's long-range adaptation and effectiveness in a new setting. 340/ Review for Religious, May-June, 1986 (In fact, more and more dioceses and religious houses are coming, to recognize the incredible influence of the first full-time placement.) Much of this research on transition technology becomes extremely relevant to young adults entering seminaries and religious communities for the first time. My particular seminary program deals with about thirty youngmen a year. l.would say it is.common for better than half of each group to feel some uncomfortableness over the transitions the$, experience. Their dis-comfiture may range from mild annoyance to severe personal upheaval. It is not unusual for an enthusiasm of the first weeks to slowly diminish and give wayto a growing diso'rientation. Some begin to.worry that they made a mistake, and the seminary .becomes a fearsome, t~rapping situation because their previous job has.been discontinued and their housing sold or leased. Others just ask over and over, "Why am 1 here?" and can't seem to find a satigfactory answer. A few may worry that their entire faith is crumbling; they can't explain sudden doubts which appeared where only months before there was absolute conviction. This time of doubt and dejection is frequently accompanied~by physical symptoms. Nagging illnesses like colds or upset stomachs pop up; physical weariness becomes the order of the day. Changes in bowel habits or sleep-lessness can increase anxiety. A transition experience cuts across all dimen-sions of life: physical, psychological, social and spiritual. We must understand the effects of social transitions on all these human areas,,and be ready to help people negotiate them. Psychologically, in a period of transition, by definition a young adult coming from secular societal life to the seminary or religious community, his or her daily patterns of life have all been removed, and new patterns do not immediately emerge. In certain aspects these individuals are like.immi-grants, slowly searching and experimenting for new roots. This time change may cause strong internal feelings to erupt. Some individuals Who previously held positions of authority and responsibility in the societal work force now feel the disorientation and worthlessness that lack of authority and status may bring. And there is no work or service in their new life to compensate. The sudden displacement of responsibilit.y may spark feelings of worthlessness or humiliation. (~Karl Marx had a valid insight in saying that a good deal of our personal identity comes from the socially significant work we do.) Lastly, the h~avy outpouring of psychic energy that goes with meeting new people, places and routines day after day leaves everyone tired and feeling a bit drained, and that weariness usually compounds the other negative feelings. This trauma of transition is not unusual, neither is it .a test that will, Adjustments in Older Candidates / 341 necessarily overwhelm a certain percentage of candidates. If these persons understand the probability of its occurrence at some time ~n their first year, do some preparation, and know some techniques of personal management, they are~able to handle it with a modicum of discomfort. One last point.should be watched: there it a quite normal dynamism of expectation which may w6rk havoc in situations of transitions, and I have frequently noticed it in pre-theology candidates. These young men often come from societal settings where they have been able to exercise some Christian service and engage in personal spirituality projects on a limited scale (perhaps in a parish volunteer setting or a Christian social-action group). When they enter the seminary and begin formal preparation for priesthood, their expectations escalate and they "assume" an immediate increase in Christian serviceand spirituality practices. But with full-time classes and school activities they are soon doing less actual ministry than before, and their personal prayer gets mixed up by the communal obliga-tions mentioned before.4 Psychologically their expectations are "gunning" the spiritual motor, so to speak, but socially they are in Park, and they find that they are grinding themselves down. This dynamic needs to be watched and worked with by formation personnel and spiritual directors. Older candidates need to formulate sl6~vly and patiently a "plan of identification" just as the Alban lfistitute counsels new ministers to work gradually towards formulating a plan of ministry for their new pastoral assignment.5 Just as six months is a recommended period of grace bef6re initiating parish changes, it is p]-obably a reasonable time-allotment for new-candi-dates before they attempt to assess (and escalate) any personal expectations they place o'n themselves. Suggestions for Personal and Spiritual Management The perception that older priesthood and religious candidates require qualitatively different kinds of formation programs is an ,idea that has already taken deep root among vocation and formation personnel. Signifi-cant strides have been made in many areas like course instruction and communityqiviiag requirements. I fiaerely hope to add a bit to this growing body of knowledge b~ suggesting some tactics and strategies to assist these individuals working through their initial adjustment or transition phase. These comments are more often applicable within the first six months of entry into seminary or religious community. The first strategy, in the line of preventive medicine, is quite simply knowledge, an awareness that some transition-anxiety will probably occur no matter how fine and enthusiastic the first weeks may be. There will undoubtedly be a great diversity in how individuals manage transitions; for ~149 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1986 some the adjustments may be slight, but few will have no problems what-ever. Simply to have in one's awareness a basic grasp of the multiple transitions, and how these transitions produce p~rsonal stress will provide guidelines for interpretation and action. To diagnose a difficulty ~icc.urately. is the first essential task in any kind of counseling. In this instance it may offset the further anxiety that can result if the young persgn feel.s that his or her vocation or faith is disintegrating. A second level o.f strategy would articulate a set of tactics that °might assist the young adult inthe midst of transition stresses to cope with these pressures. These tactics are similar to managing any "survival situation.TM They can be briefly summarized: 1) Lowe.rpqrsonal expectations. Instead of escalating their demands upon themselves to pray more fervently, work harder and do more service to others,, efforts should be made to cut back on these eoxpectations temporarily. The key here is to conserve physical and psychological energy for the tasks of psychic self-preservation. These indi-viduals are already operating at a reduced, energy level (due to the drain that social transitions exert), and there is no way they can successfully meet escalatedexpectations. Repeated failures merely compound guilt and nega-tive feelings, 2) Increased rest. The bodily systems are the foundation for psychological and emotional health as well as for making accurate judg- ¯ ments. When emotions are depleted, the body needs rest to coalesce strength and rebuild proper balance. For a time one may have to sacrifice other elements in the daily schedule in order, to get some additional rest time. 3) Pay attention to building daily routines. One of the reasons for high energy drain in transition times is that ever~h.ing is. ne,.w (people, places, schedule, social expectations). An inordinate amount of attentive awareness goes into "meeting" new people and performing even simple daily tasks. Habit or routine is Of value precisely to relieve that constant outpouring. Seek to regularize daily work-times, eating .and rest habits, companions, and so forth. 4) Spiritual direction and counseling. It always helps to talk tlirough problems, especially with a person who can provide a wider frame ~of reference. It does take some humility to asks. for help, particularly when one wanted so much to get off to a fabulous start in a new career. 5) Remind yourself that perserveranc.e is a Christian virtue. The young adult might remember that he or she has ~already made a very significdnt personal decision (to seek a testing of priesthood or religious life) and that decision should be stuck to "in good times and in bad," as any promise ought to be. A third, strategy would be to:recognize that a dynamic similar to the grieving process needs to tran_spire in the person. For many of these older candid~ites there is a break and removal,from friends, supports and joys of Adjustments in Older Candidates living. A sense of loss may strike them~ sharply as the first bloom of seminary or religious-community life wears off. The classic stages of the grieving process denial, anger, bargaining,,depression, acceptance cab find analogues in this context: fighting the onset of discouraging feelings, anger at the institution or superiors, bargaining to find some accomodating way, and so forth. Formation personnel should help candidates to realize that such feelings may be part of the natural adaptive process and not simply a rejection or d~nial of their vocations to priesthood or religious life. At particular moments it helps to say clearly ~hat one must give oneself permission to be discouraged or angry or depressed. That~acceptance may be necessary if an individual is to work the grieving process to a resolution and a newfound balance. Finally, a major theme of the pre-theology or novitiate year, which can be successfully introduced when the candidates are a couple of months into the program, is that of Christian conversion. A goodly number of older candidates arrive at their respective ecclesia~stical institutions as the result of some form of conversion experience, and so they often feel that the major part of the conversion process is behind them. The theological understand-ing of conversion as lifelong, process, with the tougher steps still ahead, becomes more graspable as the first sheen of the year wears off and people settle into the long haul Of personal and ministerial formation, lndeed conversion becomes more challenging the deeper it penetrates into our hearts and souls. Later people may look back and realize-that the expe-rience which brought them to seminary or religious community only cracked the surface. The more difficult and richer stages lie yet in the future. The preceding strategies are some helps I have found in aiding candi-dates to grapple with and conquer the onset of transition anxieties in their first year of seminary or religious community. By no means are they meant to be complete and exclusive. The formation literature that deals with this new form of religious and ministerial candidate grows steadily in breadth and depth; these reflections are intended to be one voice in that continuing conversation. NOTES ~"Candidates Entering Schools of Theology Without Prior Seminary Experie.nce," Report of Midwest Catholic Seminary Rectors (Duplicated Copy-1981), pp. 2-3. 344 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1986 2John Coleman "The Situation for Modern Faith," Theological Studies 39 (1978), pp. 601-632. 3AIban Institute materials 'include a series of pamphlets and workbooks by Roy M. Oswald: Crossing the Boundary Between Seminary and Parish; The Pastor as New-comer; New Beginn(ngs: Pastorate Start-Up Workbook. 4A similar process can transpire in religious community candidates even though they experience common prayer as a part of their ideal. This happens when an individual has so meshed his or her religious self-identity with a particular form of private prayer, that they are perceived as inseparable. It can be more difficult to unravel these situa-tions in religious community settings because of the difficulty of finding some "sabbati-cal time" to do the rettiinking and revaluing. 5Ro3/M. Oswald, New Beginnings: Pastorate Start-Up Workbook (Washington, D.C.: Alban Institute Publications, 1977), pp: 33-65. 61 have dealt with these dynamics further in " 'I'm Just Making It': Survival as a .Spiritual Value," REVlEW FOR R E~.~G~OUS 37 (1978), pp. 277-278. From Tablet to Heart: Internalizing New Constitutions land II Address: by Patricia Spillane, M. S~ C. Price: 151.25 per copy, plus postage. Review for Religious Rm 428 3601 Lindell Blvd. SL Louis, Missouri 63108 Extremism in Ignatius of Loyola Tad Dunne, S.J. Father Dunne, who previously taught systematic theology at Toronto's Regis College, is now Director of Novices for the Detroit Province. He may be addressed at Loyola House: 2599 Harvard Road: Berkley. Michigan 48072. Retreats can be deceptive. Wewithdraw from our daily0meanderings and ascend to some lofty point from which we can see, from a spiritual perspec-tive, where our journey has taken us and where it is going. We may feel a need for an outlook quite opposite to oar culture's, even extremely so in some sense, if we are to live a vibrant spirituality in the midst of the world. From that vantage point, we search the gospels for some absolute ideal against which to test our everyday activities. And usually we come away with a vision simple and uncompromising. Then we come down from the heights, and before long we start work-ing on a balance between these opposites: not too talkative, but not too silent; not a workaholic, but not lazy; don't jump to conclusions, but don't accept everything mindlessly either. We look back on our retreat from quite a different perspective than we had while we were in it. Then we saw ourselves as refusing to com, promise with the world; but now we feel maybe just a little more faithful or a little more loving, and we count that small gain as our humble best. IS this retreat desire for some spiritual extreme an illusion we amuse ourselves with while p.erc.hed far above the harsh realities of the city? Or is the opposite true: that our adaptations to everyday realities compromise something in us that is precious in the sight of God? Ignatius of Loyola was one person, among many others in our history, who pushed for the no-compromise attitude: ~6 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1986 Just as people of the world who follow the world love and seek with such great diligence honors, fame, and esteem for a great name on earth, as the world teaches (hem, so those who are progressing i9 the spiritual life and truly following Christ our Lord love and intensely desire everything oppo-site (GE 101).~ This sounds impressive, but many doubt that we can make such a ¯ black/white distinction today. Unlike Ignatius in his day, we perceive a certain continuity between religious values and secular values. Our society's hospitals, its welfare systems, our efforts to eliminate poverty and to estab-lish political grounds for world peace all point to a growing convergence of what "the world" and what Christians intensely desire. Indeed, a case could be made that it is chiefly because of Christian values that the Secular City is gradually taking on humane, even spiritual goals for the human race. So should we regard Ig.natius' contentious approach to life as just a temporary stance made necessary by the chaos of the Church and of society in his time? I would like to argue a strong "No!" Strong, because unless we see some practical usefulness to an "everything opposite,, attitude, we would lose our sense of what is radidal about being Christian. We would gradually grow accustomed to "the world" as it is, and lose our critical 'sense. We w6uld have no razor-edged criterion for weighing practical alter-natiVes in ourapostolates. But what exactly does Ignatius mean by "everything opposite?"Para-doxically, he also counseled balance in many areas of life. So we can legitimately ask in what sense ought we be spiritual extremists, and in what sense men and women of prudent balance? Although I focus m~inly on Ignatius, I have no doubt that most°of the spiritual giants in human history would know what Ignatius was talking about. A Dialectic of Desires First of all, this "everything opposite" attitude does not refer to external social or cultural realities. It does not mCan that we should be opposed to all modern institutions just because they are "of the world." In any cage, these are always a mixed product of intelligence and ~aliqe, of good will and stupidity, and so in their regard we try not to throw out the baby with the bath. What Ignatius is talking about is rather ~ithe inner realities of consciousness. The "everything" which ought to 15e opposite to the "world" means inner desires. The disciple's desires ought to be completely opposite to the worldly penchant in us to "love and seek with such great diligence honors, fame, and esteem for a great name bn earth,~as the world teaches." Let me explain this more .fully. On the one hand, we revel in praise, we take pains to protect our Extremism ih Ignatius of Loyola/347 reputations, and we easily pour our energies into making a name for ourselves. On the other hand, rebukes chasten us, insults sting us, and injuries humble us. However, even when these humiliations are unjustified, we do have to admit that the shock to our pride does have a therapeutic element in it. In some small way, we need a come-uppance now and then. To be "put in one's pldce" can shatter self-defeating illusions we cherish about ourselves. What is very important to notice here is thatwhat honors do to ore: sense of ourselves, and what put-downs do, "are completely opposite. It is these opposing senses of'ourselves, I believe, that Ignatius means°by "everything opposite." Wl~at Ignatius gives in the General Examen, he expands upon in the meditation on the Two Standards (SE 136-148).2 There he shows how different acquired tastes about lifestyle usually lead to quite deep and quite opposite longings abo~t one's self-awareness. On the one hand. the taste for m0ney'leads to a desire for a great name. On the other, the taste for poverty usually leads to a longing for a certain anonymity the kind that frees a person to live without crippling self-concern. And beyond the great name anti th~ little name lie the r~al objects of one's deepest love what Ignatius calls either a.life of pride or a life of humility. Learning the Dialectic of Desires ~ Now few people recognize that, in faCt, they long either for pride or for humility. In"one's everyday choices,, most things seem morally gray, with-out serious consequefices., And yet they do add up to a direction in one's life, a direction that sooner or later reveals whether a person is self-centered or not. So it takes some reI:le~tion to real'ize for oneself that underneath a great number of apparently harmless concerns there lurks one's fundamen-tal inclination to pride. Likewise it takes some measure of self-reflection to notice the interior movements that in fact are a person's desire for humility. Once both these movements are recognized,° we can see that they are entirely opposite pulls in consciousness. Moreover, we can then begin to recognize that this dialectic of desires fihderlies our every activity, and see how it profoundly determines the person we become and the stamp we leave on our world. Given the'importance of this self-education in inner movements, it is no wonder that Ignatius prescribes more meditations on the Two Standards than on any other in the Exercises. ~ Still, we must admit, despite repeated meditations on the Two Stan-dards and nur~erous exhortations on the value of resisting the pull to ownership and to be held in high esteem, even the spiritually mature do not easily maintain.such a dialectical attitu.de toward their inner movements. And so we must ask why an "everything opposite" attitude is so difficult to 348 / Review.['or ReliL, ious~ May-June, 1986 live out. One reason is that we have failed to see the point of the Two Standards meditation. We may shave "done it" during a retreat and felt we got the point. Perhaps we understood Ignatius' view of the spiritual struggle very well and saw its connection toomaking choices in life. So we act as though it is enough to grasp the concept of spiritual struggle; we sincerely hope to bring the concept to bear in our everyday situations. What we forget is that life is concrete, not abstract. The people and the situations around us are a profoundly mysterious jumble of grace and malice, requiring in-depth reflection every day. Mediiation is .not analysis. Nor is =t simply ar~ appreciation of an abstract vision. Rather, meditation should be an ongoing and strenuous exerc=se in understanding the interac-tion between our concrete surroundings and our inner struggles. Ignatius, in fact, appeals very little to the concept of struggle. By that I mean that he does not analyze the meaning of "acting a, gainst" considered as a principle from which actions can be determined. It is one thing to acknowledge that life is a struggle, but quite another to name exactly what we are struggling with each day. In his practice and teaching of discernment Ignatius seldom appeals to an abstract rule of life. Instead, he appeals to imagination and to history to show that life is essentially a dialectic of desires, because he wants us to realize it in our own lives. For example, in the General Examen, he asks that the candidate for the Society of Jesus "ponder" how helpful it is to imitate the humiliated Christ. Does "ponder" mean conceptualize and ar~.lyze here? Not at all. The candidate is asked to imagine spiritually advanced men and womer~ and to notice how in fact they "intensely desire" to be clothed exactly as Christ, because of the love they bear him. lgnatius does not tell the candidate to imitate Christ humiliated and poor. He directs him only t,~ im.agine what the loyal disciple desires. Likewise in the Two Standards, the retreatant imagines the "servants and friends" of Christ, how they are naturally attracted in the direction opposite to pride, and how they attract others in the direction of h~mility.' I believe that ~Igriatius is trying to help the retreatant distinguis~h between several otherwise nameless, interior experiences. By focusing on the disciple instead of the Master, Ignatius clearly means to have us consider which Of our inner experiences, among the many that occur, corresponds to that particular attraction to Christ which the true disciple experiences. In other words, he wants us to discriminate among inner desires, not apply some facile, clean-cut rules about behavior. I said that Ignatius appeals also to history to teach us about these two pulls in consciousness. He does this in two ways. First, he directs a~tention Extremism in Ignatius of Loyola to the purposes which motivated Jesus in his work on earth so that we might better imitate him. True disciples "desire to resemble and imitate our Creator and Lord Jesus Christ. since it was for our spiritual profit that he clothed himself as he did" (GE.101 ). Notice that lgnatius calls Jesus "our Creator." This makes the choices of Jesus for poverty and humiliations a deliberate revelation of how we can best fulfill the purpose of our creation. Our Creator, Jesus Christ, came with this express purpose--to "give us an example that in all things possible we"might seek., to imitate and follow him, since he is the way that leads us to life" (GE 101). For Ignatius, God desired to enter human history in person, taking on the only condition that truly gives life, a condition of poverty and humility. If there was any doubt which inner desire one can depend on, now we see clearly that Jesus Christ freely and wisely chose .poverty and humiliations. History now has a model-member to guide it~ Jesus Christ, not just Lord but Creator as well, in imitation of whose interior .desires we find real life. Ignatius appeals to history in another manner which;although it is less obvious in the texts, underlies everything in the General Examen and the Exercises. Like St. Paul, he boldly sets his own historical experience and that of his first companions as the measure of what abnegation means in the concrete. In Chapter. Four of the General Examen, which Ignatius wrote with the overall intention that novices accept the idea of abnegation,3 we find this reason given: "For where the Society's first members have passed through these necessities and greater bodily wants, the others who come to it should endeavi~r, as far as they can, to reachthe same point as the.earlier ones, or to go farther in our Lord" (GE 81). In other words, the candidate is told that he is entering a community which is not leading itself; it is being led by God. Like Israel, the Society's founding historical expe-rience is normative for the Society's continuing style.Therefore for the simple reason that God moved the early companions to love poverty and humiliations in order to achieve the humility of Jesus, so too shOuld the later companions, because this is not just human work but the very labor of God nbt only in our psyches but in our history too. Isee two kinds of meditations which these reflections should prompt. First, we should learn for ourselves how to recognize when ~we are pulled toward humility and when towards pride. To do this, it may help to compare our~own inner experience to that of deeply spiritual persons. Their outwardly simple and self-effacing lifestyle is a manifestation of a militant obedience, to a deep and steady love within. Authentic people avoid applause, not because they are shy but because they are courageously maintaining a spirit which is very precious to them. Second, we should meditate on the various stories in which God acted ~ / Review for Religious, Ma.v-June, 1986 for the Church through Ignatius, or through any of the men and women who understood the struggle within. Their story is part of our history, and our story draws its meaning from that shared history. God indeed has entered history permanently, not only in the person of Christ Jesus but also in the hearts of our spiritual ancestors. Ignatius and his companions, in particular, recognized that their experience of begging and mockery gave them great joy. And why? Because they felt a concrete share in the expe-rience of their~Creat0r and Lord. Once they decided to form a community, they wrote constitutions with the purpose of structuring, as far as possible. a continual reenactment by its members of their'often difficult yet greatly joyful desires. We can read Scripture in the same way. By attending to the inner experiences which lay behind the texts of Scripture, we can recognize the two pulls of consciousness and the meamng of each, For example, when Jesus heard the woman cry out, "Happy is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursedyou!" he replied, "Not as happy as those who hear the Word of God and keep it!" (Lk 11:27-28). As I read it, this text says that the ~hief concern of a happy consciousness is inner obedience, not family loyalty nor pride in the fruits of one's labor.- For another example, we hear the reading from Wisdom, "I esteemed her [wisdom] more than scepters and thrones:. I loved her more than health or beauty" (7:8-10). What else is this wisdom but, the constant desire to live with ,the regular humiliations that come with living in the truth? Once we understand that what we call "salvation" is in fact the outcome of a tension in consciousness, we can read any scriptural stories and recognize familiar inner movements in ourselves. In this fashion, by seeing our pres-ent experience in the light of the gospels, we can grow to love the humble, self-transcending path. An Empirical View of the Dialectic Having said all that, there .still remains a nagging question. Many deeply spiritual men and women in fact have meditated in this way, have lived in actual poverty, have been stung by the insults, and know the joy that can accompany these experiences, but they regard this as a persono! asceticism only. They possess only vague notions of what the humble way has to do with peace in the world and the ongoing struggle of cultural and political leaders, to achieve it. Perhaps they believe in the~principle that pride pulls down nations, but they have no mental frameworkfor under-standing how it does so. Nor do they perceive how anyone~'s humility might everbuild up a nation. As a result, while they may live out a dialectical attitude ih their personal.lives, they can make no connections between it Ertremism in Ignatius of" Loyola / 351 and contemporary political science, psychology, sociology and economics. And so they seem to ache for the world but know nothing about how to improve it. Our world, after all, is thoroughly empirical, unlike Ignatius' world. which it seems, doted more on eternal verities. Were Ignatius alive today, 1 believe that besides appealing to imagination and to history, he would add a functional explanation of how the dialectic of desires underlies social progress and decline. That is, he would seek to explain how an inner penchant for doing without funds or fame works to bring about a redemp-tion in Christ Jesus that would mean something to this world. Or. to use his terms, he would explain what role ',discernment of spirits" plays in "redeeming" the world: To work out that functional explanation of how discernment of spirits facilitates redemption, we have to express the movements of the good and bad angels in terms that the average person can find in experience; °There are two experi.ences in particular which we must point out. each repr_esent-ing a pull or drawing in consciousness on the side of Christ's standard. First- is the experience of intending the truth. This experience relates to an extremely broad range of objects, and yet, as experience, it is quite distinct from many other kinds of inner experience. To "intend the truth" means to want to know reality, to search for answers to questions, and to respect the truth when we find it. This intending, this search, this respect, pulls against a counter-drift in us which settles for simple answers, for impressive words, for tricky, solutions, and for comforting illusions. Second is the experience of intending the good. This too relates to a ¯ broad range~ of objects and yet is quite a distinct feeling in consciousness. We ;'intend the good" when we weigh options for the sake of discovering what is objectively the best choice. In doing so, .we pull against ~ counter-tendency which seeks the merely satisfying, the subjectively comfortable. To want the truly good often means to choose a more painful path, but a better .one. And the criterion we use .to tell which is better is not only an examination of pros and cons.but also and chiefly, I believean expe-rience of fulfilled,or frustrated desire in our hearts. With these two experiences in mind--the intention of truth and the intention of good we can analyze how an "everything opposite" attitude works redemption in concrete situations, and how a failure to be strongly contentious prevents redemption from taking over. Let me illustrate this in several different areas of life. Some Illustrations To a great extent we all have difficulty with our feelings. Speaking for 352 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1986 myself, whenever I meet a stranger at a party, I seem to listen to our conversation with one ear and to my inner apprehensions with the other. It doesn't work very well because I often say things I immediately feel foolish about. Just when I hope to make a good impression, 1 feel I make a bad one. This happens because my mind was not fully on what we were talking about. I was also thinking about how to feel accepted, and so I blurted out things unrelated tothe topic of our conversation. Things are not much better with friends either, particularly when it comes to dealing with anger. When a friend gets angry with 'me, I want to strike back or at least defend myself. But neither reaction helps me under- 'stand what has gone wrong, and this failure to understand only makes it that much harder to work out an amicable solution. The ideal, of course, is to be able to acknowledge the truth of my own feelings and the feelings of others. This means workifig both to name the feelings and to pinpoint what the feelings are focused on--not an easy task for anybody. Negative feelings in particular are often repressed, and yet they are our best indicators that something of value is going ~ wrong. Because they are meant to alert us to harm, we should take them seriously, making every attempt first to acknowledge them and then to understand what they are all about. But this requires a no-compror~ise attitude towards those, pulls inside us which spring to "defend our poor egos. Those pulls create illusions which seduce us and cushion us against taking the sometimes painful responsibility~of facing the truth and doing our real best. For another illustraton of how dedication to reality and to objective worth helps bring order and sense into an ot.herwise ch~aotic situation, consider how communities tend by nature to be self-centered. As a com-munity we may be very realistic and quite responsible where each other are concerned, but this does nothing to prevent us from being aloof and oblivious to outsiders. Every community tends to reinforce its owri biases, to congratulate itself on its victories, and to speak a language full of value judgments 'that no one questions. Members seldom wonder whence its resources come and where its garbage goes. They seldom question whether or not its enjoyments are paid for by the sweat and malnutrition of foreigners. Unfortunately, for all the values inherent in community, there is very little in community itself that directs it beyond itself. These powerful gravi-tational forces toward self-centeredness can be found in communities of all sizes: couples in love, large families, ethnic groups, labor unions, nations-- and even religions. But all such communities live among other communi-ties. They contain subgroups, and they belong to larger groups. Wittiout some cultural commitment to the larger, more common good, subgroups Extremism in Ignatius of Loyola / 353 cut back their good will and limit their creativity to what benefits them-selves alone. So the normal demand for large-scale cooperationis regularly sacrificed for some small-scale gain: first for this and then for that faction. Sadly and ironically, once this game of competition between groups begins, none of the groups benefits as much as each of them might have, had they all shared their wits and their good will with one another. Historically, self-centered communities have enlarged their vision and commitments only when they have been provoked from within by a prophet. Usually.the prophet gathers a select community of like-minded people together to become the leaven in the dough. But before the prophet speaks a single word or calls a single disciple, he or she bbeysan inner pull toward truths and values that run counter to the prevailing attitudes. Prophets have reputations for being contentious. They get that way because they already fight an interior battle between illusions that are familiar and truths that are strange, between old, accepted ways of treating people and new, more dignified ways. So they cry out to the people they love, calling them to realize that they are playing a no-win game with other groups. When prophets are successful, a reform movement will get under, way only insofar as it deals with the community's concrete relations to other groups. The measure of its success will be the degree to which it demolishes any self-centered myths which its own authorities may propagate in the name of community strength or unity. But its members have to wake up intellectually. Only when they recognize these myths in themselves and wage an interior war against them will this peaceful revolution be~in. For my final illustration, I want to highlight the inner struggle that takes place in what we call the deep thinkers--scientists, historians, philo-sophers, and theologians, both the professional and the amateur. Contrary to popular opinion, deep thinkers often do not have an astronomically high I.Q. They work slowly but steadily. Nor are they born "bright;" they become aware of long-range implications and complex problems only by a steady fight against their minds' drift toward the easy answers. Again, you can see my point. On the one hand, we all experience a pull " toward a bogus form of knowing; the kind that relies on memory, rhetoric and bluffing. On the other, we also experience an "entirely opposite" pull towards asking honest questions, and searching for the best explanations, fighting against any worry that someone else .might beat us to a solution. We all have felt the desire to belittle intellectual inquiry and to disregard journals of opinion; even as we secretly wish we had the staying power to work for a more than surface understanding of the world around us. We cannot excuse our anti-intellectualism on the grounds of mental 3~4 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1986 dullness. The so-called "dull" can be extremely bright when it comes to practical and immediate concerns, Here lies the road to pride again. On its own power alone; our intelligence would n~ver stop asking questions about anything, no matter how remote. But when, the fruits of our reflections are not immediate and palpable, then a prideful concern for our own welfare forces its way in and compels our intelligence to surrender. We yield to the forces in our consciousness that move us toward easy answers, silly responses, and. make-believe solutions. While we all recognize these pulls in ourselves, we should notice what happens when psychologists, histbriians, political scientists, economists and the like give in to them. Their shortsighted solutions to human crises 'make life more miserable not just for themselves but for countless other human beings. Yet no jury indicts them for malpractice. No preacher denounces them from the pulpit. Instead, we give them the benefit of the doubt that ~'they did their best." But upon their interior obedience to the canons of truth--an obedience monitored by themselves alone--hangs the future of anyone whom their theories, and policies' touch. From this large-scale perspective, we can see better that every time someone settles for'merely partial answers to problems, he or she usually introduces a solution which itself needs fixing by someone else. Of course, this is only a general explanation of how bad situations get worse, but it does explain how a contentious spirituality can work to better the world we live in. Only an "everything opposite" attitude towards this downhill intel-lectual slide will regularly bring about .intelligent and long-range solutions to the problems that beset God's people. Conversion to the Dialectical Attitude "Everything opposite" means a conversion--one that requires some-times anger but often gentleness to maintain. It means recognizing that oners interior is a battleground of two opposing kinds of movements, whose :outcome has direct manifestations in one's psychic health, one's prophetic spirit, and one's intellectual freedom. These, in turn~, have a direct .effect on:family harmony, social justice and on the broad philosophies and theories that shape out: human institutions. The conversion ought to be total,.because there is no event in our everyday lives which does not derive its meaning from how we responded to it. As Christians, we stand in a peculiar relationship to.~this conversion to a dialectical .attitude. The functional explanation givrn above, of how dis-cernment of spirits works to create a better world, could stand on its own without any~reference to Christ Jesus. This is an asset insofar as Christians can share a vision, a language, and a praxis with non-Christians--which Extremism in Ignatius of, Loyola we must certainly do if we are to tackle issues of social justice with any seriousness. Such cooperation can even be the beginning of a dialogue about ultimates in truth and goodness leading to the Good News of Christ Jesus. But a functional explanation by itself is also a liability insofar as Christians might forget to name just who it is who moves the soul to face the truth and do one's true best. So it seems incumbent upon theologians and catechists to express the age-old doctrine of redemption in Christ Jesus and the Spirit in functional categories drawn from the dynamic~ of con-sciousness and the workings of history. This is a large order, but fortu-nately one already, being taken up by many today. A final word of caution: Such an "everything opposite" attitude is not learned overnight. It takes time to name which inner experiences corres-pond to "intending the truth" and which to wishful thinking; which to "inte,,nding the good" and which to securing the merely comfortable for ourselves. And we learn by our mistakes. But Without the slightest exag-geration we can say that in this matter there should be no compromise. Only an extremism about our inner movements can give us the day-to-day balanced judgment and love that redeem the world. ~ NO~ES ~ General Examen. This document was written by Ignatius for the purpose of teaching candidates for the Society, of Jesus what Jesuit life Would require. It was meant to be given:in a retreat setting, requiring some serious meditation. See George E. Ganss, ed., The Constitutions of the ~Society of Jesus (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1970) pp. 75-118. My references above refer to paragraph numbers. 2Spiritual Exercises. See Louis 3. Puhl, ed., The Spiritual~Exercises of St. Ignatius (Wes.tminister, MD: The Newman Press, 1959), References are to paragraph numbers. 3Joseph de Guibert, The Jesuits: Their St~iritual Doctrine and Practice (Chicago: Loyola UniverSity Press; St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1964) p. 141. The Spirit of Holiness Living in Us E. A. Ruch, 0 M.L Father Ruch teaches philosophy, at the National University of Lesotho (P.O. Roma 180; Southern Africa). He has just completed a study leave in France. Spiritual theology distinguishes three stages in our progress towards holiness: The purgative (cleaning) stage which consists essentially in a breaking-away from sin, not merely out of fear of divine punish-ment, but out of a God-given awareness of God's love for us; The illuminative stage in which we grow in a personal understanding of who God is, an awareness which always culminates in the realiza-tion that "God is love"; The unitivestage which is a personal love-response to God's love for us and thus a gradual transformation of ourselves into true children of God sharing in his divine nature. Holiness is infinitely more than just being a good man, someone who meticulously obeys the law of God. We live in a redeemed world, a world already reconciled with God, but in which we are called to "become the goodness of God" (2 Co 5:21). This is why the standards of holiness which Christ sets us are much higher than those of "the Scribes and the Pharisees" (see Mt 5:20-47). Jesu~ has come to complete the law, to raise it io a level which we cannot attain by our human strength. Indeed, he expects us to be "perfect as (our) heavenly Father is perfect" (Mt 5:48). He wants us to become "fully developed, complete, with nothing missing" (Jm 1:4). He wants us to "be holy in all [we] do, since it is the Holy One who has called [us], and Scripture says: be holy, for I am holy" (I P 1:IS). We must not, therefore, confuse a high standard of moral purity with holiness. Moral purity is only the starting poittl on our way to holiness. The Spirit of Holiness / 357 Beyond our human struggle for justice and goodness, there is a gift from God which transcends all human limits. Let me try to exploin this by means of a parable. Let us suppose a diver who, having stripped off his everyday clothing, is preparing tb plunge into the pool. Undressing does not make a diver. It is only when he has left terra firma and confided himself tothe new element, viz. water, that his life as a diver begins; for it is only a beginning. Let us now follow the diver's experience under water. He begins to discover the marvels of the underwater flora and fauna: a truly new world opens: to him. True, he also begins to discover the dangers of this life, but the beauties he discovers are more than a match for the risks incurred. More and more he finds pleasure in diving and in exploring this new world. And yet, every once in a while he has to return to dry land to refill his compressed air cylinders and to take a rest in his own, more familiar world. Let us now imagine such a diver being gradually transformed into an "aquatic animal," i,e, into a kind of new man, capable of living, breathing and working under water in perfect ease, not even wishing to return to his formerly familiar, yet highly toxic atmosphere of nitrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide. Life under water has become a "second nature": it is now his "real" life and his original one would be considered as "abnormal." He is now a new creature "fully developed, complete, with nothing missing" who no longer wants to leave his newly acquired mode of existence, and who finds "life outside" meaningless, boring, heavy and poisonous. He now "lives and moves and has his being" in God. He has "become like him, because he sees him as he really is" (1 Jn 3:2). We have here a neat image of growth in holiness. First of all, God, through his Spirit living in me, prompts me, urges me to "take the plunge" and to be '~baptized in the Spirit." He then begins the long process of revealing the beauties and risks of life in and with God. Finally he initiates that transformation into his own life which will only be completed in eternal beatitude, but which is already partially shared through faith in the joy of discovering the life of God in us. I would now like to show the role of the Holy Spirit in these three stages. The Purification When John the Baptist preached the metanoia; q.e. the "turning-around," the "about-face" which is required in our sinful life, he strength-ened his preaching with the effective symbol of immersion into the water of the Jordan as a sign of personal cleansing. But John also knows that he cannot achieve more than mere moral purity. He is still a man of the Old ~1511/ Review for Religious; May-June, 1986 Testament ("The least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he is" (Mt 11:11))~ We are called to much more than moral purity and John proclaims his role as Precursor of the one who will baptize "with the Holy~Spirit and withfire" (Mt 3:11). The symbol of fire a~ an element of purification is well known throughout the Scriptures: More effectively than water, because it goes to the hearvof the matter and not only to its surface, fire cleanses from within. It burns away the impurities as one,burns the chaff after winnowing (Mt 3:11-12).~ .~ Fire as a ~ymbol of the Holy Spirit is, of course, well known from the Pentecost event and the "tongues of fire." Another purifying force in spiritual life is the loneline.ss, suffering and silence of,the "desert experience." Like the people of Israel who have to be purified of their Egyptian habits through their forty years of wandering through the desert, so also Jesus himself was "led by the Spirit out into the wilderness to-be tempted by the devil" (Mr 4::1; Mk 1:12 and ~Lk 4:1). The Spirit will invite us too from time to time to retire into solitude and silence, because this is the precondition for hearing the voice of God which would become inaudible in. the hustle and bustle of our daily, life in our,~nervous and tension-filled world. And just as fire is painful when it burns away impurities, so ~the solitude of the desert is frightening. St. Teresa of Avila insists very strongly on the importance of "the grace of quiet" for spiritual life (Way of Perfection, ch. 33). St.John also points at another necessary purification: to bring the desires of the flesh under th~ control of the spirit: Unless ~ man is borfi through water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. What is born of the flesh is flesh; what is born of the ,.Spirit is spirit (Jn 3:5-6). Thus purification is part of a p(~ocess of acq~iiring a new life (see v. 3). "l:he real life is not the one given by the flesh; only'"the Spirit. gives life" (J~n 6:63). Above all, purification from sin is a condition for receiving the gift of ¯ theo~Holy Spirit. Therefore Peter announces to the people at Pentecost: You must repent .and everyone of you must be baptized in the name of Jesus 'Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Ac 2:38). In reverse, the Holy Spirit is specifically given to the Apostles to,enable them to forgive sins: Receive~the Holy Spirit. For those whose sins you forgive they are for-given; ofor those whose sins you retain, they are retained (Jn 20:22). ~' We are fighting a running battle against the forces of evil. We are the The Spirit of Holiness / 359 accused in an endless courtcase in which Satan is "the accuser of'our brethren., who accuses them day and night before God"(Rv 12:10). But this a~:cuser has been "thrown down" (ibid) by the Holy Spirit who is our Advocate. Because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth while the devil is the "spirit of disorder" ( I Jn 4:6) and of "falsehooi:l ~ind murder" (Jn 8:44).~ In our fight with the spirit of evil who tries to turn us away from God. the Advocate "will be with you forever, he will be continually at your. side. he will be m you" (Jn 14:17). ~hus the Holy Spirit appears also as the one who sustains us in our temptations, who provides us with arguments to beat the devil. Even when we fire facing evil earthly powers, we need have no worry, because "ttib Spirit of your Father will be speakir~g in you" (Mt 10:!8-20). Like a good advocate he will prove the "opposition" wrong(see Jn 1~:9-11), by convict-ing the world ofits sinfulness and consequently of the fact that without Christ's victory the world is meaningless and lacks all ultimate purpose. In his epistle to the Romans St. Paulexplains this purifyi~ng role of the Holy Spirit by stating that the Hrly Spirit takes people who are living by "the law of sin and death" which is characterized by "the misdeeds of the body" (Rm 8:1, 13)and he makes them "spiritual": Your ~nterests. however, are not in the unspiritual, but in the spiritual. since the Spirit of God has made his home in you. In 'fact. unless you possessed the Spirit of Christ you would not belong to hire. Tl~ough your ¯ body may be dead it is because of sin; but if Christ is in you, then your spirit is life itself because you have been justified: and if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, then he who raised Jesus from the dead will give life to your own mortal bodies through his Spirit living in you (Rm 8:9-10). The Spirit does not only transform our soul and cleanse our mental habits our thoughts, our feelings, our emotions he also "spiritualizes" our bodies to prepare them for the resurrection. Our bodies became mortal "because of sin"; the cleansing from sin through Christ's "Spirit living in us" is the cause of our immortality.~ What are the spiritual transformations which the Spirit operates in our souls? St. Paul opposes the spirituality and holiness of the Old Testament and that brought about by Christ's Spirit living in us. The Spirit transforms our "spirit of slaves" livingin fear, into a "spirit of.sons" who have been "set free"(Rm 8:14-23; see 1 Jn 4:17-18). It is a new attitude with regard to the law that takes hold of us: we do right not because_ we are afraid, but because we love. On the other hand, and for the same reason, i.e. love, this freedom is never licentiousness, because we are living in the Spirit: If you are guided by the Spirit you will be in no danger of yielding to 360 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1986 self-indulgence, since self-indulgence is the opposite of the Spirit . . (Ga 5:16). In other words: the presence of the Spirit in us does not justify bad behav-ior, but should enable us to avoid bad behavior. Hence also Paul's claim to the Corinthians that no on~ can curse Jesus and be in the Spirit of Jesus (1 Co 12:3). Paul's whole apostolic life was dominated by his struggle to make the new converts realize this new dimension brought about by faith in Christ: an externally imposed Law is replaced by the promptings of the Spirit from within (see Ezk 36:26-27; Jr 31:33). The true Christian is doing good because the Spirit moves him from within his very freedom. Even our faith in the Gospel is the work of the Spirit and it is this faith, rather than outward observances that justify us (Ga 3:2). It is a pagan (or an Old Testament) attitude to do good or to refrain from doing evil out of fear of hell, or in order to curry God's "favors," rather than out of inner convic-tions growihg out of love. A Christian attitude stems from the Spirit within us and from our readiness to let the Spirit become active and effective in us and through us. Since the Spirit is our life. let us be directed by the Spirit. We must stop being conceited,, provocative and envious. (Ga 5:25). The Spirit which he sent to live in us wants us for himself alone (Jm 4:5); (literally: 'The Spirit. yearns, earnestly for our love'). No one who has been begotten by God sins: because God's seed remains inside him. he cannot sin when he has been begotten by God (1 Jn 3:9).2 But God will not sanctify us without us. It is from within our freedom that God acts and lives in us. We must collaborate with his promptings, for God has an infinite respect for our free will. Nor is it sufficient to have received, the Holy Spirit once and for all, like some kind of seal, medal or honorific title. He has to live in us. We have to grow in him by letting his influence in our lives become more and more continuous and pervasive. It is precisely this growth which supposes an inner cleansing. We cannot serve two master~; at the same time: one must diminish if the other is to grow. As long as our life is cluttered with worries, with sins, with ourselves, with the world, with pleasures and so forth, there is little room for God to grow in us. He is not going to sneak into our life, as we gradually clean out the house just ahead of him. We have to make a clean sweep before God arrives. But we are afraid of the apparent spiritual poverty, of the empti-ness, of the echoing hollowness within us. The Spirit gives us the courage to empty ourselves (see Ph 2:7) so.that we might experience God making irruption into our life. The blood of Christ, who offered himself as the perfect sacrifice to God The. Spirit of Holiness / 361 through the eternal Spirit, can purify our inner self from dead actions so that we do our service to the living God (Heb 9:14). In short: the first level of the Spirit's action demands, but also produ-ces an inner cleansing, a reorientation of our lives, an openness to the guidance of the Spirit and a readiness to be transformed. Without this there simply cannot be any.growth in spiritual life, because without it we are not capable of putting ourselves into a listening attitude towards God, and without_ this listening attitude there will not be that inner enlighten-. ment whereby God wants to make' himself personallY known to us. Enlightenment and Learning Si. John presents us the Holy Spirit as the'Spirit of truth: "I shall ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate3 to be with you forever, the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive since it neither sees nor knows him; but you know him, becauSe he is with yo.u, he is in you. [he] will teach you everything and remind you of all 1 have said to you" (Jn 14:15-16, 26). This theme of the "world" which cannot see God ,recurs often in John. The world is blind to God because it is too much concerned with other, rela, tively unimportant things. The Word of God is the true light which many people refused to receive (Jn 1:9-13). But there are also those whb, throughout the history of salvation, have let themselves be enlightened by the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit inspired the prophets (see Lk 1:67; Ac 21:4; 28:25;.) and the writers of Scripture. He guides the lives of those he inhabits (see Lk 2:25-26) and he leads Jesus himself through his ministry (Lk 4:14, 18)oand makes him,utter prophetic words (Lk 10:21). Indeed it is the Spirit who, in the form of a dove, points at the Messiah as the voice of the Father is heard at.Jesus' baptism (Mt 3:16-17; Mk 2:10; Lk 3:21-22i Jn 1:32-34; ~1 Tm 3:16). It is by the Holy Spirit that Jesus performs his m.iracles (Mt 12:28). In short: the Holy Spirit makes us become aware of Jesus,as the Messiah and of his redemptive role. This is why the Gospels are so 6utspoken against those who "sin against the Holy Spirit" (Mt 12:32; Mk 3:28; Lk 12:10) because this sin blinds us to the revealing and illuminating role of the Holy Spirit without which we cannot reach God nor pr.ogress in holiness. ("No one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit" 1 Co 12:3). In other words, the sin against the Holy Spirit makes God's essential work in our life, viz. our sanctification, impotent. Jesus has proclaimed the Good News to us: he is the Good News, but we are incapable of fully grasping what this means unless the .Spirit opens our eyes: It is for your own good that I am going, because unless I go, the Advocate 369/ Review for Religious, May-June, 1986 will not come t6 you; l~tit if I do go, I will send him to you . I still have many things to say to you, but they would be too' mucfi for you now. But " when'~the Spirit of trt~th comes he will leadyou to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking as from himselfbut will only say what he has learnt . Jn 16:7-15 (passim). ~ " ~- We clearly see the effect of the Spirit on the apostles at the moment of the Pentecost event!~ Now, the coming of the Holy Spiritdoes not imply the revelation of neff doctrines, but the creation of an inner receptivity and capacity for underst~hding the Good N~ws of Christ in a more personal way:. You have been anointed by the Holy One, and have all recei'bed the knowledge'., you do not need anyone to teach you; the anoiming he gave you teaches you everything; you are anointed with truth, not with a lie. (1 Jn 2:20, 27). Thus the Holy Spirit generates faith, the ability to listen and to hear, in us and she convicts the "world" of its basicsin of unbelief (see Jn 8:21, 24, 26; 15:22). In reverse he convinces the believers of Christ's divinity (see Jn 10:33; 19:7) because l~y returning to the Father in his human bo.dy, Jesus shows that his true home is in heaven (see .In 13~ 1; 20:17). Finally the Spirit gives to the believer the unshakable confidence in the power of God who has overcome the empire 6f evil. Thus, by revealing the glory of Christ and enabliiig us to b~elieve in Christ, he makes us listen to him who reveals to us the glory of the Father. The Acts of the Apostles have been called the "Gospel of the Holy spirit." They are full of incidents in which the Spirit illuminates the minds and heart~of~the apostles and of the believers. Let us me~'ely'mention a few of them almost at random. He gives to the believers the gift of speech in foreign tohgues (Ac 2:4), he inspires the words of the apostles (Ac 4:8.31), he gives Stephen an, irresistible power of argumentation against his detrac-tors (Ac 6:10) as Jesus himself had predicted (Mk 13:11; Lk 12:H-12). On several occasions the Spirit gives people the ability of predicting the future (Ac 21i,~; 11:28); he guides the decisions of the Church in admitting pagans (Ac-8:29, 40; ~10:19, 44-47; 11:12-16; 15:8),'in limiting the relevance of the Jewish laff (Ac 15:28) and in determining the mission of Paul to the pagans (Ac 13:2 sq; 16:6-7; 19:1). Occasionally he gives very precise g~uidelines for th~ apostolate (Ac 8:28). But ~bove all the Holy Spirit reveals himself internally to those who receive him, usually in baptism, by giving them the power of praising God in words-inspired by God himself [the gift of tongues](see Rm 8:26-27; Ac 9:31; 10:44; 19:1-7.). Indeed one could say that the Holy Spirit was clearly the power behind the expansion of the ~early Church. The Spirit of Holiness / 363 This power is usually revealed and released in a prayerful atmosphere. Throughout Acts, one gets the impression of a people moving about in an inner spiritual dynamism, open to God, ready to expect any kind of mira-cles. Of course they are_ ordinary human beings like you and me. They sometimes become almost obsessively enthusiastic (like the Corinthians), while others (like the Gala~tians) remain fearfully attached to traditions. In this they do not differ all that much from the Churchof today! But there does seem to be a genuine desire throughout the early Church to let the Spirit rule the life of the faithful. St. Paul himself tells us that he is not bothered by his weakness, precisely because he" knows that he can always let ttie Spirit and the power of God Speak and pray in and through him (Rm 8:26-27). He knows that he is not preaching his own ideas nor by his own power, but by the power of God (1 CO 2:3) and that "the Spirit reaches the' depth of evet:ything, even the depth of God" (1 Co 2:10). This is why he chides Timothy for his timidity: God's gilt was not a spirit of timidity, but the Spirit of power, and love. and self-control (2 Tm 1:7).~ And~just as the Spirit give~'to the preacher the words to preach, to the prophet the message to proclaim and to the teacher the doctrine to teach, so also he gives to the listeners the inner .power to understand with heart and mind, and the wisdom to apply what has been taught in their personal life: May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of ~lory, g~ve you a spirit of wisdom and perception of what is revealed, to bring you to full knowledge of him (Ep 1:17,). Out of his infinite glory, may he give'you the power through his Spii'it for your hidden self to grow strong, so that Christ .may live in you through faith, and then, planted in love and built on love. you will with all the saints have strength to grasp the breadth and the length, the height and the depth . (Ep 3:16-19). By thus gradually growing, in God's wisdom, we will be filled with the '~utter fullness of Ggd" (ibid v. l~J). ,, But God ca~ only fill us with his wisdom, !f we have let ourselves be emptied of the wisdom of the "~orld." Hence,the purification stage.must precede and will itself grow in _proportion to the gradual~growth in "enlightenment." We can only grow "little by little" (Ws 12: !-2). Secondly we mus~ play our fa,irt by taking a humble, listening and receptive attitude in sile~ace ~nd. patience. And thirdly, the Holy Spir!t comes to each one of us personally, but always within the context of and for the sake of the whole Church, the Body of Christ (see 1 Co 14), because "God is Love" and v~hatever he does in us and through us,~in on13~ take place within a 364 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1986 love-relationship, This is why love is the greatest commandment, but also the greatest of all gifts of the Spirit: the gift which not only includes all others, but also the only one which is to remain forever (1 Co 13). We 'do not receive the Holy Spirit for our exclusive personal enjoyment, but for sharing him with others through apostolic action. As Jesus says to his apostles: You will r~ceive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and t~en you will be my'witnesses (Ac 1:8). More than half the passages in the Acts which speak about the Holy Spirit mention him in a directly apostolic context. This is also why the Holy Spirit is presented in such an intimate relationship with the Church that Peter can say: "It has been decided by the Holy Spirit and by ourselves." (Ac 13:28), while the Book of Revelation affirms: "The Spirit and the Bride [= the Church] say: 'Come'"-(Rv 22:17). A final point worth mentioning in the present context: If it is true that the illumination by the Spirit is proportional to our emptying ourselves of our own ideas, then it is easily understandable why the poor in spii-it are given preference in the kingdom of heaven (Mt 5:3),~ why "these things" have been hidden frrm the worldly wise and revealed to children (Mt 11:25) and why only children can enter the kingdom of heaven (Mt 18: !-4). Union in Love The Christian religion is not merely an ethics, i.e. a list of actions to be done or avoided. Jesus' struggle with the Pharisees (see Mt 5:17 sq and 23:13-32), as well as St. Paul's arguments to show the powerlessness of the Law to save us (e:g. Rm I-7) are proof enough of this. Nor is Christianity merely a beautiful doctrine dogmatically proclaimed a~d faithfully but blindly accepted: If I knew all the mysteries and all science, and if I had the fullness of faith. but without love, lam nothing (! Co 13:2). God wants to call us to a new life. I~e wants to change our identity from within, not merely our mode of external behavior. He wants us to be reborn "through water and the'Spirit'' (Jn 3:5) so as to enable us to enter into the kingdom of heaven. It is through the Spirit of Goal that this "rebirth" as children of God takes place: The Spirit himself and our spirit bear united witness that we are children of God. And if we are children we are heirs as well: heirs of God and coheirs with Christ, sharing his 'suffering so as to share in his glory (Rm 8:!4-17; see Ga 4:6~7). The Spirit is our passport for our new. "ciiizenship," because we have been The Spirit of Holiness / 365 stamped with the seal of the Holy Spirit of the promise, the pledge of our inheritance which brings freedom to those whom God has taken for his own to make his glory praised (Ep 1:13-14). Of course in this life we still know God only "dimly, as in a mirror" (1 Co 13:12), and yet e~,en in this limited way, God already reveals himself to us from within, from his presence in us through the Spirit: We know that he lives in us by the Spirit that he has given us (! Jn 3:24). We can know that we are li~ing in him and he is living in us, because he lets us share his Spirit (! .In 4:13). The Spirit is .an" experienced reality. Even the places and buildings where the early Church was gathering "were shaken" when they were "filled with the Holy Spirit" (Ac 4:3 I) and the Holy Spirit is often described as "falling on" people (Ac 10:44; 11:15). It is like falling in love: it is an experience difficult to explain to someone who has never experienced it. The kingdom of God is therefore not merely something to be expected in the life to come. We are already living in this kingdom, which can be identified with equal right with the Holy Spirit and with the Church, provided the Church is not merely seen as an administrative structure. St. Paul refers to our transformation into children of God as something already realized: We were buried with [Christ] in baptism [and we]'have been raised up with him" (Col 2:12-13). However, this new reality demands, right here and now, a new mode of life: Put off your old nature which belongs to your former manner of life. and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God iri true righteousness and holiness (Ep 4:22-24). We are incorporated into the Spirit (Rm 8:1, 9. We are "temples of God"( 1 Co 3:16; 6:19). We have been 'Zraised up with Christ" (Col 3:1). It is for this reason that all "Paul's moral instructions are so severe. Moral instructions and calls to holiness are one and the same for Paul, and they center, as .one can expect, on the two commandments of love of God and~ love of neighbor. Because of the Spirit dwelling in us, we are able to love God and to love our neighbor with the same kind of love with which God himself loves us: The love of God is poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us (Rm 5:5). The first thing that changes in our new, Spirit-filled life, is our relation- ~166 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1986 ship with God in prayer: The book of Genesis tells u.s .of Enoch~ who was livinga life of such 'intimacy with God that he was absorbed into God, that he vanished in him (Gn 5:24). The original familiarity with God as des-cribed in paradise is re,stored. We learn to relate to God truly a~ our Father because ,"God has Se.nt the Spirit of hi~ Son into our hearts crying 'A~bba! Father!'" (Ga 4:6; .see Rm 8:26). Our ~vorship is no longer tied to places, times, rituals, and'words, but becomes "worship in0 spirit a.n~d in truth (b~ecause) God is °soirit" (Jn 4:24). Above' all, our worship ~s no longer dominated by fear because ° love will come ~o perfection in us when we can face the day of judgment without fear; because eVen in this worm we have 'become as he is. In love ~there is no fear', but fear is driven out by perfect love" (1 J'n 4:17-18; she "~ Rm 8~21~29)~ So to pray in the Spirit of God (see Ep 6:18) means to pray in an attitude of fearless love: God is love and anyone who lives in love lives in God and God lives in him (l Jn 4:16).~ This means thaLGod lives in us-and we live in him, but also that as a result weare transformed into God's essentially loving nature. This transforma, tion will not only reveal itself in our relationship with God, but also in our relationship with our fellowman. We are living a lie if we claim to love God, to be a child of God, while not loving our neighbor: We can ,be sure that we are in God only when the one who claims to be living in him is living the same kind of life as Christ lived (1 Jn 2:5-6). Now God's love for us was revealed when God sent into ,the world his' only Son so that we could have life through him . Since God loved us' so much~ we, too should love one another . As long as we love one another, God will live in us ~'nd h~s love will be complete in us. (I Jn 4:10-12). This whole,newdoving relationship is planted inu~ by the Holy Spirit living in us and e.nabling us to grow in him and thus to become more and more ,like Christ whose .Spirii he is. ¯ If we live by the truth .and in love, we shall "grow in all ways into- Christ ~, who is the head by whom:the whole body is fitted and joined together. "~ So the body grows until it has built itself up in love (Ep 4:15-16):~ . This body,,building itself up and. growing in love, is the Church. This is also why the gifts and charisms are to be used for "the common good" (see 1 Co 12:7; 14:3r4, 26) and are of no account without the cha,rity which~gives The Spirit of Holiness / 367 them meaning (1 Co 13). Jesus wanted us to be perfect "as our heavenly Father is perfect" (Mt 5:48) and he summarizes the whole Law and the Prophets in the commandments of love (Mt 22:40). Our growth in perfec, tion can therefore only be a growth in this twofold, love and this growth is essentially God's work because we have been chosen by the prox)ident purpose of God the Father to be made holy by the Spirit, obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled by his blood (I P 1:2). The lives of the Saints are beautiful illustrations of this powerful and effective dwelling of the Holy Spirit in the soul. In all their differences, they have struggled through these three stages of growth in holiness. Some have put more emphasis, on their sinfulness and on the need for inner purifica-tion; others have spent most of their life trying to penetrate deeper and deeper into the knowledge of the mysteries of God, not only with their intellect but with their heart and their whole being: All have been led towards a life of intimate

Issue 24.1 of the Review for Religious, 1965. ; An Instruction'on the Constitution on the Littirgy by the Congregation of Rites 3 Historicity of the Gospels by the Pontifical Biblical Commission 26 The Nature of Religious Authority by Lor~azo Boisvert, O.F.M. 34 Influence of the Superior by Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. 55 Religious .Obedience by J. M. R. Tillard, O.P. 66 Sister Cursillistas by Sitter Elizabeth Ann, O.L.V.M. 87 ~ Administrative Forms by James L O'Connor, S.J. 91 ~ Canadian Religious Conference by Augustine G. Ellard, S.J. 105 Voveo Castitatem by Sister Mary Kieran, S.S.N.D. 112 Survey of Roman Documents 113 ; Views, News, Previews 120 Questions and Answers 131 Book Reviews 143 EDITOR R. F. Smith S.J. ASSOCIATE EDITORS Everett A. Diederich, S.J. Augustine G. Ellard, S.$. ASSISTANT EDITORS Ralph F. Taylor, S.J. William J. Weiler, S.J. DEPARTMENTAL EDITORS Joseph F Gallen, S.J. Woodstock College Woodstock, Maryland 22163 Book Norman Weyand, S.J. Bellarmime School of Theology of Loyola University 230 South Lincoln Way North Aurora, Illinois 60542 Published in January, March, May, July, September, Novem-ber on the fifteenth of the month. REVIEW FOR RELI. GIOUS is indexed in the CATHOLIC PERIODICAL IN-DEX. Volume 24 1965 EDITORIAL OFFICE St. Mary's College St. Marys, Kansas 66536 BUSIlqESS OFFICE 428 E. Preston St. ¯ Baltimore, Maryland 21202 SACRED CONGREGATION OF RITES' An Instruction on the Constitution on the Liturgy AN INSTRUCTION CONCERNING THE CORRECT IMPLEMENTATION bF THE CON-STITUTION ON THE LITURGY~ INTRODUCTION I. The Nature of This Instruction I. Among the first results of the Second Vatican Council there is deservedly included the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy since it regulates the most excellent part of the Church's activity. It will produce more £ruitful results the more profoundly pastors and the faithful grasp its true spirit and the more deeply eager they are to put it into practice. 2. The Committee for the Implementation o[ the Con-stitution on the Sacred Liturgy, established by the present supreme pontiff Paul VI in his apostolic letter Sacram liturgiara, eagerly and at once began the work entrusted to it of care£ully completing the directives of the Consti-tution and the apostolic letter and of providing for the interpretation and implementation of these documents. 3. Since it is of the greatest importance that from the very beginning these documents should be everywhere properly applied and that there should be removed any * This is an English translation of a document entitled Inter Oecumenici Concilii that was the work of the Committee for the Implementation of the Constitution on the Liturgy and that was is-sued by the Sacred Congregation of Rites on September 26, 1964; the translation was made from the Latin text of the document as given in Acta Apostolicae Sedis, v. 56 (1964), pp. 877-900. Titles and enumerations in the translation are taken directly from the Latin text. ÷ ÷ ÷ Instruction on the Liturgy VOLUME 24, 1965 Congregation o~ Rites REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS doubts about their interpretation, the Committee at the order of the supreme pontiff has drawn up this present Instruction in which the functions of the conferences of bishops are more clearly defined with regard to liturgical matters, in which some principles expressed in the above-mentioned documents in general terms are explained with more precision, and in which finally some matters that can be put into practice at the present time even before the revision of the liturgical books are permitted or pre-scribed. II. Principles to Be Noted 4. The matters that are singled out as those to be put into practice even now have the aim of making the liturgy correspond more completely to the mind of the Council with regard to the promotion of the active participation of the faithful. Moreover, the general renewal of the sacred liturgy will be accepted by the faithful more readily if it proceeds gradually and by stages and if it is proposed and ex-plained to them by their pastors through an appropriate catechesis. 5. Nevertheless, the first thing that is necessary is that all should be convinced that the Constitution of the Sec-ond, Vatican Council concerning the sacred liturgy does not intend merely to change liturgical forms and texts; it rather intends to stimulate that formation of the faith-ful and that pastoral activity which considers the sacred liturgy both as a summit and a fountain (see the Con-stitution, article 10). The changes in the sacred liturgy that have been so far introduced as well as those that will be introduced later are directed toward this goal. 6. The importance of this pastoral activity that is to be centered around the liturgy stems from the fact that there is to be a living expression of the paschal mystery in which the incarnate Son of God, made obedient even to the death of the cross, is so exalted in His Resurrection and Ascension that He shares with the world the divine life by which men, being dead to sin and conformed to Christ, "should no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised to life" (2 Cor 5:15). This takes place through faith and the sacraments of faith; that is, especially through baptism (see the Con-stitution, article 6) and the sacred mystery of the Eucha-rist (see the Constitution, article 47), the focal point of the other sacraments and of the sacramentals (see the Con-stitution, article 61) as well as of the cycle of celebrations by which the paschal mystery of Christ is unfolded in the Church throughout the year (see the Constitution, articles 102-107). 7. Hence, although the litu.¢gy does not exh~iust all the activity of the Church (see the Constitution, article 9), great care should nevertheless be taken that pastoral work be duly linked with the sacred liturgy and that at the same time pastoral-liturgical activity be exercised not as though it were a separate and self-withdrawn thing, but in intimate union with other pastoral work. Moreo;cer, there is special need that a close union should flourish between the liturgy and catechesis, re-ligious education, and preaching. III. The Hoped-for Results 8. Accordingly, bishops and their helpers in the priest-hood should increasingly center their entire pastoral min-istry around the liturgy. In this way through a perfect participation in the sacred celebrations the faithful will derive a fuller share in the divine life; and, havin.g be-come the leaven of Christ and the salt of the earth, they will proclaim this life and communicate it to others. CHAPTER I SOME GENERAL NORMS I. The Application of These Norms 9. Although they are concerned only with the Roman rite, the practical norms found in the Constitution or in this Instruction as well as the matters that are permitted or prescribed by this same Instruction even now before the revision of the liturgical books may be applied to other Latin rites, the provisions of law being observed. 10. The matters that are entrusted in this Instruction to the competent territorial authority can and should be put into effect only by that authority through its legiti-mate decrees. In each individual case, however, the time and circum-stances in which these decrees begin to take effect should be determined with allowance always made for a reason-able period of suspension during which the faithful can be instructed in and prepared for their observance. II. The Liturgical Formation of Clerics (Constitution, articles 15-16 and 18) 11. With regard to the liturgical formation of clerics: a) In theological faculties there should be a chair of liturgy so that all the students may receive a due liturgi-cal formation; in seminaries and religious houses of study local ordinaries and major superiors should see to it that as soon as possible there is a special and properly pre-pared teacher for the course in the liturgy. b) Teacherswho are put in charge of the liturgy course ,4. '4" Instruction on the Liturgy VOLUME 24, 1965 5 are to be prepared as soon as possible in accord with the norm of article 15 of the Constitution. c) For the further liturgical formation of clerics, es-pecially of those who are already working in the vineyard of the Lord, pastoral-liturgical institutes should be con-ducted as opportunity allows. 12. The liturgy is to be taught for an adequate period of time to be indicated in the curriculum of studies by the competent authority, and the method used in its teaching should be an appropriate one in accord with article 16 of the Constitution. 13. Liturgical services are to be celebrated as perfectly as possible. Accordingly: a) The rubrics are to be carefully observed and the ceremdnies should be performed with dignity under the diligent watchfulness of the superiors and after necessary practices have been had beforehand. b) Clerics should frequently perform the functions of their order; that is, those of de,acon, subdeacon, acolyte, lector, and in addition those of commentator and cantor. c) Churches and o~atories, the sacred furnishings in general, and the sacred vestments should be examples of genuine Christian art, including contemporary Christian art. Congregation ol Rites REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 6 IlI. The Liturgical Formation of the Spiritual Life of Clerics (Constitution, article 17) 14. In order that clerics may be formed to a full par-ticipation in liturgical services and to a spiritual life de-rived from them and able to be later communicated to others, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy is to be put into full effect according to the norms of the docu-ments of the Apostolic See; and towards this end there should be a unanimous and harmonious collaboration on the part of all superiors and teachers. An adequate intro-duction to the sacred liturgy should be pro;tided for clerics by the recommendation of books on the liturgy, especially those which treat of it under its theological and spiritual dimensions, which books should be available in the li-brary in sufficient quantity; by meditations and confer-ences which are chiefly derived from the source of Sacred Scripture and of the liturgy (see the Constitution, article 35, 2); and by common exercises that are in accord with Christian custom and usage and which fit in with the various seasons of the liturgical year. 15. The Eucharist, which is the center of the entire spiritual life, should be celebrated every day, use being made of the various and appropriate forms that best cor-respond to the condition of the participants (see the Con-stitution, article 19). On Sundays, however, and on other major feast days a sung Mass should be celebrated with the participation of all who are in the house; there should be a Homily and as far as possible there should be the sacramental Communion of those who are not priests. Moreover, after the new rite of concelebration has been authorized for public use, priests may concelebrate, especially on the more solemn feasts, when the welfare of the faithful does not require their individual celebration. It is desirable that at least on the greater feast days the seminarians should participate in the Eucharist assem-bled around the bishop in the cathedral church (see the Constitution, article 41). 16. It is most fitting that clerics, even if they are not yet bound by the Divine Office, should engage in a daily and common recital or singing of Lauds in the morning as morning prayer and at evening of Vespers as evening prayer or of Compline at the end of the day. As far as possible, superiors themselves should participate in this common recitation. Moreover, in the order of the day sufficient time for saying the Divine Office should be pro-vided for clerics in sacred orders. It is desirable that at least on major feast days the seminarians should chant Vespers in the cathedral church when this is opportune. 17. Exercises of piety, regulated by the laws or customs of a given place or institution, should be held in honor. Care should be taken, however, especially if they are done in common, that they are in harmony with the sacred liturgy according to the intention of article 15 of the Constitution and that they take consideration of the seasons of the liturgical year. IV. The Liturgical Formation o] Members o[ the States of Perfection 18. What was said in the preceding articles about the liturgical formation of the spiritual life of clerics should also be applied with due adaptation to the members, whether men or women, of the states of perfection. V. The Liturgical Education o[ the Faithful (Constitu-tion, article 19) 19. Pastors of souls should earnestly and patiently strive to carry out the directives of the Constitution about the liturgical education of the faithful and about the foster-ing of their active participation, internal and external, "in accord with their age, condition, type of life, and degree of religious background" (Constitution, article 19).oThey should be especially concerned with the litur-gical education and the active participation of those who are members of religious associations of the laity since it is the latter's duty to share in the life of the Church in a 4. 4. 4. Instrt~tion on the Liturgy VOLUME 24, 1965 ÷ Congregation oJ Rites REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS more intimate xbay and to be of assistance to their pas-tors also in the matter of appropriately fostering the li-turgical life of the parish (see the Constitution, article 42). VI. The Competent Authority in Liturgical Matters 20. The regulation of the sacred liturgy pertains to the authority of the Church; accordingly, no one else should proceed on his own in this matter to the detriment, as often happens, of the sacred liturgy and of its renewal by competent authority. 21. The following pertain to the Apostolic See: to re-vise and approve the general liturgical books; to regulate the sacred liturgy in those things that affect the universal Church; to approve or confirm the transactions and reso-lutions of the territorial authority; and to receive the proposals and petitions of the same territorial authority. 22. It belongs to the bishop to regulate the liturgy within the limits of his diocese in accord with the norms and spirit of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy as well as of the decrees of the Apostolic See and of the competent territorial authority. 23. The various kinds of territorial bodies of bishops to which the regulation of liturgical matters pertains in virtue of article 22, § 2 of the Constitution should be understood for the time being to mean: a) either the body of all the bishops of a given country according to the norms of the apostolic letter Sacram liturgiam, number X; b) or the already lawfully constituted body consisting of bishops or of bishops and other local ordinaries of several countries; c) or the body to be constituted with the permission of the Holy See by bishops or by bishops and other local ordinaries of several countries, especially if in the indi-vidual countries the bishops are so few in number that they more profitably convene together from different countries of the same language and of the same culture. If, however, special local circumstances suggest another type of grouping, the matter is to be proposed to the Apostolic See. 24. The following should be called to the above-men-tioned bodies: a) residential bishops; b) abbots and prelates nullius; c) vicars and prefects apostolic; d) permanently appointed apostolic administrators of dioceses; e) all other local ordinaries except vicars general. Coadjutor and auxiliary bishops can be called by the presiding officer with the consent of the majority of those who take part in the body with a deliberative vote. 25. Unless the law provides otherwise for certain places in view of special circumstances there, the convocation of the body should be made: a) by the respective presiding officer in the case of al-ready established bodies; b) in other cases by the archbishop or bishop who has the right of precedence according to the norms of law. 26. The presiding officer, with the consent of the fathers, determines the order of business and opens, trans-fers, prorogues, and closes the session. 27. A deliberative vote belongs tO all who are men-tioned above in number 24, including coadjutor and auxiliary bishops, unless a different provision is expressly made in the document of convocation. 28. For the lawful enactment of decrees a two-thirds majority of a secret vote is required. 29. The transactions of the competent territorial au-thority that are to be submitted to the Apostolic See for approval or confirmation should contain the following points: a) the names of those present at the session; b) a report of the matters that were discussed; c) the results of the voting for each decree. Two copies of these transactions, signed by the pre-siding officer and the secretary of the conference and with the proper seal, should be sent to the Committee for the Implementation of the Constitution on the Sacred Lit- 30. When, however, it is a question of transactions in which there are decrees concerning the use and extent of the vernacular in the liturgy, besides the matters enu-merated in the preceding number, the following must also be sent according to the norm of the Constitution, article 36, § 3 and of the apostolic letter Sacram liturgiam, number IX: a) an indication of the individual parts of the liturgy that are enacted to be said in the vernacular; b) two copies of the liturgical texts in the vernacular, one of which copies will be returned to the conference of bishops; c) a brief statement of the norms on the basis of which the work of translation was made. 31. Decrees of the territorial authority that require the approval or confirmation of the Apostolic See should be promulgated and put into practice only after they have been approved or confirmed by the Apostolic See. 4. + 4. Instruction on the Liturgy VOLUME 24, 1965 9 ÷ ÷ ÷ Congregation o~ Rites REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 10 VII. The Office o] Individuals in the Liturgy (Constitu-tion, article 28) 32. Parts which pertain to the schola or the people, if they are sung or recited by them, are not said privately by the celebrant. 33. Likewise, the celebrant does not privately say the Lessons which are read or chanted by the competent min-ister or by the server. VIII. Avoiding Distinction oI Persons (Constitution, ar-ticle 32) 34. Individual bishops or, if it seems opportune, the regional or national conferences of bishops should see to it that in their territories there should be put into prac-tice the 'prescription of the Council that forbids special distinction for private persons or for social classes either in ceremonies or in external display. 35. Moreover, pastors should not neglect to work with prudence and charity to see to it that in liturgical services and especially in the celebration of Mass and the admin-istration of the sacraments and the sacramentals the equality of the faithful is evident even outwardly and further that all appearances of money-making be avoided. IX. Simpli]ication oI Cortain Rites (Constitution, arti-cle 34) 36. In order that liturgical services may be distin-guished for that noble simplicity that is more in harmony with the mentality of our age: a) the bows to the choir b,y the celebrant and the minis-ters should be made only at the beginning and the end of the sacred service; b) the incensation of the clergy, except that of those who have the episcopal character, should be done for all of them together with a triple swing of the censer to each part of the choir; c) the incensation of the altar should be done only at the altar at which the sacred rite is being celebrated; d) the kissing of hands and of objects which are pre-sented or received is to be omitted. X. The Celebration of the Word of God (Constitution, article 35, 4) 37. If in places that have no priest there is no oppor-tunity for the celebration of Mass on Sundays and on holydays of obligation, the celebration of the Word of God should be had according to the judgment of the local ordinary, with a deacon or even a layman, author-ized for this, presiding over the service. The pattern of this celebration should be the same as that of the liturgy of the Word in the Massi ordinarily the Epistle and the Gospel of the Mass of the day should be read in the vernacular with chants, especially from the Psalms, before and between them; if the one who presides is a deacon, there should be a homily; if he is not a deacon, he should read a homily assigned by the bishop or the pastor; and the entire celebration should close with the "common prayer" or the "prayer of the faithful" and the Lord's Prayer. 38. It is fitting, that the celebrations of the Word of God, which are to be encouraged.on the vigils of the more solemn feasts, on some weekdays of Advent and Lent, and on Sundays and feast days, should also resem-ble the pattern of the liturgy of the Word in the Mass, although there is nothing to prevent there being only one Reading. However, when several Readings are to be arranged, in order that the history of salvation may be clearly seen, the Reading from the Old Testament should generally precede the Reading from the New Testament; and the Reading from the Gospel should appear as the climax. 39. In order that these celebrations may be held with dignity and devotion, it will be the responsibility of the liturgical commissions in the individual dioceses to indi-cate and provide suitable aids. XI. Vernacular Translations o[ Liturgical Texts (Con-stitution, article 36, § 3) 40. When vernacular translations of liturgical texts are prepared according to the norm of article 36, § 3, it is expedient that the following be observed: a) Vernacular translations of liturgical texts should be made from the Latin liturgical text. Moreover, the trans-lation of biblical passages should also be in conformity with the Latin liturgical text. although there remains the full possibility of revising the translation, if deemed ad-visable, in the light of the original text or of another clearer translation. b) The preparation of translations of liturgical texts should be entrusted as a special concern to the liturgical commission mentioned in article 44 of the Constitution and in number 44 of this Instruction; and, as far as pos-sible, this commission should be assisted in this by the institute of pastoral liturgy. If, however, such a commis-sion does not exist, the responsibilities for the making of these translations should be given to two or three bishops who should choose persons, including lay persons, expert in Scripture, in liturgy, in biblical languages, in Latin, in the vernacular, and in music; for the perfect vernacular translation of liturgical texts must simultaneously satisfy many conditions. 4. 4. 4- Instruction on the Liturgy VOLUME 24, 1965 11 ÷ ÷ Congregation o~ Rites REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS c) If the matter requires it, consultation concerning translations should be had with bishops of neighboring regions of the same language. d) In countries with more than one language vernacular translations in each language should be prepared and submitted to the special examination of the bishops con-cerned. e) Provision should be made for the fitting appearance of the books from which the liturgical texts are read to the people in the vernacular so that the very appearance of the book will lead the faithful to a greater reverence for the Word of God and for sacred things. 41. In liturgical services that are celebrated in some places with a congregation of people of another language, especially in the case of a group of emigrants, of members of a personal parish, and of other such instances, it is per-missible with the consent of the local ordinary to use the vernacular language known to these faithful in accord with the extent of use and the translation legitimately approved by a competent territorial ecclesiastical author-ity of that language. 42. New melodies for parts to be sung in the vernacular by the celebrant and the ministers must be approved by the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority. 43. Unless they are opposed to the Constitution, par-ticular liturgical books that were duly approved before the promulgation of the Constitution on the Sacred Lit-urgy as well as indults granted up to that time remain in force until other provision is made by the liturgical re-form as it is completed either in whole or in part. XII. The Liturgical Commission oI the Bishops" Confer-ence (Constitution, article 44) 44. The liturgical commission to be established when opportune by the territorial authority should be chosen, as far as possible, from the bishops themselves; or, at least, it should consist of one or other bishop with the addition of priests who are expert in liturgical and pas-toral matters and who have been specifically named to the commission. It is desirable that the members of this commission should meet several times a year with the consultors of the commission to deal together with the matters at hand. 45. The territorial authority can, if it seems opportune, entrust this commission with the following: a) to conduct research and experimentation according to the norm of article 40, 1) and 2) of the Constitution; b) to promote in the entire territory practical measures by which liturgical matters and the application of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy may be fostered; c) to prepare the studies and aids which become neces- sary as a result of the decrees of the plenary body of bishops; d) to o~cially regulate pastoral-liturgical activity in the entire region, to supervise the application of the de-crees of the plenary body, and to report to this body con-cerning all these matters; e) to have frequent consultations and to promote com-mon undertakings with associations of the same region that are concerned with Scripture, catechetics, pastoral, music, and sacred art, and likewise with every kind of religious association of lay persons. 46. The members of the institute of pastoral liturgy as well as the individual experts who are called to help the liturgical commission should not neglect to freely offer their help to individual bishops for the more effective promotion of pastoral-liturgical activity in their territory. XIII. The Diocesan Liturgical Commission (Constitu-tion, article 45) 47. The following pertain to the diocesan liturgical commission under the direction of the bishop: a) to investigate the status of pastoral-liturgical activity in the diocese; b) to execute with care the liturgical matters that have been proposed by competent authority and to be knowl-edgeable about studies and projects that are being under-taken elsewhere; c) to suggest and promote practical projects of every kind that can contribute to the promotion of liturgical matters, especially those that are helpful to the priests already working in the vineyard of the Lord; d) to suggest opportune and progressive stages of pas-toral- liturgical work for individual cases or even for the entire diocese, to recommend or even call upon compe-tent persons to assist priests on occasion in this matter, and to propose suitable means and helps; e) to see to it that projects begun in the diocese for the promotion of the liturgy proceed with the harmonious and mutual assistance of other associations in a way simi-lar to that described for the commission to be formed within the conference of bishops (number 45, e). CHAPTER II THE MYSTERY OF THE EUCHARIST I. The Mass Rite (Constitution, article 50) 48. Until the entire rite of the Mass has been revised, the following should now be observed: a) The parts of the Proper that are chanted or recited by the schola or the people are not said privately by the celebrant. 4. + + Instruction on the Liturgy VOLUME 24, 1965 ]3 ÷ Congregation o] Rites REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 14 b) The celebrant can sing or recite the parts of the Ordinary with the people or the schola. c) In the prayers to be said at the foot of the altar at the beginning of Mass, Psalm 42 is omitted. Moreover, all the prayers at the foot of the altar are omitted whenever another liturgical service immediately precedes the Mass. d) At solemn Mass the paten is not held by the sub-deacon but is left on the altar. e) The Secret or the Prayer over the Offerings should be chanted in sung Masses and recited in a loud voice in other Masses. D The doxology at the end of the Canon from the words "Per ipsum" up to "Per omnia saecula saeculorum. R. Amen" inclusively are to be sung.or recited in a loud voice. Moreover, throughout the entire doxology the cele-brant should hold the chalice with the Host in a some-what elevated position, omitting the signs of the cross; and at the end he genuflects only after "Amen" has been answered by the people. g) In low Masses the Our Father may be recited in the vernacular by the people together with the celebrant; in sung Masses it can be sung by the people with the priest in Latin and also, if the territorial ecclesiastical authority shall so decree, in the vernacular to melodies approved by the same authority. h) The embolism after the Lord's Prayer should be sung or recited in a loud voice. i) In the distribution of Holy Communion the formula "Corpus Christi" should be used. While saying these words, the celebrant lifts up the Host a little over the ciborium to show it to the communicant who answers "Amen" and is then given Communion by the celebrant, the sign of the cross with the Host being omitted. I) The Last Gospel is omitted; the Leonine prayers are suppressed. k) It is lawful to celebrate a sung Mass with a deacon only. /) It is lawful for bishops, when necessary, to celebrate a sung Mass in the form used by priests. II. The Lessons and the Chants between the Lessons (Constitution, article 51) 49. In Masses celebrated with the people, the Lessons, the Epistle, and the Gospel are read or sung facing the people: a) during a solemn Mass at the ambo or at the edge of the sanctuary; b) during high Mass and during low Mass, if they are read or chanted by the celebrant, either from the altar or at the ambo or at the edge of the sanctuary as may be more convenient; if, however, they are said or sung by someone else, at the ambo or at the edge of the sanctuary. 50. At non-solemn Masses celebrated with the people, the Lessons and the Epistle together with the chants be-tween them can be read by a qualified lector or server while the celebrant sits and listens; the Gospel can be read by a deacon or by another priest; the one who so reads it says the Munda cot meum, asks for the blessing, and at the end presents the Book of the Gospels for the celebrant to kiss. 51. In sung Masses the Lessons, the Epistle, and the Gospel may be read without chant if they are presented in the vernacular. 52. In reading or singing the Lessons, the Epistle, the chants occurring after these, and the Gospel, the follow-ing procedures are to be followed: a) At solemn Mass the celebrant sits and listens to the Lessons and the Epistle together with the chants between them. After the Epistle has been sung or read, the sub-deacon goes to the celebrant and is blessed by him. Then the celebrant, seated, puts incense in the censer and blesses it; while the Alleluia with its verse is being sung or to-wards the end of other chants that follow the Epistle, he rises to bless the deacon; he listens to the Gospel at his seat, kisses the Book of the Gospels, and, after the Homily, intones~the Creed if it is to be said; when the Creed is finished, he returns to the altar with the ministers unless he is to conduct the "prayer of the faithful." b) In high or low Masses at which the Lessons, the Epistle, the chants that follow these, and the Gospel are sung or read by the minister mentioned in number 50, the celebrant follows the procedure just described. c) In high or low Masses in Which the Gospel is sung or read by the celebrant, while the Alleluia and its verse is being sung or read or towards the end of other chants that follow the Epistle, the celebrant goes to a position in front of the lowest step of the altar and there, bowing pro-foundly, says the Munda cot meum; then he goes to the ambo or to the edge of the sanctuary to sing or read the Gospel. d) If, however, in high and low Masses all the Readings are sung or read by the celebrant at the ambo or at the edge of the sanctuary, then, while standing, he also reads, if necessary, the chants that occur after the Lessons and the Epistle; and he says the Munda cor meum while turned toward the altar. III. The Homily (Constitution, article 52) 53. On Sundays and holydays of obligation a Homily should be had at all Masses celebrated with a congregation 4. 4" 4. InsCruvtion on th~ Liturgy VOLUME 24, 1965 ]5 ÷ ÷ ÷ Congregation oy Rites REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 16 of people, no exception being made for conventual, sung, and pontifical Masses. On other days a Homily is recommended especially on some of the weekdays of Advent and Lent and on other occasions when the people come to church in greater num-bers. 54. By a Homily made from the sacred text is meant an explanation either of some aspect of the Readings of Sacred Scripture or of some other text from the Ordinary or the Proper of the Mass of the day, consideration being given to the mystery that is being celebrated and the par-ticular needs of the hearers. 55. If for certain periods a program is proposed for the preaching to be had during Mass, an intimate connection is to be harmoniously retained with at least the principal seasons and feasts of the liturgical year (see the Constitu-tion, articles 102-104), that is, with the mystery of 'the redemption; for the Homily is part of the liturgy of the day. IV. The Common Prayer or the Prayer of the Faithful (Constitution, article 53) 56. In places where the custom is already had of having: the common prayer or the prayer of the faithful, it should for the time being take place before the Offertory after the word Oremus and according to the formulas now in use in the individual regions; the celebrant shall conduct the prayer either from his seat or from the altar or from the ambo or from the edge of the sanctuary. The intentions or invocations may be sung by a deacon or by a cantor or other qualified server, though there should be reserved to the celebrant the words of introduc-tion as well as the concluding prayer which ordinarily should be the prayer: Deus, refugium nostrum et virtus (see the Roman Missal, "Orationes diversae," number 20) or some other prayer that better corresponds to a par-ticular need. In places where the common prayer or the prayer of the faithful is not in use, the competent territorial au-thority may decree that it should be done in the way just indicated above with formulas approved for the time be-ing by that authority. V. The Vernacular in the Mass (Constitution, article 54) 57. In Masses, whether sung or low, that are celebrated with the people, the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority, after its provisions have been approved or con-firmed by the. Apostolic See, may allow the vernacular: a) especially in the delivery of the Lessons, the Epistles, and the Gospel, as well as in the common prayer or the 13rayer of the faithful; b) according to local circumstances also in the chants of the Ordinary of the Mass, namely, the Kyrie, the Gloria, the Credo, the" Sanctus-Benedictus, and the Agnus Dei, and in the antiphons atthe Introit, the Offertory, and the Communion, as well as in the chants that occur between the Readings; c) and furthermore in the acclamations, salutations, and dialogue formulas, in the formulas: Ecce Agnus Dei, Domine, non sum dignus, and Corpus Christi at the Communion of the faithful, and in the Our Father with its introduction and embolism. Missals, however, that are employed in Iiturgical use should contain the Latin text in addition to the vernacu-lar translation. 58. It pertains solely to the Apostolic See to allow the vernacular in other parts of the Mass that are sung or said only by the celebrant. 59. Pastors of souls should carefully see to it that the faithful, above all the members of religious associations of lay persons, know how t6 say or sing (especially if simpler melodies are used) together in the Latin language the parts of the Ordinary of the Mass that pertain to them. VI. Receiving Communion Twicd on the Same Day (Con-stitution, article 55) 60. The faithful who go to Communion at the Mass of the Easter Vigil and at midnight Mass on Christmas, may go to Communion again during the second Mass of Easter and during one of the Masses that are celebrated on Christmas during the daytime. CHAPTER III THE OTHER SACRAMENTS AND THE SACRAMENTALS I. The Use o[ the Vernacular (Constitution, article 63) 61. After its provisions have been approved or con-firmed by the Apostolic See, the competent territorial authority can introduce the vernacular: a) into the rites of baptism, coiafirmation, penance, the anointing of the sick, and matrimony, including in all these the essential formula, as well as into the distribu-tion of Holy Communion; b) at the conferral of orders into the allocutions at the beginning of each ordination or consecration and also into the examination of the bishop-elect in episcopal consecration, and into the admonitions; c) into the sacramentals; d) into funeral rites. Whenever a greater use of the vernacular seems to be desirable, the prescription of article 40 of the Constitu-tion should be observed. 4. 4. 4. Instrurtion on the Liturgy VOLUME 24, 1965 17 Congregation oy ~t~tes REVIEW FOR REL]G[OUS II. Changes in the Rite lot Supplying Omissions in Bap-tism (Constitution, article 69) 62. In the rite for supplying omissions in the case of a baptized infant as given in the Roman Ritual, Title Chapter 5, theie should be omitted the exorcisms that are found under numbers 6 (Exi ab eo), 10 (Exorcizo te, immunde spiritus . Ergo, maledicte diabole), and 15 (Exorcizo te, omnis spiritus). 63. In the rite for supplying omissions in the case of a baptized adult as given in the Roman Ritual, Title II, Chapter fi, there should be omitted the exorcisms that are found under numbers 5 (Exi ab eo), 15 (Ergo, male-dicte diabole), 17 (dadi, maledicte satana), 19 (Exorcizo te- Ergo, maledicte diabole), 21 (Ergo, maledicte diabole), 23 (Ergo, maledicte diabole), 25 (Exorcizo te - Ergo, male-dicte diabole), 31 (Nec te latet), and 35 (Exi, immunde spiritus). III. Conl~rmation (Constitution, article 71) 64. If confirmation is conferred during Mass, it is fitting that the Mass be celebrated by the bishop, in which case he confers confirmation while wearing the Mass vestments. Moreover, the Mass during which confirmation is con-ferred can be ,said as a II class votive Mass of the Holy Spirit. 65. After the Gospel and the Homily and before the re-ception of confirmation, it is praiseworthy that those to be confirmed should renew their baptismal promises ac-cording to the rite in legitimate use in individual regions, unless this has already been done before Mass. 66. If the Mass is celebrated by another, it is fitting that the bishop should assist at the Mass in the vestments prescribed for the conferral of confirmation; these vest-ments may be either the color of the Mass or white. The bishop, should give the Homily, and the celebrant should resume the Mass only after confirmation has been conferred. 67. Confirmation is conferred according to the rite given in the Roman Pontifical; but only one sign of the cross is made at the words In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti that follow the formula Signo te. IV. Continuous Rite for the Anointing of the Sick and Viaticum (Constitution, article 74) 68. When the anointing of the sick and Viaticum are conferred at the same time, and a continuous rite is not already given in a particular Ritual, the following order should be observed: After the sprinkling and. the prayers to be said when first entering as given in the rite of the anointing, the priest hears, if necessary, the confession of the sick person, then confers the anointing, and finally gives Viaticum, omitting the sprinkling with its formulas as well as the Gonfiteor and the absolution. V. The Imposition of Hands during Episcopal Consecra-tion (Constitution, article 76) 69. All the bishops present in choir dress at an episcopal consecration may impose hands. However, the. words .4ccipe Spiritum Sanctum are to be said only by the consecrating bishop and the two co-consecrating bishops. VI. The Rite of Matrimony (Constitution, article 78) 70. Unless a just cause excuses from the celebration of Mass, matrimony should be celebrated during Mass ter the Gospel and after the Homily, which should never be omitted. 71. Whenever matrimony is celebrated within Mass, the votive nuptial Mass is always said or a commemora-tion made of it, even during the prohibited times. 72. As far as possible, the parish priest or his delegate who assists at the marriage should celebrate the Mass; but if another priest assists at the matrimony, the cele-brant should not continue the Mass until the rite of matrimony has been completed. The priest who assists at the marriage but does not celebrate the Mass should be vested in surplice and white stole and, according to local custom, in white cope; and he should give the Homily. But the blessing after the Pater noster and the one before the Placer should always be given by the priest who celebrates the Mass. 73. The nuptial blessing during Mass is always given, even during the prohibited times and even if one or both of the parties are not entering marriage for the first time. 74. In the celebration of matrimony outside of Mass: a) At the beginning of the rite in accord with the apos-tolic letter Sacram liturgiam, number V, there should be a brief talk that is not a Homily but a simple intro-duction to the celebration of matrimony (see the Con-stitution, article 35, 3); the Sermon or Homily from the sacred text (see the Constitution, article 52) should be given after the reading of the Epistle and the Gospel from the nuptial Mass. Hence the arrangement of the entire rite should be the following: a short talk; the reading of the Epistle and the Gospel in the vernacular; the Homily; the celebration of matrimony; the nuptial blessing. b) With regard to the reading of the Epistle and the Gospel from the nuptial Mass, if there is no vernacular text approved by the competent territorial ecclesiastical + + 4. Instruction on the Liturgy VOLUME 24, 1965 ]9 + + Congregation oI Rites REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS authority, it is permitted for the time being to use a text approved by the local ordinary. c) Nothing prevents having a chant between the Epistle and the Gospel. Likewise, it is highly recom-mended that after the rite of matrimony and before the nuptial blessing there should be the prayer of the faithful according to a formula approved by the local ordinary in which petitions for the couple are also in-cluded. d) At the end of the rite the blessing should always be given to the spouses even during the prohibited times and even if one or both of the spouses are not entering marriage for the first time; the blessing should follow the formula given in the Roman Ritual, Title VIII, Chapter 3, unless another blessing is given in par-ticular Rituals. 75. If matrimony is celebrated during a prohibited season, the pastor should advise the spouses to take into consideration the special nature of that liturgical season. VII. The Sacramentals (Constitution, article 79) 76. At the blessing of candles on February 2 and of ashes at the beginning of the Lenten fast, one only of the prayers found in the Roman Missal for these blessings may be said. 77. The blessings that up to now have been reserved and that are contained in the Roman Ritual, Title IX, Chapters 9, 10, and 11 may be given by every priest with the exception of the following: the blessing of a bell for the use of a blessed church or oratory (Chapter 9, number 11), the blessing of the first stone for the building of a church (Chapter 9, number 16), the blessing of a new church or a public oratory (Chapter 9, num-ber 17), the blessing of an antimension (Chapter 9, num-ber 21), the blessing of a new cemetery (Chapter 9, number 22); the papal blessings (Chapter 10, numbers 1-3), the blessing and erection of the Way of the Cross (Chapter 11, number 1) since this is reserved to the bishop. CHAPTER IV THE DIVINE OFFICE I. The Celebration of the Divine O~ce by Those Bound to Choir (Constitution, article 95) 78. Until the revision of the Divine Office is com-pleted: a) Communities of canons, monks, and nuns, and of other regulars or religious that are bound by law or their constitutions to choir must daily celebrate the en-tire Divine Office in addition to the conventual Mass. Individual members of these communities who are in major orders or are solemnly professed, with the ex-ception of brothers [conversi], must, even though they are legitimately dispensed from choir, individually re-cite each day the canonical Hours that they do not cele-brate in choir. b) In addition to the conventual Mass, cathedral and collegiate chapters must celebrate in choir those parts of the Office imposed on them by common or particular law. Moreover, individual members of these chapters, in addition to the canonical Hours that all clerics in major orders must say (see the Constitution, articles 96 and 89), must individually recite the Hours which are celebrated by their chapter. c) However, in mission territories, without derogation of the religious or capitular discipline set down by law, religious or capitulars who are legitimately absent from choir for pastoral reasons may with the permission of the local ordinary but not that of the vicar general or delegate make use of the concession granted by the apostolic letter Sacram liturgiam, number VI. II. Dispensing [rom or Commuting the Divine Olfice (Constitution, article 97) 79. The power granted to all ordinaries of dispensing their subjects in individual chses and for a just reason from the obligation of the Divine Office in whole or in part or of commuting it is extended also to major su-periors of non-exempt clerical religious institutes and of societies of clerics living in common without vows. III. Little Olfices (Constitution, article 98) 80. No Little Office is to be regarded as composed after the pattern of the Divine Office if it does not consist of Psalms, Lessons, hymns, and prayers and if it does not take some account of the Hours of the day and of the liturgical seasons. 81. In order to take part in the public prayer of the Church, for the time being those Little Offices can be used that have been legitimately approved up to the present time provided that they are composed in accord with the requirements stated in the preceding number. New Little Offices, however, must be approved by th$ Apostolic See in order that they may be used for the public prayer of the Church. 82. The translation of the text of a Little Office into the vernacular for use as the public prayer of the Church must be approved by the territorial ecclesiastical au-thority with the approbation or confirmation of the Apostolic See. 4" Instruction on the Liturgy VOLUME 24, 1965 21 4. ÷ Congregation o] Rites REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 83. The competent authority for allowing the use of the vernacular in the recitation of a Little Office to those 9bliged to it by their constitutions and for dis-pensing from or commuting this obligation is the ordi-nary or major superior of each subject. IV. The Common Celebration of the Divine Ol~ce or oI a Little 01rice by Members of the States of Perfec-tion (Constitution, article 99) 84. The obligation of reciting, in common the Divine Office or a Little Office or some part of them imposed on members of the states of perfection by their consti-tutions does not remove the faculty of omitting the Hour of Prime and of choosing that one of the Small Hours that best suits the time of day (see the apostolic letter Sacram liturgiam, number VI). V. The Language to Be Used in the Recitation of the Divine O~ce (Constitution, article 101) 85. In choral celebration of the Divine Office clerics must retain the Latin language. 86. The power granted to the ordinary of permitting the use of the vernacular in individual cases to those clerics to whom the use of the Latin language is a serious impediment to the worthy praying of the Office is ex-tended also to major superiors of non-exempt clerical religious institutes and of societies of clerics living in common without vows. 87. The serious impediment required for the preced-ing permission must be weighed by taking into con-sideration the physical, moral, intellectual, and spiritual condition of the petitioner. Moreover, this faculty, granted as it has been only to make the recitation of the Office easier and more devout, in no way diminishes the obligation by which a priest of the Latin rite is bound to learn the Latin language. 88. The vernacular translation of the Divine Office according to a rite other than the Roman one should be prepared and approved by the respective ordinaries of that language; however, in the parts that are common to both rites, the translation approved by the territorial authority should be used, and afterwards the entire trans-lation should be submitted for the confirmation of the Apostolic See. 89. The Breviaries to be used by clerics to whom the use of the vernacular in the Divine Office has been granted in accord with the norm of article 101, § 1 of the Constitution must contain the Latin text in addi-tion to the vernacular translation. CHAPTER V THE PROPER CONSTRUCTION OF CHURCHES AND ALTARS TO FACILITATE THE ACTIVE PARTICIPATION OF THE FAITHFUL I. The Arrangement oI Churches 90. In the new construction, renovation, or adaptation of churches, great care should be taken that they are made suitable for the celebration of the sacred actions in accord with their true nature and for the securing of the active participation of the faithful (see the Constitu-tion, article 124). II. The Main Altar 91. It is better that the main altar be constructed sepa-rately and away from the wall so that one can go around it easily and so that celebration facing the people can take place at it. Moreover, the place that it occupies in the entire building should be such that it is really the center towards which the attention of the congregation of the faithful spontaneously turns. In the choice of materials for the construction and ornamentation of this altar, the prescriptions of law should be observed. Furthermore, the presbyterium around the altar should be ample enough that the sacred rites can be performed with ease. Ill. The Seat for the Celebrant and the Ministers 92. According to the structure of individual churches, the seat for the celebrant and the ministers should be so placed that it can be easily seen by the faithful and so that the celebrant himself really appears as presiding over the entire community of the faithful. However, if the seat is placed behind the altar, the form of a throne is to be avoided, since this is reserved for the bishop alone. IV. Minor Altars 93. The minor altars should be few in number; and insofar as the structure of the building permits, it is highly fitting that they be placed in chapels somewhat separate from the principal part of the church. V. The Ornamentation of Altars 94. The cross and candles required on the altar for individual liturgical services may also be placed next to the altar in accordance with the judgment of the local ordinary. 4" 4" 4" Instruction on th~ Liturgy VOLUME 24, 1965 4. 4. Congregation o] Rites REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS VI. The Reservation oI the Blessed Eucharist 95. The Blessed Eucharist should be reserved in a solid and inviolable tabernacle placed in the middle of the main altar or of a minor but distinguished altar; or, according to legitimate custom and in special cases to be approved by the local ordinary, it can be kept in some other part of the Church that is beautifully and properly adorned.- It is lawful to celebrate Mass facing the people even if there is a small but suitable tabernacle on the altar. VII. The Ambo 96. It is fitting that for the sacred Readings there should be an ambo or ambos so situated that the min-isters can be easily seen and heard by the faithful. VIII. The Place of the $chola and the Organ 97. The places for the schola and the organ should be arranged so that the chanters and the organist clearly appear as a part of the congregated community of the faithful and so that they can perform their liturgical functions more easily. IX. The Places .of the Faithful 98. The places for the faithful should be arranged with particular care so that visually and mentally they can have a proper participation in the sacred celebrations. It is desirable that ordinarily there be pews or seats for their use. But the custom of reserving seats for certain private persons is to be reprobated according to the norm of article 32 of the Constitution. Care should also be taken that the faithful can not only see the celebrant and the other ministers but that with the' use of modern technical means they can also easily hear them. X. The Baptistry 99. In the construction and ornamentation of the baptistry, it should be carefully attended to that the dignity of the sacrament of baptism is clearly shown and that the place is suitable for community celebrations (see article 27 of the Constitution). The present Instruction was prepared at the command of His Holiness Paul VI by the Committee for the Implementation of the Constitution on the Sacred Lit-urgy and was presented to him by Giacomo Cardinal Lercaro, chairman oI the Committee. The Holy Father, a[ter duly considering this Instruc- tion with the help of the above mentioned Committee and of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, in an audience granted on September 26, 1964, to Arcadio Maria Cardi-nal Larraona, pre[ect of the Sacred Congregation oI Rites, approved it in a special way in each and all of its parts and ordered it to be published and to be carefully ob-served by all concerned beginning on March 7, 1965, the First Sunday oI Lent. All things to the contrary notwithstanding. Rome, September 26, 1964. GIACOMO CARD. LERCARO Archbishop of Bologna Chairman of the Commit-tee for the Implementa-tion of the Constitution on the Liturgy ARCADIO M. CARD. LARRA-ONA Prefect of the Sacred Con-gregation of Rites ~ Enrico Dante Titular archbishop of Car-pasia Secretary of the Sacred Congregation of Rites + 4. 4. Instruction on the Liturgy VOLUME 24, 1965 25 PONTIFICAL BIBLICAL COMMISSION Instruction on the Historicity of the Gospels ÷ ÷ ÷ Biblical ~ommission REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Holy Mother Church,* which is "the pillar and the foundation of the truth," x has always made use of Sacred Scripture in her work of bringing salvation to souls and has protected it from false explanations of every kind. Because there will never be a lack of problems, the Cath-olic exegete must never lose heart in his work of ex-pounding the Word of God and of solving the difficulties that are alleged against it; rather, relying not merely on his own abilities but having a firm trust chiefly in the help of God and the light coming from the Church, he must work strenuously to disclose the real meaning of Scripture to an ever greater degree. It is a cause of great joy that in the Church today there can be found so many loyal sons of the Church who have the proficiency in biblical matters that our times require and who in response to the insistence of the supreme pontiffs have devoted themselves completely and tirelessly to this important and difficult work. "All the other sons of the Church should keep in mind that the efforts of these hardworking laborers in the Lord's vine-yard should' be judged not only with fairness and justice but also with the greatest charity";2 for even exegetes of great reputation such as Jerome, in attempting to clear up the more difficult questions, have at times produced results that were not at all fortunate,a Care should be ¯ The original Latin text of this Instruction, entitled Sancta Mater Ecclesia, is given in Acta Apostolicae Sedis, v. 66 (1964), pp. 712-8. 1 1 Tim 3:15. ~ Divino affiante Spiritu; Enchiridion biblicum, 4th ed. [here-after referred to as EB], n. 564; Acta Apostolicae Sedis [hereafter re-ferred to as ,,lAb'], v. 35 (1943), p. 319. 8See Spiritus Paraclitus; EB, n. 451; ,'/,,IS, v. 12 (1920), p. 392. taken "that the limits of mutual charity are not trans-gressed in the heat of debate and discussion and that the impression is not given during such discussions that the revealed truths themselves and the divine traditions are being questioned. For unless there is harmony of spirit and the safeguarding of principles, it cannot be expected that notable progress in this branch of learn-ing will result from the various studies of so many schol-ars." 4 The work of exegetes is needed .today in an even more special way since wide circulation is given to many pub-lications in which the truth of the events and .sayings contained in the Gospels is being endangered. For this reason the Pontifical Biblical Commission, in the dis-charge of the duty entrusted to it by the supreme pon-tiffs, has thought it opportune to set forth and emphasize the following points. 1. The Catholic exegete, under the guidance of the Church, should profit from everything which previous interpreters, especially the holy fathers and doctors of the Church, have contributed to the understanding of the sacred text; and he should continue their work by ad-vancing it to a further stage. In order to bring out with all clarity the enduring truth and authority of the Gospels, the exegete, while carefully retaining the norms of reasonable and Catholic hermeneutics, will make an intelligent use of new exegetical helps, particularly those which the historical method has on the whole made available. This method diligently investigates sources, determines their nature and value, and makes use of textual criticism, literary criticism, and language studies. The exegete will follow the advice of Plus XlI of happy memory who enjoined that the exegete "should judi-ciously investigate what the literary form or type used by the sacred writer contributes to a valid and genuine in-terpretation; and he should be convinced that he cannot neglect this aspect of his work without great damage to Catholic exegesis." 5 In giving this advice, Pius XlI of happy memory was formulating a general rule of her-meneutics by the help of which the books of both the Old and the New Testaments are to be explained, since their sacred writers, in composing them, made use of the ways of thinking and writing in use among, their con-temporaries. Finally, the exegete will employ every available means by which he can attain a thorough knowledge of the characteristics of the testimony of the Gospels, of the religious life of the first churches, and of the meaning and value of the apostolic traditions. ~The apostolic letter Vigilantiae; EB, n. 143; Leonis XIII Acta, v. 22, p. 237. ~Divino afftante Spiritu; EB, n. 560; AAS, v. 35 (1943), p. 316. + + + Gospels VOLUME 24, 1965 + ae ae Biblical Commission REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS When it is applicable, the interpreter can investigate what sound elements there are in the "method of form criticism" and can use these for a fuller understanding of the Gospels. In doing this, however, he should pro-ceed with mature deliberation since often there are ad-joined to this method inadmissible philosophical and theological principles that not infrequently vitiate both the method and the literary conclusions that are drawn. Certain exponents of this method, misled by ration-alistic prejudices, refuse to acknowledge the existence of a supernatural order, the intervention into this world of a personal God through revelation in the proper sense of that word, and the possibility and existence of mir-acles and prophecies. Others begin with a false notion of faith, conceiving it as though it has no concern for his-torical truth and indeed is incompatible with it. Still others have a kind of a priori negation of the historical value and nature of the documents of revelation. Others, finally, minimizing the authority of the Apostles as wit-nesses to Christ, their office, and their influence in the primitive community, exaggerate the creative ability of this community. These matters are not only opposed to Catholic doctrine but also are devoid of any scientific basis and are foreign to the genuine principles o[ the historical method. 2. In order that the trustworthiness of what is related in the Gospels may be correctly established, the inter-preter should give careful attention to the three periods of tradition through which the doctrine and life of Jesus have come to us. Christ the Lord attached to Himself chosen disciples6 who followed Him from the beginning,7 observed His actions, and heard His words, thereby becoming qualified to be witnesses of His life and doctrine,s When the Lord gave His oral expositions of His doctrine, He followed the ways of thought and exposition in general use at that time; in this way He adapted Himself to the men-tality of His hearers and made sure that what He taught would be firmly impressed on their minds and could be easily remembered by His disciples. These latter cor-rectly understood that the miracles and the other events in the life of Christ took place or were arranged in such a way that through them men might believe in Christ and accept by faith the doctrine of salvation. The Apostles, when they witnessed to Jesus,° first of all proclaimed the death and the resurrection of the Lord; eSee Mk 3:14; Lk 6:13. See Lk 1:2; Acts 1:21-2. sSee Lk 24:48; Jn 15:27; Acts 1:8; 10:39; 13:31. See Lk 24:44-8; Acts 2:32; 3:15; 5:30-2. and they honestly described His life and doctrine?° tak-ing account in their way of preaching11 of the circum-stances in which their hearers found themselves. After Jesus had arisen from the dead and His divinity was clearly perceived?2 the faith of His followers was far from erasing the memory of what had happened but rather strengthened that memory since their faith was based on what Jesus had done and taught,la Nor was Jesus changed into a "mythical" personage and His doc-trine distorted because of the worship with which the disciples now venerated Him as the Lord and the Son of God. Still, there is no reason why it should be denied that the Apostles, when relating to their audiences what had been really said and done by the Lord, did so with that fuller understanding which, after their instruction by the events of glory in the life of Christ and after their enlightenment by the Spirit of truth,14 was theirs to en-joy. x5 Hence it was that just as Jesus Himself after His Resurrection "interpreted to them" 16 the words both of the Old Testament and of Himself?~ so also the Apostles interpreted His words and actions as the needs of their hearers required. "Being devoted to the ministry of the word," as they did their preaching using such various ways of speaking as were adapted to their own purpose and to the mentality of their hearers; for it was "to Greek and non-Greek, to the learned and the unlearned" x9 that they owed their obligation.2° The following various ways of speaking by which, like so many heralds, they proclaimed Christ must be differentiated and carefully appraised: catecheses, narratives, testimonies, hymns, doxologies, prayers, and other such literary forms that were customarily used in Sacred Scripture and by the people of that time. This earliest teaching which was first given orally and then in writing--for it soon happened that many at-tempted "to draw up an account of the events" 21 which concerned the Lord Jesus--was incorporated by the sacred writers for the benefit of the Church into the four Gospels, each one following the method adapted to the special purpose he had. From the great quantity of tra- See Acts 10:36-~1. See Acts 13:16--41 together with Acts 17:22-31. Acts 2:36; Jn 20:28. ~Acts 2:22; 10:37-9. See Jn 14:26; 16:13. ~Jn 2:22; 12:16; 11:51-2; see also 14:26; 16:12-3; 7:39. Lk 24:27. See Lk 24:44-5; Acts 1:3. Acts 6:4. gom 1:14. 1 Cor 9:19-23. See Lk 1:1. 4- 4- + Historicity o~ the Gospels VOLUME 24, 1965 ~9 4. Biblical Commission REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ~0 ditional materials, they made a selection of some, some they presented in a synthesis, and some they explained in terms of the situation of the churches; and in all this they took every precaution that their readers might real-ize the trustworthiness of the message in which they had been instructed.2z From the matters which they had re-ceived, the sacred authors chose especially those things which were adapted to the various circumstances of the faithful and to the purpose intended by them; and they narrated their selections in a way that was consonant with those circumstances and that purpose. Since the meaning of a statement is also dependent on its place in a given sequence, the evangelists, when they related the words or actions of the Savior, explained them for the benefit of their readers through the context, one evangelist using one. context while another would employ a different context. Accordingly, the exegete should make a close investigation o[ what an evangelist intended when he narrated a saying or action in a given way or placed it in a given context. For the truth of the narra-tive is not at all desiroyed by the fact that the evangelists give the words and actions of the Lord in a different order23 or by the fact that they express His statements in different ways, no~ keeping to the letter but nevertheless relating the sense.24 As St. Augustine points out: "With regard to those matters the different ordering of which does not lessen the authority and truth of the Gospels, it is probable enough that each of the evangelist's thought that he should put his narratives in the order in which God willed to suggest them to his memory. If a person reverently and diligently inquires into the matter, he will be able with the help of God to find out why the Holy Spirit, who distributes His gifts to each as He wishes2~ and who therefore--because of the fact that these books were to be placed at the very summit of authority--without a doubt directed and controlled the minds of the sacred writers as they reflected on what they should write, permitted different writers to arrange their narratives in different ways." 26 Unless the exegete takes into account all the factors involved in the origin and the composition .of the Gospels and makes due use of the legitimate findings of recent research, he will not be performing his duty of ~ See Lk 1:4. ~ See St John Chrysostom, Homiliae 90 in Evangeliura S. Matthaei, I, 3; PG, v. 57, col. 16-7. a See St. Augustine, De consensu evangelistarura libri quatuor, 2, 12, 28; PL, v. 34, col. 1090-1. ~ 1 Cot 12:11. ~St. Augustine, De consensu, 2, 21, 51 f.; PL, v.34, col. 1102. finding out what the sacred writers intended and what they actually said. Since it appears from the findings of recent research that the doctrine and life of Jesus were not related for the sole purpose of retaining them in re-membrance but that they were "proclaimed" in such a way that they might furnish the Church a foundation for faith and morals, the interpreter who is untiring in mak-ing a close study of the testimony of the Gospels will be able to shed a greater light on the enduring theological value of the Gospels and to exhibit in the clearest light the negessity and importance of the Church's interpreta-tion. There still exist many questions of the greatest serious-ness in the discussion and explanation of which the Catholic exegete can and should freely exercise his in-telligence and ability so that each one individually may make his contribution to the benefit of all, to the con-tinued advancement of sacred doctine, to the prepara-tion for and further support of the decisions of the Church's teaching authority, and to the defence and honor of the Church.u7 But they must always be pre-pared to obey the teaching authority of the Church, nor should they forget that the Apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit when they proclaimed the good news and that the Gospels were written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit who preserved their authors from all error. "We came to know the plan of our salvation through no others than those through whom the gospel came to us. This gospel they first proclaimed by mouth, but afterwards by the will of God they passed it on to us in the Scriptures to be the foundation and pillar of our faith. For it is not permissible to say that they preached before they possessed perfect knowledge, as some dare to assert who boast that they are the correctors of the Apos-tles. For after our Lord had arisen from the dead and they had been invested from on high with the power of the Holy Spirit who descended upon them, they were filled with all the gifts and possessed perfect knowledge. They went forth to the ends of the earth preaching the message of the blessings we have from God and pro-claiming heavenly peace to men, each and every one of them equally possessing God's gospel." us 3. Those to whom the duty of teaching in seminaries or in similar institutions has been entrusted "should make it their first concern., that Sacred Scripture is taught in a way that is completely in consonance with ~See Divino a~ante Spiritu; EB, n. 565; AtlS, v.35 (1943), p. 319. ~St. Irenaeus, Adversus haereses, III, 1, 1; in the edition by W. Wigan Harvey, v. 2, p. 2; PG, v. 7, col. 844. ÷ ÷ ÷ Historicity oJ the Gospels VOLUME 24s 1965 31 + ÷ ÷ Biblical ~ommission REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS what the importance of the matter and the needs of the times warrant." 29 Professors should chiefly set forth the theological content so that Sacred Scripture "may become for the future priests of the Church a pure and never failing source of each one's spiritual life as well as a strength-giving food for the role of preaching which they will assume." a0 When they make use of critical tech-niques, especially those of what is known as literary criticism, they should not do so in order to exercise those techniques for their own sake but in order that by their light they may more clearly see the meaning communi-cated by God through the sacred writer. Hence they should not stop halfway and reniain satisfied with just the literary discoveries they have made; over and beyond this they should show how these really help to a clearer understanding of revealed doctrine or, if the case war-rants, to a refutation of erroneous positions. If teachers follow these norms, they will ensure that their students will find in Sacred Scripture that "which raises the mind to God/nourishes the soul, and fosters the interior life." ax 4. Those who instruct the Christian people by sacred preaching have in all truth a need for the greatest prudence. They should chiefly impart doctrine, mindful of St. Paul's warning: "Pay attention t9 yourself and your teaching, and be persistent in this; by doing this, you will further the salvation of yourselves and of those who hear you." ~2 They should refrain entirely from pro-posing matters that are useless novelties or not sufficiently proved. New views, once they are solidly established, may, if necessary, be set forth in a discreet way, account being taken of the nature of the audience. When they narrate biblical events, they should not make fictitious additions that are not conformed to truth. This virtue of prudence should be especially exer-cised by those who publish writings for the faithful at the popular level. They should take care to set forth the supernatural treasures of the Word of God "in order that the faithful., may be moved and incited to order their lives in a correct way." an They should regard it as an inviolable duty never to depart in the slightest from the common teaching and tradition of the Church; they should, to be sure, make use of whatever advances in biblical knowledge have been made by the intelligence of recent scholars, but they should completely avoid the The apostolic letter Quoniam in re biblica; EB, n. 162; Pii X Acta, v. 3, p. 72. ~°Divino a~lante Spiritu; EB, n. 567; AA$, v. 35 (1943), p. 322. ~Divino aOiante Spiritu; EB, n. 552; AA$, v. 35 (1943), p. 311. 1 Tim 4:16. Divino a~tante Spiritu; EB, n. 566; AAS, v. 35 (1943), p. 320. rash fabrications of innovators,a4 They are strictly for-bidden to give in to the destructive itching for novelty by thoughtlessly publicizing without any judicious and serious discrimination any and all attempts to solve dif-ficulties, thus disturbing the faith of many. Earlier, this Pontifical Biblical Commission had al-ready judged it good to recall to mind the fact that books together with magazine and newspaper articles dealing with biblical matters are subject to the authority and jurisdiction of ordinaries, since they are religious publications and are concerned with the religious in-struction of the faithful,a5 Hence the ordinaries are asked to pay the greatest attention to these popular publica-tions. 5. Those in charge of biblical associations should, in-violably obey the laws laid down by the Pontifical Bibli-cal Commission.a6 If all the above points are observed, the study of Sacred Scripture will result in profit to the faithful. There will be no one who does not also experience today what St. Paul described: the Sacred Scriptures "have the power to make you wise and to lead you to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture, being inspired by God, is useful for teaching, for reproving error, for cor-recting, and for training in right conduct so that the man who is God's may be perfect, equipped for good work of every kind." 37 His Holiness, Paul VI, in an audience graciously granted on April 21, 1964, to the undersigned consultor and secretary, approved this instruction and ordered it to be made public. Rome, April 21, 1964. BENJAMIN N. WAMBACQ, O.Praem., Consultor and Secretary ~' See the apostolic letter Quoniam in re biblica; EB, n. 175; Pii X Acta, v, 3, p. 75. ~ The Instruction to Local Ordinaries of December 15, 1955; EB, n. 626; AAS, v. 48 (1956), p. 63. ~°EB, nn. 622-33; AASo v. 48 (1956), pp. 61--4. ~ 2 Tim 3:15-7. 4- ÷ 4- Gospels VOLUME 24, 1965 33 LORENZO BOISVERT, O.F.M. The Nature. of Religious Authority Father Lorenzo Boisvert, O.F.M., is a member of the Franciscan com-munity looted at 5750, boulevard Rosemont; Mont-real 36, Canada. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS THE TEACHING OF JEsus ON AUTHORITY~ It is sometimes said that superiors talk a great deal about obedience but say little or even nothing at all about authority with the result that subjects know much about the notion of obedience which their superiors have but are ignorant of their idea of authority-~or, if they do know it, they have deduced it from their way of governing. This remark--it does not seem to be without foun-dation- is an expression of the legitimate need of sub-jects for clarification, of their desire to understand the governmental attitude of superiors. This does not pro-ceed from mere curiosity but rather is aimed at finding out what the nature of their obedience should be and how superiors intend to have them cooperate for the good of the community. A given concept of authority necessarily engenders' a corresponding notion of obedi-ence. If a superior conceives authority as a means of domination, his subjects have but one way of obeying, --that of executing his orders; accordingly, their col-, laboration for the common good remains very limited. If, on the other hand, the superior conceives authority' as a service, he is on his way towards achieving the complete collaboration of his subjects not only on the, level of execution but first of all on the level of thought and organization. There is a second reason which leads us to investigate the nature of authority, and this is the existence of a problem of obedience in the greater part of religious communities; this latter problem is one about which it can be asked whether it is not just as much or even ¯ This section originally appeared as a separate article, "L'auto-rit~ d'apr~s l'enseignement de J~sus," in La vie des communautds religi~uses, v. 20 (1962), pp. 271-6. more so a problem of authority.1 What makes obedience so difficult for today's religious is not just the need of a greater independence--fruit of their education--but also the desire for a more evangelical conception and exercise of authority. They cannot endure to have supe-riors form a notion of authority according to their own liking as though they were indifferent whether their notion does or does not square with that of Christ. In the face of this need for evangelical authenticity, supe-riors ought to reconsider their notion of authority, a matter that necessitates knowing the teaching of Christ on the point. Three times on the occasion of three different episodes Christ provided His disciples with clear instruction on the nature of authority. The first two of these episodes are reported for us by the synoptics while the third is told only by St. John. First episode: This episode is told us by St. Matthew and St. Mark in the following way: It was at this time that the disciples came to Jesus and asked him: "Who then is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" Jesus called a little child and placed him in the midst of them. "I tell you in all seriousness," he said, "that if you do not return to the condition of children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. The man, therefore, who makes himself little like this little child, he is the one who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven" (Mt 18:1-4). When they arrived at Capernaum and had reached their house, he asked them: "What were you arguing about during the trip?" They kept quiet because during the journey they had been arguing about which of them was the greatest. There-upon he sat down and called the Twelve to him. "If any one of you wishes to be first," he said, "he must make himself the last of all and the servant of all" (Mk 9:33-5). On the journey to Capernaum (Mk) the disciples were vain enough to argue about which of them was the greatest and hence the rightful one to occupy the first place. As Father Congar remarks, this was a subject of frequent discussion in Judaism: In Judaism there was a great deal of discussion about the one to take the first place: whether it was a matter of a cultural meeting or of administration or of table arrangement, the ques-tion of precedence was constantly recurring. Perhaps as a re-sult of the promise to Peter o£ the keys .to the kingdom, the disciples themselves argued about who was the greatest? Once they had arrived at Capernaum and had settled down in a house (the owner of which is unknown), Jesus, *This problem of authority in the Church has been emphasized in the cooperative work entitled Probl~mes de l'autoritd (Paris: Cerf, 1962). ~, *Y. Congar, "La hi~rarchie comme service selon le Nouveau Testament et les documents de la tradition," in L'dpiscopat et l'Eglise universelle (Paris: Cerf, 1962), pp. 69-70. VOLUME 24, 1965 4. 4. L. Bo~er~, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS as St. Matthew tells it, was asked by the disciples to settle the argument. St. Mark, on the other hand, in-forms us that it was Jesus Himself who asked them the searching question: "What were you arguing about dur-ing the trip?" This leads one to suppose either that Christ did not make the trip to Capernaum with them or that the argument had been had by a group of the disciples with whom Christ was not present. But whether the question came from the disciples themselves or from Christ is of little importance; what matters is the instruction by action and by word that Christ gave on this occasion. He called a little child, placed it in the midst of them, and then said to them: "If you do not return to the condition of children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, the man who makes himself little like this little child, he it is who is greatest in the kingdom of heaven." It should be noted that St. Matthew is the only one to speak here of the kingdom of heaven; and it is well known that the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, and the Church are identified in their terrestrial phase, in their temporal realization. St. Mark, on the other hand, uses words of singular force: "If any man wishes to be the first, he will make himself the last of all and the servant of all." Christ, then, teaches us that to be the greatest in the kingdom a man mustmake himself the smallest, the last, the servant of all. Second episode: This episode is told us by both St. Matthew and St. Mark; but because the passages are long, only the text of St. Matthew will be given here: It was at this point that the mother of the sons of Zebedee, came up to him with her sons and knelt in front of him to ask him a favor. "What is it you want?" he asked. "Promise me," she said, "that in your kingdom these two sons of mine will sit next to you, one on the right and the other on the left." "You do not realize what you are asking," Jesus replied. "Can the two of you drink the cup that I am about to drink? . Yes, we can," they answered. "It is true," he told them, "that you will indeed drink my cup; but as for sitting on my right and on my left, that is not for me to grant; that belongs to the ones for whom my Father has destined it." When the other ten heard about this, they became indignant with the two brothers. Then Jesus called them to him and said: "You know that the ru.lers of the pagans lord it over them and that their mighty ones tyrannize them. But such must not be the case among you. On the contrary, whoever wishes to become great among you must become the servant of all of you; and whoever wishes to be the first among you must be ~our slave-- just as the Son of Man has not come in order to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for men" (Mt 20:20-8), This episode is concerned with a request made of Christ by the mother of the sons of Zebedee, as St. Matthew relates it; though St. Mark puts the request on the lips of the sons of Zebedee themselves. Their desire is nothing less than to sit on the right and left of Christ in His new kingdom; in other words, they wanted to have the chief positions after that of Christ.- After James and John had assured Christ that they could drink His cup, He told them that it was not His prerogative to determine who would sit at His right and His left in the kingdom and that this was a matter that pertained to His Father. Undoubtedly, this response left them as well as their mother a little confused and humiliated. Moreover, they came to realize that their request had been highly audacious and that it was not taken very graciously by the rest of the disciples who were indignant at it. It was precisely this indignation of the disciples which was the occasion not for words of reproach and blame but for the magnificent answer of Christ given in the text cited above. Hence, "as there are in the order of earthly societies, so also in the order of the gospel there exist the great ones, the first ones." ~ But the attitude of the great men in the order of the gospel should be entirely different from the attitude of the great ones of earthly societies. The great ones of the earth make their power felt, they show themselves as masters, they lord it over others. The relationship of inequality that exists between them and their subjects is a relationship of domination from the viewpoint of the former and one of subjection from the viewpoint of the latter. This, precisely, is a conception of authority which Christ cannot admit and which in consequence should not exist among His disciples. According to the gospel the way leading to the rank of first or great.is that of seeking a position or relationship not of power but of service, that of a minister [dial~onos], a servant, a doulos, a slave, a laborer. Throughout the New Testament diakonia--the state, behavior, and activity of a servant--ap-pears as coextensive and concretely identified with the character-istic condition of the disciple, of the person who, having been overwhelmed by Christ, lives in dependence on Him. This comportment of service, not of power, which Christ makes a law for His disciples is explicitly linked by Him with their comportment with regard to Him their Master; for the disciple is not just a pupil receiving instruction but is one who imiuites the Master whose life he shares. But Christ lived out and defined His mission in the Isaiah terms of the Servant of Yahweh. He had not come to lord it over others but to serve as a slave, to live the condition of a slave even to the specific detail of being sold so as to make himself the equivalent of a ransom.' The disciples likewise "ascend only by humbling them-selves, by following Christ on the way of descent, the ' Congar, "La hi~rarchie," p. 71. ' Congar, "La hi~rarchie," pp. 71-2. ÷ ÷ ÷ Religious Authodty VOLUME 24, 1965 ÷ ÷ ,÷ L. Bois~ert, O.F.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS way of the gift and loss of self . " 5 The attitude of the servant and the slave should be the normal attitude of one who has been raised to a state of external greatness. Third episode: This episode is found in St. John 13:12-7: When he had washed their feet and had put on his clothes, he resumed his place at table and spoke to them: "Do you realize what I have just done to you? You call me 'Teacher' and 'Master' and you are right in saying this because I am such. But if I, your Master and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought also to wash the feet of each other. I have given you this example so that you may act as I have acted towards you. I tell you with all earnestness that the slave is not greater than his master and that the messenger is not greater than the man who sent him. Once you realize these things, you will find happiness in doing them." The occasion for Christ's action was, no doubt, the discreditable incident that took place during the pas-chal repast and "which was in singular contrast with the solemnity of the occasion";0 as St. Luke puts it: "There arose among them a dispute as to which of them should be regarded as the greatest" (Lk 22:24). Once more it is the question of precedence; Christ must have been saddened and even upset; His teaching about hu-mility had not been understood. Once again, instead of addressing the Apostles with words of lesser or greater harshness, Christ performs an action which constitutes an awesome lesson for them and makes them realize the ridiculousness of their dispute: He washes their feet. It is sufficient here to note the following: "The wash-ing of feet was classed distinctly as the work of slaves. A slave of Jewish descent could not be obligated to do it, but only a slave of another nationality." 7 Christ, since He was Teacher and Master, had the right to lord it over them, to act as a master, to impose His will, to command, to dominate; He renounces this .right to take the attitude of a slave, of a servant. He does this to give His Apostles and all future Christians an example to be imitated so that we who before God are but servants and slaves might learn to give service and 'to minister to each other. The relationship which should exist among Christians is a relationship of service. "St. Luke, who does not record the washing of feet, still gives its moral lesson, precisely with reference to the * Congar, "La hi~rarchie," p. 73. e F. Prat, Jesus Christ: His LiIe, His Teaching, and His Work (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1950), v. 2, p. 264. 7 F. M. Willam, The Life of Jesus Christ (St. Louis: Herder, 1936), p. 380. incident which seems to us to have called it forth." s As Luke puts it: The kings of the heathen lord it over them, and the ones who tyrannize them are called their "benefactors." But it must not be so among you. On the contrary, the greatest among you should behave like the youngest and the chief like the servant. Who is the greater, the one reclining at table or the one serving? Is it not the one who is reclining? And I am in the midst of you as one who serves (Lk 22:25-7). The greatest, then, must make himself the servant; he must be in a state of service with regard to those who are subject to him. According to the teaching of Christ, authority is essen-tially a service; and the person who holds authority is a servant. This comportment of service which defines the condition of the superior likewise constitutes the essen-tial law of the members of the ecclesial community to such an extent that all Christians should serve one an-other. From this it can be seen that the activity of the superior is to be situated as a prolongation of the Christian life and that it is, in short, a special function of service within the community and for the good of the community. AUTHORITY AND COMMUNITYt Our brief analysis of these three gospel episodes has already shown us that according to the teaching of Christ authority is essentially a service and the person who pos-sesses it a servant: The kings of the pagans lord it over them and those who tyran-nize them are called their "benefactors." But it is not to be the same among you. On the contrary, the greatest among you is to act like the least and the chief like a servant (Lk 22:25-6). The aim of the present section of this article is to empha-size this central point of authority-service by specifying the relationship that should normally exist between aft-thority and the threefold community: the human com-munity, the Christian community, and the religious com-munity. Authority and the Human Community The human community is essentially a community of equals since all men are of the same nature. Hence those who command others do not do so by reason of an essen-tial superiority. Neither is it by reason of certain par-s Prat, Jesus Christ, v. 2, p. 267. ~fOriginally a separate article entitled, "Autoritfi et commu-naut.," this section appeared in La vie des communautds religieuses, v. 20 (1962), pp. 309-15. ÷ ÷ 4- Religious Authority VOLUME 24, 196S L. Bols~ert~ O.F.~I. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 40 ticular values (for example, nobility, wealth, power, su-perior degree of intelligence or virtue) that certain ones possess authority since these values, while they engender prestige, do not confer any rights over others. Even though an unlimited number of historical facts show the strong dominating the weak and even reducing them to slavery, still this proves only the existence of a state of disorder, the consequence of original sin, in which man behaves to his fellow man like a wolf (homo homini lupus) instead of like a brother. The only principle which justifies the possession and the exercise of authority within the human community is the good of others, whether of the others taken indi-vidually or as the entire community. Since the raison d'etre of authority is the welfare of others, it has mean-ing and can be understood only if it is considered in relation to the community. The person, then, who possesses authority is situated in a state of service with regard to his brothers, for he possesses it only in the interest of those subordinated to him. If he has a right to remuneration from the com-munity because he is at their service, he nevertheless abuses his power if he uses his authority for his own personal interest at the expense of his subjects. In this latter case authority, instead of being directed toward the good of each and all, is directed to the good of the person who possesses it; in place of being a state of re-sponsibility and of service, it is "an occasion of getting more enjoyment, of permitting oneself everything, and of serving oneself." The welfare of others being the fundamental prin-ciple that justifies the possession of authority, it is like-wise the principle that justifies the imposition of limits on the exercise of this authority. The person who pos-sesses power does not have the right to command what-ever he pleases, abstraction being made from the wel-fare of others. If the object of his command exceeds the range of the authority he has received or if the com-mand is flatly counter to the welfare of the community, the subjects can and even should refrain from obeying since the obligation to obey always supposes the legiti-mate possession and exercise of authority. Hence, already in the human community as such it is true that authority is a service and its holders are servants. The word "minister" which is sometimes used to denote persons in charge of the welfare of particular communities is nothing else than a translation of this fundamental truth. When we speak of the "prime min-ister" of a country or of some other political unit, this should normally mean the person who is most at the servi~e of this country or of this political unit; for degree of service corresponds or should correspond to the de-gree of authority. Authority and the Christian Community Far from constituting a reality apart from .and, as it were, exterior to the human community, the Christian community is actually situated within that community and is its perfective complement. Christ did not send His disciples to the desert to be far away from the world so as to preserve them from contagion; rather it was His wish that His own, united in the ecclesial community, should be present in the world so that they might make truth and love rule where error and discord had domi-nated. This ecclesial community, the Mystical Body of Christ, is not a large organization, a system, a legalistic structure, or a juridical person; neither is it a collectivity consisting only of the members of the hierarchy; rather it is the community of the faithful as they tend to the perfection of love. Since, however, it is the express will of Christ, it must be admitted that in this Church there are lead-ers, a hierarchy, an authority. And since this authority is part of the Church's constitution, a knowledge of its exact nature can be had only by situating it in relation-ship to what we will call the fundamental exigency of the Christian community. According to the teaching of the gospel there is but one Master and but one Lord: Christ, the only source of every supernatural gift. Consequently, whatever con-stitutes the Christian community (for example, its Mys-tical Head, its animating Spirit, its sacraments, its min-istries, and so forth) is a gift of God, a grace from on high. From this there comes the obligation of this com-munity to be at the service of God, to have divine wor-ship as its principal goal, and to have thanksgiving as the central act of this worship. What is true for the ec-clesial community as such is equally true with regard to each of its members: the Christian possesses Christian reality only to the extent that he has received the grace of God. Since everything that makes him a Christian is a gift, he must assume the attitude not of a master and lord but that of a steward and administrator, roles which are essentially an attitude of service. He must be "a man of submission and of gratitude" and not a man of a pos-sessive spirit. When he uses the gifts he has received, he must force himself with the greatest fidelity to acknowl-edge and respect the purposes of his Master and Bene-factor. The purpose of Christ with regard to the gifts that He confers is clearly expressed by St. Paul: ÷ ÷ ÷ Religious Authority VOLUME 24, 1965 41 4. 4. 4. L. Bolsv~t, O.F.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Though there is a variety of spiritual gifts, there is but one and the same Spirit; though there is a variety of ministries, there is but one and the same Lord; and though there is a variety of ways in which God acts, still there is the one and same God acting in all. ~Each man is given his own manifestation of the Spirit Ior the sake o] the common good (1 Cor 12:4-7). He made some to be apostles, some prophets, some mission-aries, some pastors and teachers; he disposed Christians in this way for the sake of the ministry that the body of Christ might be built up (Eph 4:11-2). Hence the gifts which the Christian receives are directed to the building up of the Mystical Body of Christ; they are not given him for himself alone but for all; thus they make him "a means of living and growing for others." But the Christian can benefit others through the gifts he has received only if he takes an attitude of service with regard to his brethren, the way of behaving of a servant who gives himself devotedly. This is the attitude adopted by St. Paul: Though I am a free man in the eyes of all, still I have made myself a slave to all men in order that I might win more of them (1 Cor 9:19). It is not ourselves that we preach but Christ Jesus the Lord; and we are your slaves for the sake of Jesus (2 Cor 4:5). And this same attitude is considered by St. Paul and St. Peter as the normal attitude of every Christian: My brothers, you were called to be free; but do not use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love put yourselves at the service of each other (Gal 5:13). In accord with the grace each has received, put yourselves at the service of each other like trustworthy stewards of the mani-fold grace of God (1 Pt 4:10). Hence each member of the Mystical Body ought to be the servant of all. This fundamental exigency of the Christian condition is coextensive with the very state of a Christian, for there is no genuine life in Christ without charity; that is, without a love that gives and serves. There should exist among Christians a constant exchange of services. It is in this general context of service that authority is situated. It is not a primary gift prior to the com-munity and, as it were, independent of it; it is rather a secondary reality which supposes the existence of the primary reality and which cannot be properly under-stood except insofar as it is placed within this primary reality. According to the New Testament, the different words used to designate individual ministries "denote a task or an activity as a stable service within the com-munity." The following are examples of this: apostles, teachers, prophets (1 Cot 12:28); missionaries and teach-ers (Eph 4:11); pastors (Eph 4:11); guardians and over- seers (Acts 20:28; Phil 1:1); elders (Acts 11:30; 14:23); ministers (Phil 1:1; 1 Tim 3:8-9); leaders, rulers (Heb 13:7, 17); president (Kom 12:8); steward, manager (Lk 12:42; 1 Cot 4:1; Tit 1:7).9 This list gives the special titles and degTees of service within the Christian community and shows us that au-thority is not exempt from service but a call to a different and more perfect service. Between ordinary Christians and the members of the hierarchy there can and should exist only a difference in the situation of their service, only different manners of serving Christ and the breth-ren within the Mystical Body. Those who possess author-ity have above all the role of organizing and coordinating the particular services that exist in the Church and also of exercising the ministry of the word and of worship. Once more, this is only one of the forms of what Chris-tians are to do "by and for each other" in view of their common supernatural destiny. The attitude of Christ among men--an attitude that He has summarized in the words: "I have not come to be served but to serve"---ought to be the preeminent attitude of the person who presides in the Church. Thus, for example, St. Paul, who on occasion knew how to vindicate his title of Apostle (Rom 1:1; Gal 1:15) and his apostolic authority (Gal 1:8), after the manner of Christ preferred not to bring his rights and powers into play (I Cor 9:12). He preferred to act like the servant, the slave of his brethren (1 Cor 9:19; 2 Cot 4:5) rather than to rule and to act the master (2 Cor 1:24). He considered the faithful as his masters, and it is their welfare that determines the application of his efforts. When situated in the general context of service which defines Christian existence, authority appears to us less as the right and power of one Christian over other Christians than as a trust, a duty, a responsibility, a serv-ice. To express the nature of this authority it is not suffi-cient to say that it is an ordinary juridical power exer-cised in a spirit of disinterestedness and of service: like Christian existence itself, authority is essentially and intrinsically service. Authority and the Religious Community Just as the Christian community is situated within the human community and is its perfective complement, so also the religious community is so much a part of the Christian community that it is from the latter that the religious community derives its meaning and its life. The nature of the religious community will never be under-stood if it is separated from the Church or if it is 0 Congar, "La hi~rarchie," p. 81. 4- 4. 4. Religious Authority VOLUME 24, 1965 43 L. Boisvert, O.F.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 44 regarded as being attached to it like some merely ex-ternal appendage. An individual religious community is formed of baptized persons who have taken a serious attitude towards their baptismal commitments and who have adopted a manner of life more favorable to their accomplishment. Hence a religious community should not be considered as first of all a large organization in which everything runs smoothly when the relations between superiors and subjects are without difficulty; it should rather be con-sidered as a community of baptized peisons who have chosen a particular state of life which allows them a more intimate encounter with Christ and a more inte-gral response to their Christian vocation. Since one of the fundamental exigencies of this voca-tion is that of service [diakonia], it is normal that religious should excel in this, that more perfectly than others they should be at the service of God and of their brethren. Only thus will they be true witnesses to the One who emptied Himself for us by taking on the condition of a slave, of us (Phil 2:6-11). What should distinguish religious from ordinary Christians is not a difference in Christian life but a difference in the situation of their service and even more in the perfection of this service. Religious should live out to their fullness the following words of St. Peter: "Each according to the grace he has received, put yourselves at the service of one another like trustworthy stewards of the manifold grace of God" (1 Pt 4:10). Such an exchange of mutual services supposes, it is true, a great degree of availability, a profound interior freedom, and an effective death to oneself. Are not these indispensable conditions of service included in the very life of religious who by their profession prolong in their daily living the mystical death of their baptism? Their renunciation of the things of this world by poverty, of their own body by chastity, of the free use of their will by obedience puts them in a state of availability and of interior freedom which facilitates their service both of God and of their neighbor. It is in this context of a more perfect Christian service that it is necessary to situate the authority of the reli-gious superior. Just as the service of consecrated religious is distinguished from the service of ordinary Christians by the mode and perfection of its exercise, so also the authority of the religious superior should be distin-guished from Christian authority in general principally by the perfection of its exercise. It is necessary that the superior be at the service of his subjects as integrally as possible since the authority he possesses is essentially service and since he, by the renunciation contained in his religious life, should have acquired the interior free-dom necessary to be a perfect or at least a very good servant of his subjects. To have an effective solicitude for his subjects to the complete forgetfulness of himself should be the normal attitude of the religi6us superior. Only on this condition will he manifest to his sub-jects that he has not accepted au.thority for his own ad-vantage but for their temporal and spiritual welfare. And at the same time he will be a genuine witness to the Christ who came upon earth to serve and who has taught us that authority by its very structm;e is a service. While it is true that authority even in the human community can be regarded as a service since its pos-sessors have received it only for the benefit of others, in the ecclesial community it is only a special application of the common situation of service which characterizes Christian existence. Hence it is not a thing apart in the Church where it is exercised, but it is one way among many others of serving God and men. It is likewise in this general context of service that there is to be situated the authority of the religious superior, with the distinc-tive note, however; that it should be exercised in a more perfect way, given that religious enter a community not to cease serving God and their brethren but to serve them more perfectly. POSITlVE EXIGENCIES OF AUTHORITY-SERvICE~ As we have seen, according to Scripture authority is essentially service and the person who possesses it a serv-ant. The religious superior1° who, as he should, ac-cepts this divine teaching will doubtless abstain from re-garding his authority as an honor and a source of privi-leges or as an end in itself which can be sought for its own sake; likewise he will refrain from "ruling like a lord over his flock as the pagans do" and from making the weight of his authority felt. But this is not enough. It is furthermore necessary that the superior should know the principal positive exigencies of this Christian con-ception of authority and that he should respect these exigencies in his manner of government. The present sec-tion of this article will be concerned with pointing out some of these exigencies and will center its considerations around two fundamental ideas: (1) the superior is at the service of a community of persons (2) who are tending toward the perfection of charity. ++This section was originally entitled, "Exigences positives de l'autorit~-service" and appeared in La vie des communautds reli-gieuses, v. 21 (1963), pp. 5-14. lo When I speak of "religious superior" and of "religious," I in-clude in a generic fashion all men and women superiors of religious communities and all men and women religious. + + 4- Religious Authtrrity VOLUME 24, 1965 L. Boisvert, O.F.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 46 At the Service of a Community of Persons Knowing one's subjects: When one wishes to be of service to another person, it is first of all necessary to know him well; for the better one knows another, the more he is in a position to help him. The superior, whose duty it is to serve, should make every effort to acquire a thorough knowledge of his subjects, of their aspira-tions, their aptitudes, their needs. The great means of acquiring this knowledge still remains that of listening to them.--something that implies a great deal more than a more or less distracted hearing of what they say. To listen means to open oneself to another, to put oneself in a state of availability, of total receptivity to the other's words so that what is said can be grasped exactly and totally without exaggeration or diminution. A person is not listening when he continues his own thoughts while the other person is speaking, or when he presents a solu-tion even though the other person has scarcely begun to express his problem, or when he gives a decision-- favorable or unfavorable--before the statement of the case has been finished. Neither is a person listening in a true sense when he gives more attention to the person speaking and the way in which he speaks than to what he says--as though the importance of the communication is measured by the likableness of the person and the finesse of his way of expressing himself. The superior who knows how to listen to his subjects gradually comes to a genuine knowledge of them and in this way becomes more able to serve them. This does not mean that he accepts all their ideas, their tastes, their whims, their enthusiasms; but it does mean that he recog-nizes and respects the immutable truths and values that are in them; and it means that if there are deviations and errors, he searches for the origin of these for the purpose of better rectifying or eliminating them. Act-ing in this way, he will discover in the religious of today--who give the appearance of being of a new and startling nature--a great deal of good will along with uprightness and honor coupled with a sincere desire to advance to perfection. He will also recognize that these religious do not appreciate at all a negative morality where the first place is given to renunciation, abnega-tion, suffering, and pain--to the cross without the halo of the Resurrection. What they prefer is a holiness that will be the free fulfillment of their life, of their courage and generosity, of their love and joy--a holiness that is under the sign of fulfillment rather than that of renun-ciation. Informing one's subjects: This knowledge that the su-perior acquires of his subjects by listening to them per- mits him not only to provide them with individual help but also to promote and organize their collaboration for the common good. It is the duty of all religious to serve the community of which they are members, since in tak-ing the religious habit they ha,~e not denied their particu-lar talents and since in promising obedience they have not made a vow of rigid passivity. And their collabora-tion for the common good should not be limited only to the execution of directives emanating from authority but should extend to every possible and useful level. This, as can be easily seen, can 'take place only if the superior keeps his religious knowledgeable about the problems, difficulties, projects, and so forth which con-cern the community so that they can aid him in tinding solutions and in improving things. Unless he has the charism of ~nspiration and of reve-lation- and perhaps also that of infallibility--the supe-rior cannot by himself find an adequate solution to all the problems involved in his community; nor can he per-ceive all the advantages and disadvantages of a project. Hence if he wants the complement of light which comes from his subjects, he must first of all inform them of the difficulties that need solutions and of the projects that need to be considered. The only person who would neg-lect the collaboration of his religious is one who believes himself wiser than he is, who has greater confidence in himself than is warranted, and who thinks that he is filled with the gifts of knowledge and wisdom. Actually, he, no more than the founder, has not received the gift from God "to speak the last word of wisdom for all time." 11 Promoting public opinion: The purpose of this in-forming of subjects by the superior is not only to com-municate to the religious the principal problems and projects of the community but also and above all to provoke personal reflection and discussions from which will emerge a public opinion. This public opinion is as necessary to the vitality of a religious community as it is to the vitality of the Church herself; and this latter need was affirmed by Pius XII in February of 1950 when he said: Because the Church is a living body, something would be wanting in her life if public opinion were lacking--and the blame for this deficiency would fall back upon the pastors and the faithful.~ This public opinion will become a source of life for ax Archbishop Roberts, S.J., Blacl~ Popes (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1954), p. 40. = Pius XII, "Allocutlon on the Catholic Press and Public Opinion" (February 18, 1950), Catholic Mind, v. 48 (1950), p. 753. ÷ + ÷ Religious Authorit~ VOLUME 24, 1965 the religious community only if the superior recognizes it and takes account of it to the degree that it includes elements of value. Hence it is necessary for him to con-sult his subjects after having informed them of the principal questions which concern them. This consulta-tion should not be considered by him as an act of con-descension on his part but as a duty and, from the side of the subjects, as a privilege and a right. This consulta-tion is so necessary to good government that Archbishop Roberts has not hesitated to affirm: "It is humanly im-possible to exercise authority without consulting the governed. To deny this is to make nonsense of obedi-ence." is This does not mean that the consultation of subjects is essential for the valid exercise of authority, no more than the consultation of the laity, even on questions of vital interest to them, is essential in order that the su-preme pontiff or the ecumenical council can authorita-tively pronounce on such questions. Nevertheless, the sovereign pontiff and the bishops are consulting the laity more and more because they know very well that the latter are more capable to explaining their own problems and 6f finding the most adequate solutions for them. Why should any other way of acting be used by the religious superior who does not have the special assist-ance of the Holy Spirit which Christ has promised the hierarchy in doctrinal matters? If, then, it is necessary for the superior to consult his subjects in order to exercise his authority in a more profitable way and thereby to serve his community bet-ter, it is equally necessary that subjects should present the superior with all the data necessary to judge a given question. When the matter at stake appears to them to be fundamental, subjects should not fear to use all their competence to support their arguments in the discus-sions they may have with the superior. This proves that their concern engrosses them sufficiently "to arouse them to make their needs known by effective presentations." Take, for example, "the apostolic practice of daily Com-munion, in abeyance for so many years"; this was not restored just by a stroke of the papal pen. Effect was given to our Lord's wish because some people expressed de-cisively- yes, at the risk of being hurt--the hunger they felt. The same is true of recent facilities for evening Mass and non-fasting Communion, and indeed of every other reform that has ever been?' L. Boi~vert, O.F.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 48 Public opinion, the purpose of which is to furnish the superior with the complement of information that Roberts, Black Popes, p. 4. Roberts, Black Popes, p. 5. permits him to give a decision with a better knowledge of the matter, should not, however, so influence his de-cision that the superior appears to be but "the resultant or the projection of the forces which are at work in the group." In this way a religious community would be-come a naive democracy where the superior would be only the representative or the voice of his subjects. This would be a complete failure to recognize the nature both of authority and of obedience. If the decision of the su-perior can and even should be illuminated by public opinion, still it must not be considered as the simple logical resultant of it. It pertains to authority, not to subjects, to make definitive decisions. Consequently, when a decision is made by the superior, the subjects should accept and execute it with the great-est loyalty without bringing up, as a sort of riposte, the elements which the superior has not included in his decision. It is even necessary to add that the more vital public opinion is in a community, the more humble and total should be the acceptance of what the superior decides. If this is lacking, public opinion becomes a source of hurtful criticism, of disobedience, of disorder: it kills the religious spirit. On his side, the superior who makes a decision after having taken the best account he could of public opinion should not withdraw the decision except for a reasonable cause of legitimate necessity or great utility. To act "otherwise would be to give proof of levity and incon-stancy, of instability in judgment and command. On the other hand, if he sees that modifying his decision is nec-essary or useful, he should not obstinately keep to his first idea, thus depriving his subjects of an evident good. Delegating his powers: Religious, as we have remarked, have the duty of collaborating for the good of the com-munity. This collaboration should not be limited to the mere execution of directives coming from authority nor even just to the communication of their personal reflec-tions on matters proposed by the superior. Over and be-yond these, the superior must make his subjects share his responsibility by delegating them a part of his powers--a matter which does not at all mean that he renounces his own rights. A person who possesses authority is not under the obligation of making immediate and personal use of it in every case; that is, he does not himself have to regu-late all the details of common life with a great deal of attention to minutiae and a great loss of time. Such a procedure would result in making his subjects mere functionaries, instruments to receive and execute au-thority. The person possessing power can and even should en-trust others with particular tasks in order to develop in + + + Religious Authority VOLUME 24, 1965 49 4, 4, L. Boi~vert~ O.F.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 50 them a sense of responsibility and to promote a better collaboration for the common good. This delegation of power, in addition to obliging subjects to make options that are revelatory to themselves and to others, provides the opportunity for initiative and the occasion for dis-covering and developing unsuspected talents. That this delegation of power includes the risk of error and mis-takes is part of the normal course of events. This risk, however, should not lead the superior to refuse to dele-gate any power since, in using his authority, he himself can commit the same or similar errors. The religious to whom the superior has delegated certain powers should exercise them fully without asking the superior to intervene in areas where they have the power to act themselves. If there are abuses in the area entrusted to them, subjects must learn to eliminate them without waiting for the superior to feel forced to intervene because of their inertia. They should have the courage to take measures that are distasteful to others rather than to throw the responsibility for them back on the superior, and this they should do even though the measures merit them dislike and unpopularity. It is only by paying this cost that delegation of power will develop in them a sense of responsibility and will genuinely con-tribute to the common good. On his side, the superior who has entrusted particular tasks to his subjects should take care to leave them the freedom that is necessary for them to carry out their tasks to the best of their ability. He should avoid con-stantly intervening to judge work already done, to im-pose his own ideas, or to insist on modifications. He should put complete confidence in his subjects, espe-cially in those areas where they have a real competence that he himself does not possess. The strength of the superior'.s authority and the effectiveness of his subjects' work will be in proportion to the frequency with which he acts by means of his subordinates and to the rarity of his personal interventions. The Service oI Persons Tending to the PerIection ol Charity Building up the interior man: Besides the exigencies of authority-service that we have already mentioned, there are others that flow from the fact that the superior is not only at the service of persons but precisely at the service of persons tending in a special way to the per-fection of charity. Without a doubt, the first of these exigencies is the superior's obligation to work for the spiritual welfare of his subjects, for the growth in them of the spiritual man. By the very nature of his office, the head of a religious community is a spiritual father, a pastor of souls, and not primarily an administrator or an organizer. In order to devote himself more completely to this central task of his, he should disengage himself as far as possible from routine matters, administrative tasks, and all affairs that prevent him from successfully fulfilling his primary duty. Hence he should hand over to others the care of matters of lesser importance that would dissipate his efforts; in this way he can devote himself more freely and effectively to the important spiritual function that is proper to him. He should not easily allow himself to succumb to the natural temptation to keep for himself the area of temporalities and to entrust to others the spiritual welfare of the community. Preaching the Word: As a pastor of souls, the superior should first of all nourish the spiritual life of his reli-gious by giving them the substantial food that is the Word of God. A profound interior life is impossible without faith, and there is no faith without meditation on the Word. Always necessary for the spiritual life, this Word is especially so for religious of the present generation among whom there is found a malaise, a dis-content, even a revolt which Father Ir~n~e Hausherr, S.J., considers a crisis of undernourishment, an anxiety of the hungry, a phenomenon of starvation.1~ Having come into the community to be spiritually filled, they re-volt when their entire nourishment consists of rules, reg-ulations, prohibitions, notices, and so forth. They are hungry for the Word of God which will nourish them and lead them to give themselves more fully; this it is that explains their discontent when they do not hear the Word. There can be no doubt that they would make their own the cry of an old gypsy woman in the presence of George Borrow, the English novelist and moralist. As he was passing a camp of gypsies in the vicinity of Chester, they mistook him for a minister of religion because of his ap-pearance and begged him to stop and speak to them of God. "I am neither a priest or a minister," he replied; "may the Lord have mercy on you--more than this I cannot say to you." As he went on his way, throwing some coins to the children, an old woman cried out to him: "We do not need money; give us God." 16 Fostering prayer: Besides nourishing his subjects with÷ the Word, the superior should help them to pray by+ providing them with a method and forms of praye+r which correspond to their religious sensibility. Not all ~ I. Hausherr, s.J., "Fundamentos teol6gicos de la vida religiosa," Seminarios, v. 12 (1960), pp. 7-18. 10 p. Blanchard, Saintetd aujourd'hui (Paris: Descl~e de Brouwer, 1954), p. 72. Religious Authority VOLUME 24, 1965 5] L. Bois~ert~ 0~. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS forms of prayer are equally valuable for all human be-ings at all times. There are forms of prayer that fifty years ago engendered and fostered prayer but that are incapable of producing this effect at the present time. The reason for this is not that present day religious have a bad will, that they want to break ancient structures for the mere pleasure of hearing them crack and fall to pieces. It is not a case of sheer desire for change or mere whim leading them to want to abandon and condemn what their seniors respect; what they want is a legitimate adaptation of forms of prayer, and traditionalism and conformism will not prevent them from refusing to re-tain antiquatedelements which have no other effect than to impede their prayer. Religious, for example, who have grasped the im-portance of the liturgy in the spiritual life, wish to in-tegrate it into their own lives as perfectly as possible and find it difficult to tolerate the imposition of a series of small prayers in addition to meditation, Mass, and the Divine Office. They cannot be reproached for want-ing to pray with and as the Church. Nor can they be blamed if, for the purpose of respecting as well as possi-ble the meaning of the canonical hours, they ask for the suppression of certain devotional prayers which en-cumber the horarium of the community and give the im-pression of having the same importance as canonical prayer. Observing, warning, correcting: Another exigency of authority-service is the painful duty of the superior to observe, warn, and correct his religious. St. Francis ex-presses this exigency at the beginning of Chapter Sixteen of his Second Rule: "The brothers who are ministers and servants of the other brothers should visit and warn their brothers and correct them with humility and charity . " Since the superior has the duty of weighing aptitude for religious life or for the priesthood in the case of those who have not yet taken these definitive steps, he must get a clear idea of their worth by observ-ing their actions. It is by action rather than by wor

Issue 54.3 of the Review for Religious, May/June 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 ¯ Washington, DC 20017. POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ° P.O. Box 6070 ° Duluth, MN 55806. Second-class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©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#ory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer sJ Regina Siegfried ASC Elizabeth McDonough OP 'Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Jean Read J6an.n Wolski Conn PhD Iris Ann Ledden SSND Joel Rippinger OSB Edmundo Rodriguez SJ David Werthmann CSSR Patricia Wittberg SC Christian Heritages and contemporary Living MAY-JUN~ 1995 * VOLUME54 * NUMBER3 contents 326 339 353 extending horizons Multiculturalism, Internationality, and Religious Life Gerald A. Arbuckle SM presents an understanding of multiculturalism and its lived difficulties by means of case studies. Accompanying New-Age People A. Paul Dominic SJ assesses and evaluates his experience of dealing with the ideals and quest~ of the New Age movement. Lithuania: A Return to My Ancestral Home Barbara Valuckas SSND relates her experience of three, visits to Lithuania and working with its peoples, women religious, and church catechists. 364 371 383 focusing community Community Today--Idol? Icon? Gift? Elizabeth V. Roach MM compares some of the secular criteria for community living with the gospel call to be a community of paschal living. Called to Community Dennis J. Billy CSSR presents the Trinitarian and Christological bases for life in community and identifies ten common difficulties in living the call to community. Public and Private: Some Confusion in Community Patricia Chaffee OP reviews some of the tensions and their relief in the public and private interfaces of religious community life. 389 399 rooting religious IJfe Apostolic Congregations' Monastic Roots John P. Auther_SJ suggests ways in which religious life becomes more viable in contemporary life by taking its monastic roots seriously. Women Religious: Widows of the Church, Women of Hope Anna Marie Kane SSJ draws out some comparisons of widows in the early church and women religious today. 322 Re~ie~ for Religious 4O3 A Meditation on Living the Vows Joel Giallanza CSC probes a familiar Gospel verse for its implications in living a life of celibate charity, obedience, and poverty. 410 418 424 433 growing spirituaJJy Freedom to Be God's Eric Kahn OFM suggests a style of retreat that is more fitting for the Franciscan tradition. Coming Home: The Journey Within Janet Malone CND describes various aspects of our lifelong process of moving inward to the ground of our being where God dwells in us. I Cast for Comfort GeorgeJ. Auger CSV reflects on how faith deepens in darkness and love grows in desire. Feeling and Pain and Prayer Margaret Bullitt-Jonas sketches four ways of prayer to deepen our intimacy with God and our capacity for full responsiveness to pain and io'y and being alive. 447 454 embracing heritage Heart of the Human John R. Welsh SJ explores the rich symbol of the Heart of Christ for our appreciation of the incarnation and of our own relationship to God. Enclosure: Sacramental Sign Jean Shively OSC presents her experience andunderstanding of a spirituality of enclosure as a positive and essential element of the contemplative lifestyle. 324 462 departments Prisms Canonical Counsel: The Concluding Message of the 1994 Synod on Consecrated Life 467 Book Reviews May-.l~une 199.q 323 many Christians the month of May evokes memories of processions and crownings and songs in honor of Mary, Mother of God. In a similar way the month of June recalls the novenas and hymns and vigils devoted to the heart of Jesus. Devotions, once such a bright part of our pre-Vatican II faith lives, now seem like faded fabrics preserved under some obscure museum's glass showcase. Although nostal-gia may too readily find its place, we need to acknowl-edge how devotions in a pre-Vatican II church~ fired up the faith lives of many parish communities and the mis-sionary zeal .of'many women and men. On the other hand, devotions, with their vernacular prayers and singable hymns, sometimes overshadowed even feast-day Masses in people's affection. In fact, the Mass itself often became the time and place for people's devotional practices while the priest quietly busied himself with the ~Latin prayers and formal ritual of the Mass. Perhaps the greatest gift of the liturgical renewal of Vatican II was the clarity brought to the central place of liturgy, both the Eucharist and the Liturgy of the Hours. Devotions, as a result, were given the chance to take a more modestly proportioned place in our spiritual lives, sometimes even to die after years of devout usefulness. But at the same time that the Vatican II renewal was cre-ating a spiritual renewal of prayer practices in correct pro-portion, a major shift in human interaction was taking 324 Review for Religious place in the Western world and having undue influence upon some other nations. New cultural patterns of lifestyle, fragmen-tations of family.living and of many a neighborhood, the subur-bia driving (not walking) distances between home and church, and the easy attractions of TV and home video entertainment every night of the week are among the reasons why the practice of devotions fell by the wayside. The majority of Catholics today have no experience of such devotional practices. The case is lit-tle different in the present-day worship and prayer lives of many men and women religious. Devotions need once again to find their place in faith lives that too often merit the descriptive terms "thin" or "desiccated." There is no doubt that devotions bring color to our somewhat monochrome lives of worship. Devotions rouse some passion in a faith lived often too listlessly, even in Eucharists attended rou-tinely. Yet devotions from the'past need more than just a dusting off. They need to be rethought and reexpressed for our context and time. Even more importantly, perhaps, devotions need to be refounded on the essential of devotion itself. Devotion in the Christian-theological tradition is defined as "an ease in finding God." To say that "here we have a man or woman of devotion" is to point to someone who has an evident and easy relationship with God. To be a person of devotion is to be specially graced by God. Praying for devotion in our spiritual lives is essential for a healthy existence. Even our ministries receive special effectiveness from being permeated with devotion. Devotions and devotion are related, something like the chicken and the egg. If we are people of devotion, we will find that our faith naturally tends to express itself in prayers to Jesus and to Mary and the saints, in vigils, in processions and pilgrimages, and in other such external forms. Devotions in their proper propor-tion feed and strengthen the Christian lives of all the faithful. Devotions cannot be absent from our faith expression without the loss of devotion itself., ~ Perhaps the time has come for all of us to reassess our need for devotions as the fuel and lifesource for the devoted lives we Christians desire to live. David L. Fleming SJ May-June 1995 325 GERALD A. ARBUCKLE Multiculturalism, Internationality, and Religious Life The religious community "is an evangelizer, but she begins by being evangelized herself." --Pope Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi § 15 The world is tragically divided by ideological conflicts, pathological forms of nationalism, racial violence, ethnic cleansing programs, and intercultural tensions. It almost destroyed itself through interracial conflict during this century. We who gasped at Hitler's genocide policies live in a world where ecocide, that is, the genocide of virtually all living species of earth, is a real possibility because cul-tures still rarely live side-by-side with respect and justice) It is a world "groaning in travail" (Rm 8:22). Inasmuch as prophetic witness is at the heart of reli-gious life, the church rightly expects religious communi-ties to be models of intercultural understanding and action. If we judge from the constitutions and mission statements of many congregations, there is a growing theoretical awareness of this need. Thus, there are expressions like these: "We are committed to living internationality in a divided world"; "Let us inculturate the gospel in our own communities first by being authentically multicultural-ist"; "We are called to respect the rights of people to their Gerald A. Arbuckle SlVl wrote "Merging Provinces" for our May-June 1994 issue. He may be addressed at Refounding and Pastoral Develgpment Unit; 1 Mary Street; Hunters Hill; Sydney, N.S.W. 2110; Australia. 326 Review for Religious culture; this applies also to people of different cultures within our congregation"; "We commit ourselves to foster communities in which representatives of several ethnic groups live together in a spirit of dialogue, justice, and charity." But are communities in fact living according to these statements, or are the words just rhetoric and escapes into fantasy? The Future of Religious Orders Study in the United States (FORUS) contains disturbing conclusions about the gap between theory and reality. For example, 96 percent of American religious are white; minority groups are poorly represented; "unconscious racism makes penetration of minority populations into rather homogeneous orders very difficult." The report shows that older religious in particular, while believing they are accepting of minor-ity members, in fact cannot adapt readily to the cultural diver-sity this demands.2 My experience is that religious of dominant cultures usually do not lack goodwill towards minority groups in their midst, but also that, while using the language of multicul-turalism or internationality, they understand only imperfectly what these words mean and what attitudinal and behavioral changes they must make in consequence. This introductory article has two aims: to. explain the terms inculturation, multiculturalisra, and internationality and to help readers identify, through case-study analysis, ways in which they may be unconsciously dominating and even oppressing people of minority cultures within their midst, thus obstructing the emer-gence of multicultural congregations.3 Defining Terms Multiculturalism is an inculturatibn imperative. Incultura~ion is "the incarnation of the Christian life and Christian message in a particular cultural context, in such a way that this experience not only finds expression through elements proper to the culture in question, but becomes a p~'inciple that animates, directs, and unifies the [cultural context], transforming and remaking it so as to bring about a 'new creation.'''4 Multiculturalism is a process of inculturation whereby cultures are so transformed and remade into a "new creation" that they interact with one another in jus-tice and charity in the service of personal ~and community growth. This interaction does not occm" through a command from above or the planning of "just a few experts," as Pope John Paul II May-June 1995 327 Arbuckle ¯ Multiculturalism, Internationality reminds us in Redemptoris Missio (§54), but through the involve-ment of people at all levels of society. The way culture is conceptualized has significant bearing on the theory and practice of inculturation and consequently of mul-ticulr0ralism. As an hnthropologist I believe that the failure to define accurately what is meant by culture makes it impossible for people to understand the complexity of inculturation and the challenges involved in developing an authentic multicultural com-munity in religious, parish, or secular life. In the classicist's definition, culture is a visible, comprehensi-ble entity, the consEious creation of rational minds,s The focus is on observable phenomena (such as language, foods, literature, dances) rather than on how people feel about what they do. Cultures, then, can be graded aesthetically: one culture may be considered to have more artistic dances than another. This definition of culture has grave deficiencies. It overstresses ethnic groups' historical lifestyles and customs and downplays their adaptation to the world in which they now live. It freezes a culture in a time period and encourages romantic or fossilized views of a people's former way of living. This definition likens a culture to a machine something with visible, rationally con-structed, interconnected parts that can readily be replaced by sim-ilar components without creating any pa.rticular difficulty. If a religious community uses this meaning of culture, then it expects the process of inculturation to be speedy and simple. The com-munity merely replaces, with administrative efficiency, an existing custom with a gospel-inspired one. And it does this by imple-menting the directives of people (pastors, r+ligious superiors) from outside the culture. This is not inculturation; the people who are the object of t~ae process have no free involvement in it, but instead are ma~aipulated. The second definition of culture gives priority to a group's ideas and feelings: Culture is not an entity, but is primarily a pro-cess that is persuasively at work, particularly in the unconscious of the group and individuals. It is a pattern of shared assump-tions expressed in symbols, myths, and rituals that a .group has invented, discovered, or developed .while coping with problems of external adaptation and internal cohesion. This instrumental view of culture, while it assumes the importance of factual history and visible phenomena, highlights the developmental and ever evolv-ing survival role of culture for people in a world of change, prej- 328 Review for Religious udice, and discrimination. Finally, culture is not one aspect of life along with, for example, religious, political, and economic activ-ity. It embraces all human activity.6 An appreciation of this defi-nition of culture has the, following immediate practical consequences for inculturation and multiculturalism. 1. Because a culture is essentially a living interrelation of sym-bols and myths, the feeling of belonging to it is basically invisible to outsiders. The experience of being culturally different or of confronting a history of preju-dice and discrimination pro-duces a set of memories and feelings that are not easily shared with outsiders. The out-sider may gain some under-standing from participation in the visible activities .of the group (such~as dances and food ritu-als), but finds it difficult or even impossible to comprehend its inner experiences and feelings. 2. In order to begin to appreciate another cultu.re, one must have the gifts of empathy and of openness to dialogue. Empathetic listening means trying to become aware not only of others' feelings, but also of how they experience them-- and, as far as possible, to have the same feelings.7 An outsider As an anthropologist I believe that the failure to define accurately what is meant by culture makes it impossible for people to understand the complexity of inculturation and the challenges involved in developing an authentic multicultural community in religious, parish, or secular life. can know more about the history, cultural externals, and even language of an ethnic group than its members and still be alien to them because of a lack of empathy.Dialogue, a consequence of empathy, is the interaction in which people seek to give of them-selves as they are and to receive and know the others in their par-ticular oth.erness.8 Dialogue presumes that one is prepared to learn from others and their cultures and to let ~o of attachments that interfere with the growth in mutuality. 3. People of'every cultu.re tend to think that their own way of feeling about life and of thinking and acting is the right way; they May-June 1995 329 Arbuckle ¯ Multiculturalism, Internationality see the ways of other peoples as stupid, crude, or unreasonable. This prejudice in favor 'of one's own group is technically called eth-nocentrism. Taken to an extreme, the assumption is that "our way of life is the way of life," so that other groups have nothing of value to offer us. Hence, on the basis of assumed religious, eco-nomic, or racial superiority, people seek to dominate others and their cultures. Frequently people of dominant cultures are uncon-scious of the oppressive power they exert over minority cultures (people who, because of their ethnic origins, are excluded from group decision making); they take their cultural superiority for granted and relate to minority peoples according to cultural stereotypes of their inferiority.9 A stereotype is a set image that a people has of peoples that differ from them; it is a shorthand, but faulty and often unjust, method of handling or grasping a complex world of people. 4. People who are culturally oppressed are likely to become extremely sensitive to the dominant culture's symbols of coercive power. When people of minority cultures move into the main-stream, the resulting contact of cultures is not an abstract concept, but a high order of human drama. The plot and its crosscurrents, its motives and motifs, are played out by a ghostly cast of hang-ers- on, by prejudice, longing, fear.~° 5. When people of different cultures meet for the first time, they tend to react in two or three stages. First, they are fasci-nated by and even enjoy visible cultural differences in, for exam-ple, cuisine and entertainment. Later they experience disillusionment or friction when the difficulties of communication outweigh their enthusiasm for cultural diversity. If they strive to overcome the cultural obstacles to communication, they move to interaction--the experience of authentic multiculturalism. Most never get beyond the second stage. Multiculturalism and Internationality Multiculturalism is often an emotive word, "a buzzword with almost as many meanings as there are mouths to utter it.''11 Most commonly, however, the word is used technically in one of three ways. Demographic multiculturalism means that a particular soci-ety contains different cultural groups; holistic multiculturalism means that a society values cultural diversity, but gives higher priority to group-wide cohesion; political multiculturalism, as a 330 Review for Religious social philosophy; acknowledges the legitimate concerns of ethnic groups within a society or an organization and the need for these interests to be expressed in adequate politico-economic struc-tures and processes. Political multiculturalists seek to establish structures that allow by right minority peoples to be fully involved in decision making in matters that affect their lives. They foster a balance between the demands of overall group cohesion and inner cultural diversity. Multiculturalism, in these three senses, normally applies to situations within the same country; interna-tionality is multiculturalism as applied to relationship.s between separate countries. Political multiculturalism, historically, is a reaction against policies of cultural oppression. Phrases or terms such as "the melt-ing pot approach to immigrants," "cultural pluralism," and "inte-gration" are often synonymous with covert or overt programs to destroy minority cultures by forcing them to be assimilated into the dominant culture. Critical decisions are made about minority peoples and their future without their participation. Another insidious form of oppression is cultural romanticism. Here the dominant culture, using the classicist definition of culture, fosters romantic visions of minority cultures, emphasizing what is thought to be the exotic or strange features of these cultures (dances, rit-uals). People of the dominant culture claim "it would be a pity if such cultures disappeared." Minority peoples are made to feel like inanimate museum pieces to be called out to entertain peo-ple of the dominant culture at politically correct times and then to retire to their inferior positions when the need ceases. Case Studies Case studies are detailed observations of connected processes in individual and group experience thfit help us to understand complex social phenomena and to see ways in which theoretical principles and insights may be applied. I suggest that readers reflect on the following case studies, asking themselves--before ~ssessing my own comments~how the above theoretical clarifi-cations apply in each instance. 1. A General Chapter in Confusion An international congregation of clerical religious met in gen-eral chapter for two months. A participant from a first-world May-~une 1995 331 Arbuckle ¯ Multiculturalism, Internationality country reported his experience and that of many others: "During the first two weeks, there was a great spirit of internationality and friendship. Each group explained through song, dances, food, and visual displays the qualities of their cultural origins. We espe-cially enjoyed the presentations from the joy-filled third-world countries; they made our Western productions look rather dull in contrast. Then something happened, and it still puzzles me. Quite suddenly delegates from our third-world provinces began to complain angrily in the general sessions that the translation facilities for them were not as good as for the Western delegates, that they were made to feel inferior in committee meetings by never being asked for their opinions . I and others still cannot understand this anger, especially because we did everything pos-sible to give them the first places for their cultural presentations. These are the same people we have helped for so long with gifts for their formation houses and missions. They seem to be ungrate-ful. Perhaps we have failed to teach them the right way to act in international gatherings. The chapter ended without these peo-ple realizing that they had undermined the good spirit of the gathering." Comment: In this case study the delegate has unwittingly adopted the narrow classicist view of culture and moves from enthusiasm for cultural diversity to disillusionment; internation-ality for him and other Western delegates is restricted to such relatively inconsequential things as eating foreign food and admir-ing other people's exotic dances. Influenced by this approach to culture, he' is prevented from understanding the requirements for authentic multiculturalism and internationality within the chap-ter and congregation. Third-world delegates are reacting against a well-entrenched tradition of paternalism and cultural superior-ity on the part of the dominant culture. They rightly want to be accepted for what they are: members of the same congregation, with human experiences and insights of value to all. 2. Romanticism Destroys Formation ' .An international clerical religious congregation, founded last century in Europe, had developed several formation houses in third-world countries. In a report to an international meeting on initial formation in the congregation, the superior general wrote: "We thank God for so many vocations from [these lands]. Because [these lands] are extremely poor, the people so happy and carefree 332 Review for Religious and their cultures so unsophisticated, we have decided for now not to insist on the same rigorous screening criteria for appli-cants nor on the high-level academic and religious life formation that we have in the West. When you meet these students, you immediately feel their happiness and fine community spirit. They will make good religious, but we must not expect them to measure up to our professional standards for some time to come." Comment: The superior general, in his high praise for the cultures of the students, is a cultural romanti-cist, even an unconscious racist. The cultures he refers to are group-ori-ented ones; that is, they emphasize the need for public harmony at all costs, so that tensions and unre-solved, conflicts are kept hidden, but remain ready to explode into vio-lence at any time. The general's inability to recognize this deprives students of their right in justice to be trained professionally for min-istry, trained (for example) to under-stand objectively the cultural forces that influence their lives and those of their people. The ~eneral also makes a racist judgment, namely, that the students from poor techno-logical cultures are incapable of the Third-world delegates are reacting against a well-entrenched tradition of paternalism and cultural superiority on the part of the dominant culture. They rightly want to be accepted for what they are: members of the same congregation, with human experiences and insights of value to all. levels of learning expected in Western formation systems. Finally, the congregation is international, but the general is setting the stage for a two-tier membei'ship: persons with sophisticated edu-cation from Western countries and educationally deprived per-sons from the third world. This means that third-world members of the congregation will effectively be excluded from taking up leadership positions at the international level. 3. Theory and Practice Clash A congregation of brotherb from Europe has worked in Asia for over fifty years, but with no lasting success in recruiting or May-June 1995 333 Arbuckle ¯ Multiculturalism, Internationality retaining local candidates. Several former brothers of Asian ori-gin commented to me through an intermediary about their expe-rience: "The region was established from a Western nation. After our training we were sent to communities in which most reli-gious were from this foreign country. They were good people, but during recreation they always spoke in -English, never in our language, and the topics of conversation commonly were about incidents and characters of their formation days in Europe or the latest sporting event at home. Then from time to rime they would make ethnic iokes at the expense of our own people, putting them down, and we were expected to laugh as they did. It became so painful that we complained, but we were told to think 'interna-tionally,' not with provincial minds! It became too much so we left." Comment: I sense that the foreigners in this Asian region are totally unaware of their cultural imperialism; it is as if they have never left their homeland, and their use of ethnic jokes illustrates their lack of cultural sensitivity. Ethnic jokes are common in most societies, but examination shows that the object of such jokes is "to put down" members of other cultures and present one's own group as normal and superior. Ethnic jokes are unjust and can be most painful to members of minority groups, who nevertheless are expected, if present when the jokes are told, to laugh submissively and accept the ascribed expression of inferiority.~2 4. Inculturation Expectations Collapse One Mexican American sister recorded her frustration and that of many others: "I became a member of a North American congregation before Vatican II. We Mexican Americans were (and are still) in the minority; the majority are white third- or fourth-generation Americans. During my training we had to divorce our-selves from our families, and I cannot even begin to express what this meant to me and other Mexican American sisters. With the coming of Vatican II, I thought at last I can be a religious and a Mexican American at the same time. Our chapters spoke of the need for inculturation and multiculturalism in our communities and apostolates as priorities. When I and others attempted to take this priority seriously, all kinds of problems emerged. For example, members of my family began to visit frequently, openly using our language for conversation and prayer. Other community members began to object, sometimes hinting or saying directly to 334 Review for Religious me: 'You are disturbing our peace with so many relatives, espe-cially. distant ones, coming to see you. And why don't they speak in English? They should because this is America!'" Comment: Hispanic cultures traditionally emphasize the fam-ily as the basic unit of identity, in vivid contrast to the mainstream American culture, in which individuals claim identity for them-selves independently of family ties. When the congregational chapter in the above case study enthusiastically supports incul-turation and multiculturalism, they are unaware of the implications for individuals and communities. Individualism has become such an unquestioned way of life for the dominant culture in the con-gregation that most members cannot conceive of any alternative lifestyle. Hence, the culture clash. References to inculturation and multiculturalism in chapters remain pure rhetoric. 5. Popular Religiosity Unappreciated~ An international congregation, founded last century in Europe, and with many communities in North America, sought candidates for the first time among Hispanic Americans. For a short time it received several candidates, but the formation leader reported that "they did not survive for long either in the training programs or later in our communities." Several who had left com-mented, and this is a representative view: "My formation house was cheerless, without life, and the communities I lived in after profession were no better. Liturgies were dull, filled with words, but no color or movement. I felt myself dying spiritually. I com-plained to the provincial, and she commented: 'I cannot under-stand you. We provide you with highly trained formators, but you still complain.' The director of formation tried to listen to me and said she understood, so the following month she bought Mexican rugs and ornaments and put them around the house, saying 'This will make you immigrant people feel at home with us!' It did not. We still felt like aliens, unable to pray in devo-tional ways that make sense to us. The sad thing is that no one understood. No wonder Hispanics leave religious life~" Comment: In this case study, there is a serious clash between popular religiosity characteristics of many Hispanic peoples and the standard ways of praying within contemporary North American Catholicism. The inability 5o appreciate popular reli-giosity and the tendency to condemn it as "primitive, supersti-tious nonsense" continues to alienate countless Hispanics from May-June 1995 335 Arbuckle ¯ Multiculturalism, Internationality Unless candidates are freely able t~o relate the spirituality offered them to their own rich cultural religious experience, it will remain totally alien to them. the church today.~3 At its core popular religiosity is a storehouse of values offering answers of Christian wisdom to the great ques-tions of life. It creatively combines the divine and the human, Christ andMary, spirit and body, intelligence, imagination, and emotion in ways that are colorful and imaginative. Devotions to saints and pious practices--once part of mainstream American Catholic life--are integral features of popular religiosity. ,4. Hispanic Catholics complain, however, that the liturgies of mainstream Ca.tholicism today are cqmmonly too "heady," formal, and unimaginative. In the case study, Hispanic can-didates and religious are unjustly pressured to conform to the domi-nant culture's religious expression.s. This is a tragedy, at several levels. Neither the provincial nor the for-mator has any appreciation of the nature and power of culture; the for-mator assumes, without even asking the. candidates, that culture is syn-onymous with what we see, Bring in a few artifacts and minority peoples will "feel at home." The can-didates understandably feel insulted and misunderstood. Unless the candidates are freely able to relate the spirituality offered them to their own rich cultural religious experience, it will remain totally alien to them. 6. Congregational Colonialism Returns A congregation based in the United States had formally estab-lished a province in Africa. After some years it was decided uni-laterally by the general government to suppress the province for reasons of administrative and financial efficiency and to reunite the community of African sisters within the original province in the United States. The full provincial administration--all Americans-- visited the assembly of African sisters to explain the situation, but to their surprise they were met with considerable anger. An African sister spoke feelingly for her group: "Finance is not our primary need. We are prepared to be poor, provided we can gov-ern ourselves. Now by the adminstrative change we feel again 336 Review for Religious overwhelmed by the presence of the United States, and we are made tQ feel small and unimportant. You have economic and polit-ical power. Now we have none and must submit to a culture of dependency and inferiority!" The provincial administration could not understand this and ieported to the general that the African communities "had come under the influence of Marxism." Comment: There is little need to comment. In their reactions to the adminstrative change, the African sisters are fearful of a return to a new and degrading congregational colonialism. The American administration is unaware that their African sisters have been made to feel inferior under earlier administrative organiza-tional cultures. The failure~ to consult the African sisters about the decision reinforces their understandable distrust of both the provincial and the general administrations. The provincial admin-istrat. ion, by blaming the African sisters for the negativity, sees no need to examine its own cultural assumptions. Conclusion The task of expressing the consecrated life in diverse cultures today is one of the great challenges for its future. --Instrumentum Laboris §93, Synod of Bishops 1994 ° Thevision of multiculturalism is inspiring but rarely achieved in concrete ways. A reason for this is the failure to clarify the meaning of cul~ure. Culture is not primarily the lifestyles of peo-ple; rather, it is a group's sense of its identity, its inner history of struggling for equality, just, ice, and respect for human dignity. Through multiculturalism (and internationality) people of dif-ferent cultures commit themselves to grow humanly together in justice and charity, while respecting and learning from the legit-imate cultural differences of each other. ' Multiculturalism demands ongoing conversion to the mission of Christ, "a profound transformation of mentalities and ways of living" (Instrumentum laboris §93).If religious do not struggle to achieve this transformation, they are not true to the prophetic nature of their commitment, for the values and practice of mul-ticulturalism and internationality are everywhere desperately needed. Moreover, religious committed to refoundingotheir con-gregations would do well to ponder a lesson of history: Energy for the founding and refounding of communities comes from multi-culturalism and internationality. As Raymond.Hostie notes: May-June 1995 337 Arbuckle ¯ Multiculturalism, Internationality "Cistercians, Norbertines, Dominicans, Carmelites, Jesuits, and Piarists all emerged from groups .whose members belonged to three nationalities, even four or five . Heterogeneity is a nec-essary condition for activating effective fermentation."~s Notes 1 See Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Minneapolis: Fortress PreSs, 1992), pp. 195-207. 2 See David Nygren CM and Miriam Ukeritis CSJ, "The Future of Religious Orders in the United States," Origins. 22, no. 15 (1992): 272, and Review for Religious 52, no. 1 (January-February 1993): 48. 3 ~ee an earlier article of mine on aspects of this theme: "Beyond Frontiers: The Supranational Challenge of the Gospel," Review for Religious 46, no. 3 (May-June 1987): 351-370. 4 Pedro Arrupe SJ, cited by Michael Amaladoss SJ, "Inculturadon and Internationality," East Asian Pastoral Review 29, no. 3 (1992): 23% s See Gerald A. Arbuckle SM, Earthing the Gospel: An Inculturation Handbook for the Pastoral Worker (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1990), pp. 26- 78, and "Understanding Ethnicity, Multiculturalism, and Inculturation," Human Development 14, no. 1, pp. 8-10. 6 On this point I would differ from M. Amaladoss's excellent article cited above, pp. 241-243. 7 See E Lopez, Pastoral Care in an Emerging World (Sydney: Marist Centre for Pastoral Care, 1994), p. 302. s See Arbuckle, Refou. nding the Church: Dissent for Leadership (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1993), p. 111. 9 See Arbuckle, Earthing, pp. 147-166. ~0 See Arbuckle, Earthing, pp. 166-186. it R. Hughes, Culture of Complaint: The Fraying of America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 83. ,2 See Arbuclde, Earthing, pp. 162f. 13 See Allan Figueroa Deck SJ, The Second Wave: Hispanic Ministry and the Evangelization of Cultures (New York: Paulist Press, 1989), pp. 54- 119. ,4 See Arbuckle, Earthing, pp. 108-112. 15 The Life and Death of Religious Orders: A Psycho-Sociological Approach, (Washington D.C.: CARA, 1983), p. 259. 338 Review for Religious A. PAUL DOMINIC Accompanying New-Age People '7have often thought . . . if we regard the bomb (or world .~. hunger or the dying seas) as a monstrous demonic injus-tice, that must mean we never, somehow on some level, never took it seriously: the injunction to love. The stuff Jesus was talk-ing about and the Buddha." So wrote Joanna Macy somewhere; and, I believe, the same may well be said regarding the New Age movement (NAM) or, more correctly, the extreme variety of it focused on by the media: images of anything from psychic phe-nomena through esoteric beliefs in crystal gazing and spirit chan-neling to weird fads in self-centered or willful behavior going by the name of cosmic wisdom, My interest--"follow your allurement," Joseph Campbell would say--in writing on this new Western phenomenon comes from two semesters I spent a few years ago with an international group of some seventy people most of whom were Westerners carried along in the the New Age wave.1 We were, of all places, at a Catholic college in California where I had hoped to learn some new exciting approaches to Christian spirituality. Before long, however, I had to contend with some so-called spirituality that seemed anything but Christian. For one thing, "once a Christian, never again a Christian" was the prevailing mood of the majority, some of whom became more and more aggressive towards anything Christian. One time I could not refrain from remarking to my companions that as a group we could be toler-ant and respectful of every tradition except Christian. With so A. Paul Dominic SJ wrote this article from experiences he had while doing graduate studies in spirituality at Holy Names College in Oakland, California. His address is Satyodayam; 12-5-33, S. Lallaguda; Secunderabad 500 017; India. May-.3~une 1995 339 Dominic * Accompanying New-Age People much bashing of Christianity in my spiritual circle, I felt like a fish--an ichthus--in a cesspool. As time went on, however, I felt different. I saw things dif-ferently; empathy brought some insight. Coming to hear the per-sonal stories of my companions, all of whom were quondam Christians (Protestant and, like Joseph Campbell himself, Catholic), I could not but feel and formulate that they sought and found this New Age haven because the Christianity of their experience had gone awry; their lives had become an enormous unhealed and unhealing hurt, like Carol Christ's. (She had suffered her incompatible marriage for years until one day, in a terrible skiing accident, she instinctively hoped that her death would make her a martyr to the indissolubility of marriage, only to find her-self still alive and confined to a hospital bed. She decided that she had had enough of the marriage she had entered upon in church, eventually giving up her Christianity too and discovering New Age freedom.) One thirtyish woman among my companions had for years suffered trauma upon trauma because her parents would not listen to her stoW of sexual abuse by a close relative, but instead would tell her to go to confession every time she brought up her nagging distress. Her anguish came to an end when she found a hearing among New Age friends of hers. Another woman who had been quite a staunch Catholic in her youth spoke of the joyless vision of life she grew up with as she prayed about the vale of tears instead of the original blessing (this is a three-word mantra of New Agers) of the universe. Seconding them, a man-- a religious brother in good standing--declared nevertheless that the church had constricted and restricted his humanity by its leaden dos and don'ts. In the New Age covenant groups, all of them found, or thought they had found, what they had missed out on during their childhood or adolescent Christianity. Obviously, in all such cases, whatever in their new associa-tion they perceived to be filling their psychological or spiritual needs was something basically Christian, however unaware of this they were because of the unresponsive, unenlightened, and per-haps even false practice of Christianity with which they had been contending. From this discerningperspective New Age spirituality may be said to embrace within itself certain Christian elements at their best which somehow for whatever reason were found miss-ing in avowed Christian circles, whether they were couples or homes or schools or seminaries or rectories or dioceses or, of 340 Review for Religious course, the Vatican (the veritable b~te noire of former Catholics finding their berth in the New Age). I would, then, dispute the claim of the NAM to offer a spirituality for a post-Christian world, and I would point out that, despite the NAM's aversion to Christianity, quite a few of its genuine experiences have been, in many times and places, very much at home in Christianity. As the New Age plays the queen of all it surveys and declares it to be "the post-Christian world," I would submit that her declaration is in vain for the simple reason that she herself has made a home for genuine Christian elements forgotten or forsaken. Ironically, thanks to her the church and Christianity have an unsuspected way of coming into their own. Perhaps this is what a deacon's twenty-year-old daughter--quite unlike my companions--meant when she said: "Don't get me wrong. I don't hate the church. I just want it to be better than it is. I want it to be alive--not what some old deacon thinks is alive, but my kind of alive . -2 It is not fanciful but altogether pleasantly surprising to find how, for all the avowed antagonism to Christ among those sab-batical- year companions of mine, Christ made himself discreetly, unobtrusively present. Have we not heard about the unknown Christ of non-Christian religions? Perhaps in the New Age circle of my acquaintance he was not so much unknown as unacknowl-edged, unwanted, and even (unsuccessfully) banished. A former seminarian, for instance, confessed virulently that he had no need of Christ to save him for he had nothing to be saved from. Christ, however, kept himself in their midst in an unintrusive manner. That, perhaps, is the very nature of Christ. I was led willy-nilly to think in this way by observing the effect a song had on some my of New Age friends. Of all the songs we used for the circle dance, the Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison especially charmed the most conspicuously anti-Christian one among us. I could not help chuckling over the archetypal trickster role Christ resorted to in order to reach out to one who had rejected him consciously and deliberately. If New Agers would "let go" (a favorite expres-sion of theirs) of Christ, Christ would let them, but he would not let go of them. While we rejoice in this latent presence of Christ in the NAM, we would do well to ask our'selves how much of Christ we, the people of present-day Christianity, hold on to~ Whatever of Christ we had, did it convey so untrue an image of him that someone close to us chose to turn his or her back on him? Why else did a May-.~ne 1995 341 Dominic ¯ Accompanying New-Age People young man make bold to say: "The picture we have of the Christian church as a continuation of the fellowship Jesus set in motion is a gross distortion" ? 3 If it is, is it not high time that we regrasp Christ and make more of a home for him in our churches so that people cannot avoid seeing and meeting him there? Now is a good time for the church to let the "Christ before Christianity" address himself to it so that it may come to know him afresh in a renewal of the reign of God that he initiated. The New Age, reacting against the present age of Christianity, seeks its roots in an age older than our familiar ancient civiliza-tions. It has found, however, a certain remnant of Christian tra-dition appealing to it, namely, the mystical tradition. So it would revive the memory of mystics like Mechtild of Magdeburg and Meister Eckhart who are credited with having drawn heavily from the chthonic and matriarchal era of humanity. Whatever the rea-son for the NAM's reverence for these Christian mystics, thought-ful Christians can think of them only as Christians and not in any other terms. Will it not be true to say that Christian mystics were more Christian than mystic, having become mystics precisely by their way of being Christian? Th.e acceptability of some Christian mystics to New Age reli-gionists (I say "some" because they find others such as Augustine and Ignatius Loyola distinctly unacceptable) should not be mat-ter for any triumphalism inasmuch as the NAM goes for all mys-ticism. Instead, the New Age's mystical interests must serve to open our eyes to what we have lost sight of, namely, the mystical horizon of the Christian universe from its very inception in Christ. How many can resonate with the declaration made by William Johnston that Christianity indeed originates in the mystical expe-rience of Christ, reaching its climax in his resurrection? How many will be persuaded by Johnston's sweeping view of our mys-tical heritage, starting with Christ, handed down by Paul, kept alive by the fathers of the church, cherished by the medieval mys-tics, and shared in even by the simple people whom Poulain found in his time and Johnston and others recognize in ours? Given the mystical strain of Christianity, he suggests that reflection on our mystical experience, together with the reflection on conversion that Bernard Lonergan advocates, could form the basis of our theology in the future.4 In keeping with the New Age penchant for all forms of mys-ticism of whatever origin, one crusader of the NAM, Matthew 342 Review for Religious Fox, has come up with a dozen or so running definitions of mys-ticism, qualifying almost everyone to be a self-designated mys-tic. However one may critique such New Age eclecticism, there is behind it such a thing as the real intention (to use Neuro- Linguistic Programming's term) that is certainly right and praise-worthy insofar as it only culls the beautiful wherever it finds it. This is one of the ways in which the New Age can pose a challenge to religions to recover their original spirit and. shed whatever has become unnecessarily hidebound,s Aiming at such a breakthrough, the New Age attends to the different religions as to a story and not a lecture;6 and so it can appropriately respond to the turns and twists and leads and plots of the different religious stories, thus creating a new story and generating a new spirituality. All modern, sensible Christians cannot but see in all this a certain spirit of ecumenism. However much official church pronouncements eulo-gize and emphasize the modern Christian spirit as ecumenical, the ecumenical practice in church life worldwide is not conspicuously vigorous even if present. How many have Christianity enough to hate but not to love, whether in Northern Ireland or Rwanda or the former Yugoslavia or other large and small places! What thoughtful Christian could fail to agree with what a New Age writer has remarked: "For many peo-ple, religion has become a force that creates enemies and teaches distrust and disrespect for differences, rather than a force that truly builds the human family and the meaning that sustains us"?7 Seen from this perspective, New Age eclecticism could well be practical ecumenism, something that Christians ideally seek to realize in their communities vis-~a-vis other religious communities. Here as elsewhere it is better to make mistakes and progress by learning from them than to play safe, avoiding mistakes only to make the big mistake of getting stuck in the status quo and then regressing. It is certainly high time to vindicate the bold inspira-tion of John XXIII and the proud heritage he bequeathed to his church, to all of Christianity, and to all the world. Will it not be true to say that Christian mystics were more Christian than mystic, having become mystics precisely by their way of being Christian? May-j~lne 1995 ~ 343 Dominic ¯ Accompanying New-AgePeople No story has been told of how this pope got the idea of con-vening an ecumenical council. But what if it had come to him in a dream? Whatever the hierarchy or the theologians or the church's rank and file might think about such a story, New Agers would not at all find it odd or shocking. They set store on their dreams, treasuring them as the nocturnal gifts of the Universe or the collective unconscious that counterbalance an overmuch influ-ence of the conscious reasoning power of the waking hours. They are intent on keeping a regular and detailed record of them, going to great lengths sometimes to stimulate and then recall them, pondering over them daily (reminiscent of the "additional direc-tives" in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola and also reminiscent of formal religious practice itself). They have their guru in C.G. Jung, who not only developed a mythological and mystical approach to dreams, but also left behind his conviction that dreams can be read by anyone who meditates on them long enough. Many New Age people would resonate with Henry Miller's experiences: "The realization that there was a pattern to my life, one which made sense, came about in a curious way. Shortly after moving into the Villa Seurat, I had begun to record my dreams. And not only the dreams but the associations which the act of transcribing them induced. Doing this over a period of months, I suddenly began to see, 'To suddenly see,' as Saroyan says somewhere. A pregnant phrase--to anyone who has had the experience. An expression which has only one meaning: to see with new eyes.''8 New Age people believe in the newness brought about by dreams on all levels (personal and social) and domains (artistic, scientific, philosophic, and theosophic) of humanity. They see themselves as cocreators of new humanity, thanks to the creative potential of dreams breaking through the premature closure of thought represented for them by the dictum that rev-elation was complete with the death of the last apostle. Though the real point of the theological dictum might be missed by New Age people, their rediscovery of dreams is some-thing that may be missed by church people. For one thing, we must realize that, along with all religious cultures, the Judeo- Christian tradition too has developed its own perspective of dreams. Abraham Lincoln is reported to have remarked some-thing obvious and yet valuable enough to appear as the epigraph of a Christian book on dreams: "How much there is in the Bible about dreams! . . . If we believe the Bible, we must accept the 344 Review for Religious fact that, in the old days, God and his angels came to humans in their sleep and made themselves known in dreams.''9 There are sensible Christians who would wager that what happened in the old biblical days can and does continue to hap-pen even today for God's people, especially if God is the Revealer of Mysteries and also of our inmost thoughts (Dn 2:29-30), direct-ing our hearts even at night (Ps 16:7). Those who think in this line and yet are not very sure about the meaning of their dreams may well be enlightened by the remark of an anonymous author: "It is very interesting to see that all the dreams reported by religious fig-ures in the New Testament and in early Christianity do not require any interpreting at all. They are nearly always straightforward messages of encouragement from God.''~° A simple Tamil farmer, for instance, could appreciate this. In a dream he saw a leprosy patient asking him for a glass of water and he gave him one, but only after much hesitation until he heard a clear voice telling him to get up and read Matthew,25:35. On waking he looked up the passage: "I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink." Those in the Catholic tradition with their cult of saints may well draw inspiration from the way the saints benefited from their dreams even after reflecting on dreams fell into disrepute in the church in the middle of the 4th century. To recall a saint of recent history, John Bosco (1815-1888) certainly cherished his dreams and shared them with others. At the age of nine, he had a dream which recurred repeatedly for some eighteen years. First he saw himself surrounded by spoiled urchins and trying noisily and forcibly to control them; a man of noble bearing and great radi-ance called him by name and bade him do his work kindly and gently; then he saw a lady of beauty and majesty changing all sorts of wild animals into gentle lambs and asking him to do the same to her children. Through that dream he could in the course of time envision more and more the future establishment of his Besides their serious attention to dreams, New Age people have discovered in ancient cultures something else, the celebration of rituals. May-d~ne 1995 345 Dominic * Accompanying New-Age People Oratory and the spread of his work.11 Whatever spiritual profit accrued to the saints by way of dreams can become a matter of our own experience because each one of us is a special sort of a saint, an idea that NAM would laud heartily. Besides their serious attention to dreams, New Age people have discovered in ancient cultures something else, the celebra-tion of rituals. New Age celebrants perform some of the old rit-uals related to mythological tales like that of Demeter and Persephone, hoping to be empowered by them. They resurrect the rituals of the seasons, wanting to be in tune with the rhythm of the earth and the energy of the sun. They reenact and update the rit-uals of passage of human life from birth, through adulthood and marriage, to death. No wonder, then, that after the violent death of one of my compaflions, a New Age former Catholic, there was held a ritual which included a long circle dance with the song "We all come from the goddess / and to her shall we return / like the drops of waters / flowing to the ocean," followed by the unex-pected eerie cry of a woman almost beside herself swearing to avenge her friend's death. Of all the rituals the pride of place would go to the ritual of the maze. It consists in meandering through a maze to reach the inner center and then making one's way back to the outer rim. Interestingly, it developed out of, or at least came to be associated with, the archetype of the spiral that manifests itself in the total spectrum of the universe from the shape of the galaxies through that of the atomic space to that of the DNA helix. One may wonder ivhether this ritual has not pen-etrated beneath humanity's consciousness when one realizes the enthusiasm aroused by the variety of mazes or labyrinths extant even today in various countries such as Sweden, Japan, and Britain--this last, incidentally, declared 1991 the Year of the Maze. Two of the friends in our group decided to plight their love to each other singing their way through a labyrinth far from the madding crowd deep in a quiet valley open to the azure gaze of the California sky and in the presence, of course, of those who had journeyed with them. I wonder whether New Age revelers resorting to renewed or newfound rituals have known the wise words of the Tat Te Ching: "Ritual is but the crust of loyalty and good faith, / And the begin-ning of discord.''12 1 would, however, add this observation. Though some of their rituals can be weird, others are truly inspiring and religious. The ceremony "Remembering the Way," created by 34.6 Review for Religious Joan M. McMillen, for instance, honoring the eight-hundred-year- old labyrinth in the Cathedral of Chartres, with its evocative music even using Latin in a whole stanza and its call to let go, builds up a climax of expectancy in everyone, ending with the final song of calm assurance: "Sooner or later, everyone finds their way. / Wholly without, embracing; wholly within, ful-filling. / Go I know not where, seek I know not what. / Sooner or later, everyone comes home." That a genuine spiritual experience can be built around a long-forgotten and unused maze in the French cathedral is an eloquent symbol for me of the untapped, undying springs of spir-ituality hidden not only in the heart, but in the history of the church. Thus, the ritual celebrations at the vernal equinox and the winter solstice can with a little imagination be linked with the feasts of the Annunciation and Christmas, respectively, lead-ing people to experience heaven even on the way to heaven and that in an earthly way--as has been done, for instance, at the Jesuit retreat house in Sedalia, Colorado. So also, the simple drumming and dancing and singing of native peoples all over the globe have a spiritual potential that the church can effectively make its own with respect and gratitude and joy.13 In these matters the church does not need to conduct first-time experiments, but need only reclaim riches from its distant past. For example, even in the cenobitic times, long before churches of the medieval period served as stages for the enter-tainment that morality plays provided, the church building was already considered a festive hall?4 The modern church has been made newly festive mostly by the charismatic renewal, which is largely an urban phenomenon; it must become open to some of the festivity of "pagan" (from the Latin pagus "country district," as New Agers point out) or "rural" areas, the places of aboriginal roots. The New Age movement manifests an earthy or creation-ori-ented spirituality. Clear expressions of it--and extreme ones if understood literally instead of metaphorically--are "Mother Earth" and "Mother Nature." A literal understanding would go beyond James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis and would conceive the earth as a living entity, with a life of its own on which ours depends. It would understand the divine principle as not only being in nature, but being nature itself. There would be no room for transcendence here. Everything of earth would be sacred, in May-j~ne 1995 347 Dominic ¯ Accompanying New-Age People particular the whole of human nature without any distinction between matter and spirit. A less extreme position about all this would be analogous to Copernicus's. As he saw Earth displaced from center stage, people would see themselves displaced from their superior position as the thinking species separated from the rest of nature and would give the preeminence to the whole of the universe and especially to Earth, unique planet that it seems to be, making it Earth's universe par excellence with a history of fifteen billion years or so. Comparable to this cosmological posi-tion would be this theological position: Since the earth is of such an age compared with which the whole of human history is no more than a brief moment, the point of departure for theologiz-ing should be the original blessing of the earth rather than the original fall. Aside from the first and most extreme position above--a fer-vid New Ager like Carol Christ, however, would prefer not to make such distinctions--the other two positions could easily become the ideal Christian view of earth. Though the Christian West may have used and overused the earth to the point of abuse, Christian sources tell a different story. The Bible opens with the story of the earth and all creation, in which the divinity finds due delight because of the imprint of the divine goodness all through it, Hopkins's one line "The world is charged with the grandeur of God" says it well, and so does Elizabeth Browning's couplet "Earth's crammed with heaven / And every common bush afire with God"--both reminiscent of the psalmist's familiar words "How great is your name, O Lord our God, / through all the earth!" (Ps 8:9). It is quite a revelation, is it not, that God provided a power-ful answer--through not a directly reasoned answer--to the bur-den of Job's anguished questions by encountering him as the God of creation's awesomely rich variety? "Ever since God created the world, his everlasting power and deity--however invisible--have been there for the mind to see in the things he has made" (Rm 1:20). It is no wonder, then, that, whenever God enters into a covenant with his human creation, he carries conviction by invok-ing the enduring solidity of his natural creation in such words as these: "Yahweh who provides the sun for light by day, the moon and stars for light by night, who stirs the sea, making its waves roar, he whose name is Yahweh Sabaoth, says this: Were this estab-lished order ever to pass away from my presence--it is Yahweh 348 Review for Religious who speaks--only then would the race of Israel also cease to be a nation in my presence forever" (Jr 31:35-36). This creation, however, is not as pure as it was originally because of original sin and all the successive sins of humanity. In spite of that, or' perhaps because of it, Paul could visualize the present thus: "The whole creation is eagerly waiting for God to reveal his sons. It was not for any fault on the part of creation that it was made unable to attain its purpose, itwas made so by God; but creation still retains the hope of being freed, like us, from its slaver~ to decadence, to enjoy the same freedom and glory as the children of God. From the beginning till now the entire cre-ation, as we know, has been groaning in one great act of giv-ing birth; and not only creation, but all of us who possess the first-fruits of the Spirit, we too groan inwardly as we wait for our bod-ies to be set free" (Rm 8:19-23). This visualization of all cre-ation, human as well as hatural, contains in an embryonic man-ner all the challenges and hopes Some, then, would say: Since the earth is of such an age compared with which the whole of human history is no more than a brief moment, the point of departure for theologizing should be the original blessing of the earth rather than the original fall. engendered and cherished by enlightened earthlings in relation to their earth, which, for all the ravages caused to it, is still humble, fertile, homely, and motherly. And so we learn to reverence cre-ation and earth and matter as St. John Damascene taught: "Through it, filled, as it were, with a divine power and grace, my salvation has come to me." At the end of a crescendo of ques-tions, he asks: "And, before all these things, is not the Body and Blood of our Lord matter? Do not despise matter, for it is not despicable.''~s These words are surely evocative of Teilhard de Chardin (quite a model for New Age faithful), but not only of him but of Ighatius Loyola (quite unacceptable to the New Age, though of him Teilhard has said that he could no more disown him than he could his own father), from whose Spiritual Exercises Teilhard had learned not a little about the divine milieu of the May-June 199Y 349 Dominic ¯ Accompanying New-Age People It is high time that we take the commandment of love seriously with regard to the way we look at New Age people. earth. In particular in the Contemplation to Attain Love he must have obtained a new vision of the universe in which he could find not only all things in God but God in all things.16 The dynamics of this vision is traced by Gilles Cusson thus: "The final fulfillment of God's revealed plan of salvation, which is a mystery of love expressed in the gratuitous calls to creation and salvation, is the pro-gressive movement of the world toward God, through the coming of the Christ who assumed the totality of our human condition; of the world which, now renewed, finds again on itself the divine mark of its origin and the sublime ordination which God's creative act had imprinted on it."~7 To conclude as we began, it is high time that we take the com-mandment of love seriously with regard to the way we look at New Age people. To the conservative and cocksure among us, some of them may appear to be freaks. But, as one of their fold, Jacquelyn Small, suggests somewhere, "What would Love do?" must be our constant question and search. By reading the signs of the times with a decided spirit of love, one may come to find many an admirable pearl of spirituality in the field of the New Age move-ment. These are to be valued in themselves and are worth redeem-ing for our church and ourselves, for we must love not only our neighbor but ourselves as well. Surely not everything in the New Age's,field is valuable, but among New Age leaders there are, for-tunately, some who dispute whatever is disingenuous and dehu-manizing and disintegrating. A witness to this reality I chanced to find in David Spangler, who in speaking of the New Age describes something that I as a Christian applaud: The shape of the new age takes on ordinary proportions for me. I find it, for example, in nurturing my marriage or in gracefully meeting the demands of parenthood. I find a new age in my craft and improving my work. I find it-in ¯ my questions about myself that impel me to confront my shortcomings and boundaries. I find it in the never ending quest to understand the nature and purpose of a God who 350 Review for Religious is not simply--or even primarily--the inner divinity that so many new age writers focus on, but the evocative Other whose very differences impel me to reach beyond myself and participate in the larger communion and community of life. I find the new age in the daily effort we share to live with integrity, grow with courage, and be a willing partner with life to allow expression of dreams and capabilities.~8 Accompanying New Age adherents in the spirit developed in the pages above would be a way to implement concretely two of the points contained in the call of the Inter-American Assembly of Religious held in 1994 in Santo Domingo, namely, (1) "to reject all that disavows the holiness of our world and its peoples, and instead to embrace our world and its peoples, sharing their con-crete social, economic, cultural, and religious struggles and hopes," and (2) "to reject efforts at evangelization that arise from stances of authoritarian power, and instead to proclaim" the good news and hope of Jesus from within the cultures and the experiences of people." t9 Notes ~ That it has made itself felt in the spiritual world at large is beyond doubt. See The Way, July 1993, devoted entirely to New Age spiritual-ity. 2 Don Gilmore, Extra Spiritual Power (Waco, 1972), p. 90. 3 Ibid, p. 93. 4 See William Johnston, The Inner Eve of Love (London, 1978), pp. 58- 59, and also Luis M. Bermejo, The Allurement of the Summit (Anand: Gujarat Sahitya Prakash, 1993), pp. ix, 66, 67, and passim. s See Matthew Fox and Brian Swimme, Manifesto for a Global Civilization (Santa Fe: Bear and Co., 1982), p. 38. 6 See David Spangler, "The New Storytellers," In Context, Winter 1985, p. 19. 7 V. Hull, "New Myths to Live," One Earth, June-July 1986, p. 19. 8 Cited by Jeremy Taylor, Dream Work (New York: Paulist Press, 1983), p. 20. 9 See Louis M. Savary et al., Dreams and Spiritual Growth (New York: Paulist Press, 1984), p. xi. ~0 Anonymous, Dreams and Destiny (London, 1987), p. 51. ~ SeeJ. Bacchiarello, Forty Dreams of St. John Bosco (Madras, 1969), pp. iv and 2-3. May-3nune 1995 351 Dominic ¯ Accompanying New-Age People ,2 The preceding lines are: When the Way (Tao) fades away, Virtue (7~) raises up, When virtue fades away, humanness (jen) raises up, When humanness fades away, justice (yi) raises" up, When justi6e fades away, the ritual (li) raises upi' --cited by'~Raimon Panikkar, Worship and Secular Man (London, 1973), p. ix. ,3 Happily such were some of the main topics discussed in the work-shop in Canada last year for Jesuits working among the aboriginal peo-ples in different parts of the world. 14 See Panikkar, Worship, p. 85. ,s Cited by Samuel Rayan, "The Earth Is the Lord's," Vidyajyoti, 1990, p. 121. , ,6 Spiritual Exercise¢, §§230-237. 17 Gilles Cusson, Biblical Theology and the Spiritual Exercises (Anand: Gujarat Sahitya Prakash and St. Louis: institute of Jesuit Sources, 1988), p. 323. See also p. 324, n. 34. ,8 New Realities, May-June 1988. 19 Review for Religious 53, no. 4 (July-August 1994): 619-620. Universe Universe becoming befriending and free Summon the more, the maybe, and the not yet from me. Open the winds to enter me in and find gift and seeds and hop~ and flowers knowing that creation comes in longing openness to Mystery. Patricia St Louis CSJ 352 Review for Religious BARBARA VALUCKAS Lithuania: A Return to My Ancestral Home ~hile making my silver-jubilee retreat in 1983, I prayed ~" I¢ over the biblical passages about the year of jubilee. The directive in Leviticus 25 to "return to [your] ancestral home" in the jubilee year penetrated my prayer, bur did not fully infuse my imagination. I was able to name and celebrate many ancestral homes including my family, my church, my religious congregation, and my womanhood. Among these I named my ethriic and cultural roots in Lithuania, but in 1983, several years before the collapse of the Berlin wall, a literal fulfillment of the biblical words was beyond my imagining. I was to learn, however, that it was not beyond God's'imagination for me. I made my,first journey to Lithuania seven years later, just one year after people began streaming through the former Iron Curtain. As provincial of the VVilton, Connecticut, province of the School Sisters of Notre Dame, I was on my way to Hungary via Lithuania to attend an extended general council meeting of our congregation. I encountered a country in the first stages of its exodus experience of freedom. Lithuania,had been the first Soviet-occupied country to declare its° independence. The Sajudis ("Movement") Party sailed into power on a wave of public eupho- Barbara Valuckas SSND works in Pilgrim Ministries to support organi-zational journeys of people worldwide. This article, now slighdy revised, appeared originally in the Eastern Europe issue of LCWR Occasional Papers (March 1995). Her address is Pilgrim Ministries; 9 Academy Hill Road; Watertown, Connecticut 06795. E-mail in U.S.A.: MVV:K5 8 B@Prodigy.com. May-~ne 1995 353 Valuckas ¯ Lithuania ria about all the blessings that would come with freedom and a free market economy. No one then anticipated the long desert trek of turmoil and transition that lay ahead. The effects of five decades of brutal suppression of people and their nation would not dis-appear overnight. When I returned to Lithuania again in 1992 on my way to our general chapter in Rome, the rumblings of popular disillu-sionment had already achieved great momentum. In claiming their independence from Russia, Lithuanians had not fully antic-ipated the economic consequences of being cut off from Russian oil and other commodities. In changing from the ruble economy to one more related to Western currencies, people were jolted by the reality of Western prices. Shadow sides of capitalism were already making their appearance in the form of new unemploy-ment and homelessness; the presence of street beggars shocked people long unaccustomed to such realities. The simple people I met in the countryside expressed their desire to return to.the Egypt of economic security. They said, "At least under the Communists we had enough to eat, and we had heat." These unforeseen shortages of food and fuel helped to bring down the fledgling independence government and to sweep the Communists back as the majority party in Lithuania in the fall. This time, the Communists were not the forcible occupiers, but duly elected officials with a mandate from the people. Many Lithuanians were dazed by this outcome. They could not believe that they had voluntarily elected the same people whose power they had so recently thrown off. They felt stuck in the mud of their own confusion and ambivalence, even as they sought to take the first steps toward rebuilding their country. The rebuilding of every part of Lithuanian life was as daunt-ing a challenge as the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem after it had been totally destroyed. Within my own prayer I could feel the Leviticus jubilee invitation to return to one's ancestral home evolving into a more literal and compelling call. I found myself praying, along with Nehemiah (2:1-8), "If it please the king, and if you are satisfied with your servant, give me leave to go to Judah, to the city of my ancestors' tombs, and rebuild it." I prayed this prayer rather blindly because, from a practical point of view, it was not clear to me what I could contribute in Lithuania. Once again my imagination for myself was not up to God's imagina-tion for me. 354 Review for Religious Although all four of my grandparents had come from Lithuania and both of my parents spoke the language, I quickly moved from Lithuanian to English, as many second-generation children of immigrants do. Consequently, I did not know what I could do in Lithuania when my term as provincial gave way to a sabbatical year. I need not have wor-ried because, with little effort on my part, the doors flew open. After learning of my background in educa-tional television, Msgr. George Sarauskas, of the National Catholic Conference of Catholic Bishops Office to Aid Central and Eastern Europe, invited me to serve as a con-sultant to the newly created Catholic Television Center in Lithuania. In retrospect I can appreciate the loving providence of God, who picked up a thread from my profes-sional past and used it as a "leading string of love" (Hosea 11:4) to tug on my heart and my life, gently pulling it toward my ancestral home. Responding to this leading string, I reappeared in Lithuania in mid August 1993 for the first of two three-month periods of life and work with and for the Lithuanian people. From visitation to our SSND missions on other continents, I had learned the need to approach any kind of rebuilding as a humble learner. The Lithuanian people had to identify what needed rebuilding in the temple of their persons and their nation and how that rebuilding should proceed. My role had to be one of listening, support, and enablement. Sister Donna Steffan SC accompanied me for the first three weeks of my fall 1993 visit. Together we visited people in the cities and the countryside. We asked them to share with us their perceptions of Lithuania's current reality and to tell us what they most needed from the church. At first shyly and tentatively and then with growing trust, they revealed that one of their biggest needs was for people just to listen to their stories. The years of occupation had trained them not to trust anyone; as a result, most people kept their experiences and feelings locked up inside them-selves. They recognized a great need to unburden themselves. One woman described the effects of the occupation with the image in a distorting mirror that we in the West most often associate with the fun house in amusement parks. May-37une 1995 355 Valuckas ¯ Lithuania One woman described the effects of the occupation with the image in a distorting mirror that we in the West most often asso-ciate with the fun house in amusement parks. She said that every Lithuanian learned to live behind at least three faces. The first face was the "pro-Communist" face that one was obliged to show to one's employer and professional colleagues in order to keep one's job. The second face was the one shown to one's family and friends. Even this face had many subtle degrees corresponding to one's trust level. The third face was the one shown to oneself. My friend continued by saying that the overall effect of hav-ing to hide behind three different faces for such a long period of years was a gradual disintegration of the personality and a warp-ing of the soul. So, when Lithuanians look into the mirrors of their souls, it is like looking into a distorted mirror. What they see is not lovely but grotesque. It causes some people to go to con-fession often in the effort to "scrape their souls clean" and to receive constant reassurances of God's love and forgiveness of things they may have said or done behind the first face so as to assure their own survival or that of loved ones. This self-image of distortion was mentioned in one form or another by a number of people who described themselves and their country as "bent" in some way. It suggested to me an image of Lithuania as the bent-over woman described in the Scriptures. Like that woman, Lithuania has lost much blood in its tortured patriots and saints. One bishop, upon meeting me and hearing of my purpose in Lithuania, said, "Help us to stand up straight." Donna and I asked some of the parents with whom we visited if they had new hope for the future now that Lithuania had its independence. The most common reply was that these young and middle-aged couples viewed themselves as already having been "destroyed." If they expressed any hope at all, it was for their children. Many said that the years of occupation had forced them to live "like animals." In the stories of the people, we learned that during the occupation every dimension of human creativity was suppressed in the name of the "people." A carpenter could not design a new piece of furniture nor a dressmaker a new pattern unless the designs were approved by numerous offices in Moscow. The approval, in turn, depended upon the ability of the design to be replicated throughout the Soviet Union to preserve some stated ideal of socialist sameness. Eventually many people "forgot" how to think creatively and learned to do only what they were told. 356 Review for Religious I recently heard a radio interview with an American busi-nessman expressing his frustration with doing business in the for-mer Soviet republics. He said that, no matter what size boards he ordered for his building materials, the ones that were delivered were all the same size, the former Soviet standard size. Apparently the workers had lost the ability to imagine that boards could be cut to any other dimension. To me this was a powerful image of the damage that had been done to the minds and psyches of the people. This sense of damage to human creativity was reinforced by our visits to some of the museums in Lithuania. We were awed by the burst of Lithuanian creativity in music, art, literature and poetry, and sculpture during the brief period of national inde-pendence before the occupation. All of the exhibits seemed to me to come to an abrupt halt in the late 1940s. It was like applying to a whole nation the title of Etty Hillesum's book An Interrupted Life. What happened to all of that creativity for a half century? It appears that a lot of it went into the coordination of the under-ground resistance movements, including the underground church. Many Lithuanians, however, having become atheistic collabora-tors with the occupiers, used their energies to promote the pro-paganda machine. Still others turned their talents to the exploitation of people. After independence all of these forms of creativity continued, but in more open ways. The church, newly emerged from the underground, is using its creative energies to rebuild itself above ground. The collaborators are using their tal-ents at various levels of government, pursuing the old Communist agenda as well as their own self-aggrandizement while they are still in power. And the exploiters have emerged in the black market and in other criminal activities, that include an increase in violence. Some entrepreneurs opening private businesses receive almost instant demands for protection money. Resisters, if not murdered, find their new businesses destroyed. After many decades of being cut off from others, Lithuanians are eager to learn more about the rest of the world. Since most do not have the resources to travel, television becomes their win-dow on that world. The most popular television program in Lithuania today is the American soap opera "Santa Barbara." It is not clear to me if the story line is as important to the viewers as are the infinite clues to the first-world affluent lifestyle that May-j~ine 199Y 357 Valuckas ¯ Lithuania American viewers have come to take for granted. They notice that none of the characters have stainless steel teeth (as many Lithuanians do). They note the large living spaces with beautiful bathrooms, the gorgeous clothes and cars. I once gave a relative of mine some American magazines in a brown envelope, the kind with a small metal clasp. The whole family gathered around that envelope and examined the clasp in great detail. Eventually some-one said, "We saw one of these on Santa Barbara!" When the three weeks of Donna's visit had come to an end, we spent a day of prayer and theological reflection on the mean-ing of our experience together. One of the scriptural images that seemed to gather up those .first weeks of listening was the story of Ruth and Naomi. The unexpected loss in the experience of wid-owhood began that story. God seemed to have cut down their hopes, but in reality was leading them to a fulfillment of these hopes beyond their expectations. Ruth and Naomi chose to remain together as they journeyed into an unknown future. For Donna and me, Lithuania itself was like Ruth and Naomi. Its hopes for its own independence as a nation were ruthlessly cut down. But Lithuania is still in the middle of its story; the end-ing is not clear at all. Lithuania is still trying to nourish itself on the few stalks of grain dropped by reapers in the fields. We could also recognize the fidelity of Ruth and Naomi to each other in many of the Lithuanian people we had met: in the young family which remained faithful to their ill and old grandparents, in the young boy who chose to remain with his mother who was dying of tuberculosis, in the many priests, women religious, and lay people who chose to remain faithful to their religion during the long years of persecution. These choices were all the more coura-geous when one remembers that they were made in the teeth of efforts to break down all forms of fidelity, trust, and solidarity. We understood that we ourselves and others coming from outside the country and walking with the Lithuanian people were echoing Ruth's words "Your people shall be my people." We rec-ognized that this would imply a willingness to be with the Lithuanian people in ,their present experience of confusion and scarce resources; it would mean willingness to hold back from efforts to "answer" and "fix." In the end the Lithuanian people need to be the rebuilders of their own nation and church. It is a tricky thing to "accompany" a people without trying to control what they do. Another thread from my professional 358 Review for Religious past helped me in my own struggle to find a balance. While work-ing with an organization called Community Creativity before tak-ing up my ministry of community leadership, I learned how to elicit people's stories about their reality and to "mirror" these experiences to them in helpful ways. I learned that, if people can draw upon their own experiences as their base for learning and growth, they are more likely to see the rebuilding as their own. Over the course of the two three-month periods that I spent in Lithuania during my sabbatical year, I was able to use this "mir-roring" process with three different groups of people within the Lithuanian church: the staff of the Catholic Television Center, the catechists, and the women religious. After interviewing each member of the television center, I had a better sense of its short but significant corporate story. Like almost everything else in eastern Europe, church communica-tions had to jump from 0 to 10 in a very short time after the col-lapse of the Berlin wall. Church officials who had been forcibly silenced for five decades suddenly found themselves expected to speak--on national television--words.of meaning and hope to people who~ "like sheep without a shepher.d," desperately needed guidance as the structures.of their lives crumbled around them. It was a shock both for these church leaders and for the peo-ple to have to jump so suddenly from centrally controlled pro-paganda- oriented media to more democratic and truth-oriented forms. No one knew how to give or receive an opinion, and han-dling any diversity of thought posed real dilemmas. One of the first things that I was able to reflect to the staff of the Catholic Television Center was that, although people had technical skills, no one seemed to have a sense of what the mission of the center was. In the discussion that followed this observation, I learned that the whole concept of a mission statement was new to people whose entire lives had been bent toward purposes defined for them by the government. After much dialogue (which was another new experience in itself), we eventually were able to articulate a mission statement. The Catholic Television Center saw its mission as giving a voice to the once silent Lithuanian church and educating the Lithuanian people about the world church. These purposes, while clear, were fraught with ambivalence. The Lithuanian church survived under-ground only by the exercise of strong central authority that oper-ated largely in secret. There were no group discussions; there May-d~une 1995 359 Valuckas ¯ Lithuania was no consensus building. Information was passed from one per-son to another singly. Control over information was essential to survival. Given this history, It can be quite threatening to provide the .Lithuanian church with a voice Consonant with the Vatican II understandifig of the church as the people of God. The Lithuanian church grapples with questions of how much diversity of thought and'opinion should be expressed in the media and how much should be kept "secret" or even suppressed. There is also ambiva-lence regarding the life of the church in other parts of the world. On the one hand, there is a great eageyness to see how Catholics in other parts of the world live and worship. On the other hand, there is a certain suspicion of theologies, spiritaialities, and rituals coming from other parts of the world and a conse-quenttemptation to control what Lithuanian Catholics are allowed to learn about. With radio, television, fax, and e-mail increasingly available in Lithuania, the democratization 6f infor-mation that is a part of mass communications poses dilemmas for a church only emergin/~ from the underground after years of iso-lation from news about developments in the life of the church. The catechists I visited in each bf the six dioceses .of Lithuania echoed these challenges and voiced their own as they, too, jumped from 0 to 10. When Lithuania became independent, church lead-ers faced a choice: either to begin religious insti'uctlon immedi-ately with ill-prepared teachers without any materials to work with or to do adequate preparation first but thereby risk losing the present instructional opportunity altogether in the quite possi-ble event of reannexation by Russia. They chose the first option. When I visited the catechetical centers in each diocese, cat-echists spoke of the great difficulties they were encountering as they relied on their memories of decades-old religious instruc-tion and tried to pass these fragments on to a new generation of youth with no current materials to help or guide them. Eventually the six dioceses succeeded in collaborating to produce a common catechetical curriculum and in translating some materials from Italy and Austria into the Lithuanian language. The catechetical centers were also. interested in working with the Catholic Television Center to produce s'0me good in'service materials for the catechists and some interesting lessons for the students. When I had completed my visitation of the six dioceses, I wrote a report mirroring the great gifts and the serious challenges 360 Review for Religious I had observed; I distributed it to the directors of the catecheti-cal centers. They were astounded at my report for reasons that amazed me. '"You told the truth," they said. They were not accus-tomed to that. In other professional settings during the occupa-tion, they were accustomed to "inspectors" who came with the primary purpose of criticizing what-ever they saw and who wrote reports that had no correspondence with the reality of their visits. Because of such experiences, the catechists told me, they had awaited my visits with a mix-ture of dread and anxiety. They were flabbergasted to read a report that not only reflected what they had said, but aqtually offered observations and reflections that they found helpful. This was a totally new experience for them. For my part I was astonished to learn how much they had accom-plished, fueled only by zeal, °with scant resources and very meager pay. They had even experienced outright deri. sion from atheistic teachers and stu~- dents. For me, these courageous and selfles~ catechists enfleshed the stories Like many of the other prisoners, this sister fashioned for herself a tiny rosary of hard crumbs of black bread strhng together by a needle and thread. Hid under the lining of her coat, it was never discovered. from the Acts of the Apostles describing the church's early efforts to spread the Good News in the face of extraordinary limitations and challenges from within and without. This difference in experience was one of the many times that I imaged myself as being on the other side'of a chasm from the Lithuanian people. Ways of being that I took for granted were totally out of their lived experience; their faith and courage in the face of adversity were often beyond my ability to compre-hend: For example, the director of ofle of the catechetical centers told me that her entire family was taken away from her and sent to Siberia when she was a small child. Spared this fate because of her age, she was put into the care of some women who provi-dentially were underground nuns. It was through their example that she grew in the faith that sustained her through the loss of her family and ultimately led her to leave her post as a university pro- May-June 1995 361 Valuckas ¯ Lithuania fessor and accept the bishop's invitation to direct a catechetical center, The women religious were the third group of people I was privileged to accompany and mirror. The major superiors had been made aware of the interest which the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) and other organizations had in their welfare, and they were eager to talk about their needs. They, too, had their stories to tell. One of these major superiors' told me that almost all of her early religious life was spent in prison. The prisoners were body-searched every day for any signs or symbols of religion. Like many of the other prisoners, this sister fashioned for herself a tiny rosary of.hard crumbs of black bread strung together by a needle and thread. Hid under the lining o.f her coat, it was never discovered. She still has that rosary; When she showed it to me, she said that her prison .experience was one of the most powerful God-experiences of her life. This sister and the other major superiors echoed what many others had said about needing to tell their stories and to experience healing of their memories. The sisters asked for resource people to come from America and other countries to help them psychologically, theologically, and spiritually. They were eager to learn about developments in theology, prayer, and spirituality in the last several decades of their "interrupted lives." They also expressed a strong desire to grow in leadership skills and in the skills related to the develop-ment of community life and ministry. In spring 1994, Sisters Carolyn Mruz OSF and Joan Klaas CPPS, both former general superiors, ioined me in Lithuania for the express purpose of providing input in some of the requested areas. Toward the end of their six,week stay, the sisters asked us to give them a day of recollection. When we inquired as to the usual length of such dhys, they replied, "We don't know: we've never had one before." Another chasm. In their final evaluation the sisters told us that.one of th~ best things about their gatherings with us, in addition to the input, was the opportunity they had to meet one ~another across com-munities. For most, this was their first experience of an inter-congregational gathering. During the years of occupation, when it was not possible to assemble, the sisters were not always sure who were members of their own congregations, much less mem'- bers of other congregations. When they did meet each other for the first time in spring 1994, it gave them great joy to discover 362 Review for Religious that they had so much in common. They learned that sometimes they were their own best listeners to each other's stories. And I, after ending each three-month period in Lithuania, came away feeling not only like Ruth with Naomi, but also like Mary staying with Elizabeth "about three months." Somewhere in those encounters and in spite of the chasms between cultures, languages, and experiences, there was a leaping together toward the life that is lived at the Center of Being, whether of the nation as a whole or of each person. Finally, I return to Nehemiah, who heard God's call to help in the rebuilding of the temple: "Then I said to them, 'You see the trouble we are in: Jerusalem is in ruins, its gates have been burnt down. Come, let us rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and suffer this indignity no longer.' And I told them how the kindly favor of God had been with me, and also repeated the words the king had said to me. 'Let us start!' they exclaimed, 'Let us build',; and with willing hands they set about the good work" (Ne 2:17-18). Vignette The windows of the soul are clouded by hunger, and deeper wounds shrouded from our sight lie buried in the dark night. Foul birds of greed peck at the seeds of war And drop them to be sown in blood from Rwanda to Zaire. Martha Wickham ASC May-.~une 1995 363 ELIZABETH V. ROACH Community Today-- Idol? Icon? Gift? "I could do ministry without becoming a religious, but I want community," the new candidate says. Studies tell us that young people entering religious congregations today are looking for community. Formation directors work hard to provide healthy community experiences for them. Later, superiors general try to assign them to "good" commu-nities. Not only candidates but also men and women in religious life many years are approaching personnel direc-tors seeking "life-giving" communities. All this leaves lit-tle doubt that community has high importance for religious. If one thing is going well with us, it is the pri-ority we are giving to community. To question this trend might seem, if not audacious, perhaps impertinent. I believe, however, that a need exists for a closer look at the almost icon or idol status that com-munity enjoys today. My questions lie in the following areas: (1) In what "soil" did the present status of commu-nity grow? (2) Is it suffering from soil contaminants? (3) What are the gospel parameters for community? If you think I am about to come up with the answers, stop reading now. Then again, if you would like to delve into these questions, accompany me in my meditative mean-dering as I reflect on some questions that pebble the path. Elizabeth V. Roach MM works with three other Maryknoll sis-ters in a settlement area (40,000 people, no priest) on the edge of Panama City. Her address is Maryknoll Sisters; Aptdo. 813- 0343; Tocumen, Republic of Panama. 364 Review for Religious The "Ecological" History of Community Today Polluted streams mar our world. We breathe contaminated air. We read food labels to see what preservatives we are exposing ourselves to. We wonder what is in the water we drink. Why not investigate the "ecological" history of community? Where did community's current popularity grow and develop? Is there need for soil examination? Do we need to protect an endangered speci.es of community? I wonder if some of our present practice has developed, not from gospel roots, but from our environment of consumerism? Whether it is legislation bought by lobbyists, military secrets sold for profit, commerce with the fruit of a woman's womb, or designer drugs, we are a nation of consumers. Listen to us, the words we use. We speak of "mental-health consumers," "spin doctors," and "image" pro-ducers. This is the environment we live in. The nightly television news-cast would convince any visiting Martian that in our society just about anything can be bought. What has that got to do with our present practice of community? Maybe nothing, but similar remarks used to be made when ecologists questioned the purity of our lakes and streams. They were called alarmists. They were said to be exaggerating the dangers of industrial waste. As we seek commu-nity, it might not be amiss to ask how much the consumer envi-ronment we live in is affecting our practice and our working model of community. Maybe we need a quick inventory of our recent past. Even a brief glance at the 1960s shows that many people lived in a rigidly structured world. (When the protests for civil rights and against the Vietnam War began, many could not listen to what was being said. They saw rowdy, carelessly dressed, long-haired people as simply out of line.) Marriage was the order of the day. A "significant other" was something new. Rights of homo-sexuals and lesbian relationships were not acceptable conversa- As we seek community, it might not be amiss to ask how much the consumer environment we live in is affecting our practice and our working model of community. May-3~une 1995 365 Roach ¯ Community Today tion topics. Women who had babies outside of marriage were "unwed" mothers. There were jobs for men and jobs for women. Women were housekeepers, wives, and, yes, diaper washers. Police and soldiers were men. People who bought things were customers not consumers. One had property rights, but consumer rights, sexual-preference rights, and victim rights were unheard of. Abortion was illegal. Body parts, sperm, and wombs were not yet on the market. Spirituality and retreats had to do with religious practice, not feminist circles or marketing seminars. Between the '60s and the '90s came the "me" decade. We are no longer in the '60s. Social consciousness in the '60s meant advo-cacy for the poor, the disadvantaged, the needy. Now, according to Congressman Gingrich, social responsibility means legislation to relieve the taxpayer of politically burdensome aspects of soci-ety. We who live on the edge between modernity and post-modernity may be too caught up in contemporary tensions to examine the ingredients of our community cake mix, but uncon-scious consumption of contaminating elements may cause unex-pected illness. Our search for community is taking place in a world where repression of sexual and other urges is no longer the problem. We have entered a deconstructed world where issues of individ-ual rights versus community rights provoke new conflicts. "Gingrich thinking" is but one example of.this reality. Notice the differing opinions about the trials of the Mel6ndez brothers, Susan Smith, and O.J. Simpson. At the same time, violence, crime, child abuse, elderly abuse, and the "maybe we need to open more orphanages" mentality prevails. "Protection" is the buzz word of the 1990s, whether it refers to protected sex, more police in the streets, or a balanced-budget amendment. In the case of the United States, is it creeping into policies and procedures aboutwhom we will integrate or isolate according to how they fit or do not fit our concept of community? This is the environment we live in. Our concept of commu-nity may be, if not corrupted, at least affected by it. In more than one ~workshop, I have heard presenters say that, when we are changing ministry or community, we should take time to imagine ourselves in the situation and then ask ourselves, "Does it feel good?" That is the same question I ask when I try on a new pair of shoes. Given the psychological healthiness of reflecting on how a 366 Review for Religious change of ministry or community will affect us, what criteria shall we use? Is community just another consumer item? Is it like buy-ing a winter coat, a new car? What are the gospel parameters for community? Have you said or heard any of your friends say, "I have a min-istry, now I'm looking for a community"? Is community just another item on our shopping list, something to be acquired? How gospel-oriented is our practice? New Testament Parameters for Community Another glimpse of what we are about in our practice of com-munity might be gotten by filling out the application form that personnel directors ask religious to complete when they seek a change of ministry or community. Some congregations require these applicants to provide an evaluation from the community where they have been living. Applicants are also expected to state their expectations of the receiving community. The new com-munity's scrutiny leads to acceptance or rejection of the appli-cant. Try filling out one of those forms for Jesus as he hung on the cross (or for one of the apostles, or for Paul). What kind of com-munity evaluation could we submit for Jesus? He was complet-ing a contract and about to move into a new ministry situation. How would the evaluation of his recent community experience read? Would it say he took initiatives not supported by his local community? How would it describe his being abandoned by his colleagues? How would you rate him: (1) on following the con-sensus? (2) on his ability to (a) dialogue with Peter, his confrere? and (b) with local church authorities? (3) on his initiative (a) in going up to Jerusalem? and (b) in going to the garden that Thursday night? (What would you say if you had to write a community eval-uation of Peter, the one who failed so miserably in a community crisis?) Would you have approved of Jesus' "cross" initiative? Would you have questioned his discernment process? Would you have suggested further discernment and perhaps made him miss his hour? (Remember that John and Peter, his close friends, seemed a bit confused about his plans and even about what he was saying at the Last Supper.) May-J~ne 1995 367 Roach ¯ Community Today Palm Sunday Communities or Easter Communities Still another way to reflect on community would be to ask ourselves if we are confusing the group of disciples, those who hung out with Jesus before Good Friday, with the communities that flowered after the resurrection and Pentecost. The crowd that walked with Jesus before that Friday, the Palm Sunday community (apostles and disciples included), seems to have had many characteristics that are considered important for today's communities. Notice that Peter, James, and John were friends. Philip invited his friend Nathaniel to join the group. Does that ring a familiar bell? Is that a way of being integrated into our communities today? Do friends invite friends? In the episode about sitting at Jesus' right and left hand (Mk 10:35-45), similarities with current practice are even more evi-dent. That group looks like they are having a "community day." The apostles and disciples who would soon be walking with Jesus on Palm Sunday had together sailed the Sea of Galilee, hiked to Jerusalem, prayed, and shared ministry experiences. Was that an emergency house meeting they called to confront James and John on their inappropriate power seeking and failure to dialogue before lobbying for the first places? This, after the many excellent workshops they had attended!--workshops on ministry, mission, spirituality, interpersonal relations, theology, and Scripture, and all conducted by the best of presenters. So what happened? Why did that group .of apostles run for it when Jesus stretched out his arms on the cross? All their systems failed. Neither the community days nor the hiking, the theolog-ical reflection, the personal and community prayer, the work-shops, or even the friendship they had with Jesus held them together on that Friday--except for John and Mary and a few other women. That scene, I think, offers an essential .clue to the mystery of what Christian community is. While numbers of people had walked and talked with Jesus, they had not become a community. They may have been a support group: they did meet regularly. They may have been a club: mem-bership was limited and had its requisites. They may have been an interest group or a cooperative, for they participated in the same mission. But they were not yet a community. This they demon-strated on Thursday night when they scattered upon discovering that the big C Jesus was talking about was not community but the cross. 368 Revie~ for Religious Only Mary, John, and the women had discovered that the acid test of Christian community is the permanent, nonnegotiable fol-lowing of Jesus to his death. The hard realities that Jesus himself faced on Thursday and Friday, the aloneness, the abandonment, the dying, are essential elements that must be accepted, lived, and embraced if we are ever to become Easter and Pentecost com-munities. It is not just the warm, fuzzy feeling of moments when we are all together, the consensus evident, celebrating with song and symbol. It is also those dark, fearful, lonely moments of truth-telling in our communities, the utter .aloneness of difficult deci-sion making, the moments described in 2 Timothy 4:9-22, when Paul says "all" deserted him; "no one appeared on my behalf, but the Lord stood by me." It is also those other terrible moments when we~ like Mary and John, stand by our sisters and brothers totally incapable of under-standing .the why of a situation. Both reflection and personal expe-rience lead me to believe that, with-out following Jesus on the way of the cross, we may become interest groups, assemblies of friends, or financially cost-effective entities, but we have not the shadow of a chance of becoming Easter and Pentecost communities. Just look at the Easter community, that community huddled together in fear, in terror for their lives, humiliated by their sinfulness. Has any recent applicant to your community or mine said they want to join us because they are fearful or ~inful? And, if they did, would we accept them or recommend therapy? Yet it is the Easter community, terrified, humiliated, utterly scandalized by the cross, who discovered Jesus in their midst, their sins forgiveh, and their hearts overwhelmed with the joy of his peace. They knew why they were joyful. They could say Jesus is risen and truly here because they knew this;was the same Jesus who died on the cross. Peter's cheeks, the legend tells us, were fur-rowed by tears. Mary had held Jesus' bloodless corpse in her arms. John had stood by the cross. Has any recent applicant to your community or mine said they want to join us because they are fearful or sinful? And, if they did, would we accept them or recommend therapy? May-j~une 199Y 369 Roach ¯ Community Today That Easter community did not come to their consensus by applying the correct interpersonal dynamics for good communi-cation. They did not learn to hang together through attendance at workshops or by hiring a facilitator. While all these may help and no doubt do, there is no way they will ever substitute for the big C on which Jesus built the Easter and Pentecost community or the later communities of Acts. In Acts the community is a motley crowd. They invite all sorts to join them, magiciansand soldiers, preachers and widows. Their criteria did not come from enneagram numbers and Myers- Briggs profiles. (Had these been available, they might have helped resolve interpersonal conflicts--and these communities did include great differences of personality and lifestyle.) The important thing for them was willingness to lay down their lives because of their belief in Jesus' Way. The joy of those communities came not from something available in Greek or Roman markets, but the gift of Jesus' Spirit filling them with overwhelming peace and joy. That peace was pure gift. It happened when they followed Jesus' Way, the paschal way of death and resurrection. In apostolic and early Christian times, Christian community grew'and developed when followers of Jesus came together fear-ful for their lives, humbly repentant of sinfulness, bearing one another's burdens, and willing to die as witnesses to Jesus' living presence. They believed that Jesus, who died for our sins, had risen from the dead and was~truly here. They celebrated this in their gatherings. Only through this paschal living will our com-munities, too, become centers of peace, joy, and good news for all the world. 370 Review for Religious DENNIS J. BILLY Called to Community ~ ~[ . ommunity~:P is an intrinsic element of the call to disci- ~ pleship." A statement such as this normally elicits little disagreement and little, if any, controversy. Whatever our par-ticular calling in life (religious, priestly, or lay), most of us rec-ognize the importance of some Eind of community to accompany us on our journey of faith. Simple agreement, however, does not always evoke profound understanding; it may even keep us from taking a deeper look at the meaning of our closest assumptions. How many of us, for example, actually understand our call to "community" as something at the Very center of our response to God? How many of us think of life in community as something intrinsic to our relationship to God, as something that actually leads us more deeply into the mystery of who God is? And how many of us actually advert to these ideas in the day-to-day cir-cumstances of our lives? Reflection on the nature of our call to community can enhance our vision of what our communal disci-pleship means and how it is to be lived out in daily practice. Vision and Call Everyone needs a vision in life. Call it a dream or a purpose; call it a goal or a sense of direction; call it a founding myth or a narrative of origins--whatever you call it, we all need something in our lives to help us make sense out of our experience and share it with others. One purpose of Christian community is to keep such a vision before our eyes and thereby encourage us to take Dennis J. Billy CSSR, author of fifteen articles for this journal over the course of ten years, writes ag.ain from Rome. His address is Accademia Mfonsiana; C.P. 2458; 00100 Rome, Italy. May-June 199Y 371 Billy * Called toCommunity steps to live it in our everyday lives. It reminds us of the larger context of our lives and keeps us in touch with the traditions that have shaped us and to a large degree have made us who we are. It challenges us to confront the dark side of our human experience and to remain steadfast in our response to God's call in our lives. Communities come in different sizes and shapes. They do so because they respond to different needs within the church and reflect the vast variety of God's creation. Families and base com-munities, parishes and religious congregations, secular institutes and third-order sodalities all exist for a purpose and flourish when they respond well to the needs they seek to fill. Community is not something peripheral to God's call, as if its purpose were only to provide an atmosphere conducive to private personal spiritual growth or to respond to a need in our anthropological makeup. Christian community can and does provide for such things. It is meant, however, to be and to do much more. Life in community is intrinsically related to our journey into the mystery of God and is part and parcel of our Christian vocation. Community life loses its sense of purpose and conviction when it is taken out of the context of a call. Because the Christian vocation leads people into the Divine Mystery, it is inherently communal. Christian community and Christian vocation enjoy a close, reciprocal rela-tionship. It is impossible to have one without the other. By the term "vocation" I refer not to the more qualified sense of the term as a specific state of life in the church (that is, reli-gious, priestly, or lay), but to the call to intimate friendship that God extends to everyone, believer and nonbeliever alike. This call to beatitude (or to the "beatific vision," as previous genera-tions of theologians have phrased it) extends to all people, regard-less of their faith, nationality, race, or position in life. It involves the capacity all of us have to be lifted up through the influence of grace and to see God face-to-face. This mystical vocation which all of us share is sustained through life in community. Because God's nature is inherently communal, our call to divine friendship is worked out and perfected through a life lived with and ori-ented towards others. The Trinitarian Community The Christian tradition acclaims God as the perfect commu-nity of love. God--who has conceived of us, who has created us, 372 Review for Religious and who holds us in being--relates to us in a manner that images his nature. God, who is love, relates to us in love and cannot do otherwise. This is not the place to expound the vast intricacies of the doctrine of the Trinity. Suffice it to say that, however we describe this mystery of intimate social relations (whether through the traditional formulation of Father/Son/Spirit or through recent formulations such as Creator/Redeemer/Sanctifier or Ground/ Other/Bond), the mutual indwelling of persons must somehow be presented within the very nature of the Godhead. Although the mys-tery of God is inexhaustible and no single formulation can fully convey its meaning and depth, revelation teaches us that God is communal by nature, a single being of three clearly differentiated relations. When God is viewed in this man-ner, union with God becomes for us a never-ending journey into the intimate community of divine rela-tionships. All of this may sound rather abstract and unrelated to the daily concerns of life in Christian com-munity. To be sure, lofty ideas about the Trinity may'seem to have little practical value when it comes to the nitty-gritty tensions and concerns of communal living. We should not forget, how-ever, that the Trinity rests at the summit of the hierarchy of truths and, in fact, is the ultimate reality from which all else flows. The Trinity is the quintessential fact. It is not simply a metaphor, or a purely human construct, or a projectiqn of our deepest hopes onto a divine plane. It is an element of God's self-disclosure to humanity which, in its doctrinal formulation, has the status of a divinely revealed truth. The intimate community who is God and whom we call the Trinity is the beginning and end, the alpha and omega, of all things. It is the goal toward which we tend, the force that directs our lifelong activity on this planet, the reality that draws us to our final destiny. Life in Christian community is the primary way in which God prepares us to participate in the mystery of triune love. If it is true, as St. Augustine and many of the medievals thought, that Because God's nature is inherently communal, our call to divine friendship is worked out and perfected through a life lived with and oriented towards others. May-y-une 199Y 373 Billy ¯ Called to Community God has left traces or vestiges of the divine nature imprinted in the very fabric of creation, then one may point to life in Christian community as an important instance where a person can discover a reflection of God's hidden presence in the world. It would be presumptuous to expect that any of us would be ready or even capable of sharing in the intimate relations of the divine nature without a long period of preparation, Most of us will need to be led, step-by-step, along the long and narrow way of the Lord. Christian community, one might say, is the fiery forge in which God tempers our personalities and gets them ready to share more deeply in the fullness of the divine community. It stretches our character and challenges us to live lives that increasingly take others into account. To use an example from the Catholic mysti-cal tradition, it purges us of our imperfections, illumines us along our journey through life, and eventually brings us to a state of union with God. Life in community helps us to discover and become our truest, deepest selves; it naturally overflows in our relationship with others; and it shows us precisely what it means to be friends of God. Whenever we participate in community, we are really experiencing a vestige of God's triune love. The deeper we enter into it, the more we prepare ourselves for our relation-ship with God both now and in the life to come. Such is the role of Christian community, otherwise known as koinonia, that fel-lowship of God's friends we call "church." Given to us by Jesus himself and forever walking in his way, this circle of close disci-ples perpetuates itself by forging genuine human relationships wherever it goes. The Way of Jesus If the Trinitarian basis of Christian community is still too abstract a notion to give us practical guidance in day-to-day liv-ing, a more concrete example comes from the life of Jesus himself. A careful reading of the Gospels shows that he was always calling people to fellowship, especially those who were outcasts from the respectable social enclaves of his day. Prostitutes and tax collec-tors, the poor and the possessed, the blind and the lame were all welcomed by him and invited to partake in the friendship he shares with the Father. His gathering of disciples, his preaching through parables, his emphasis 6n table fellowship, his institu-tion of the Eucharist in the context of a meal, all reveal his deep 374 Review for Religious concern to provide others with a sense of God's gratuitous love and care for them. Jesus reached out to others simply because they were children of the Father and in need of God's friendship. He needed no other reason to call us his friends (Jn 15:15). Jesus' call to fellowship continues to this day. Now, as then, it is the perfect expression of the Son's intimate love of the Father. His fourfold movement of (i) entering our world (in the incar-nation), (2) giving himself away completely (to the point of dying for us), (3) becoming our very food and nourishment (in the Eucharist), and (4) being the source of our hope (in the res-urrection) is a concrete expression of the same selfless giving that characterizes the divine Trinitarian relations. Jesus' love for humanity reveals to us an even deeper love which he shares with his Father. This intimate relationship enables him to listen to the Father's concerns as a loyal and faithful Son. His humble response mani-fests the self-diffusive nature of God's love and discloses the underlying reason for the entire Christ event. Jesus' life provides us with an ideal vision of what life in community should emulate. Just as Christ entered our world and gave himself away completely, to the A careful reading of the Gospels shows that Jesus was always calling people to fellowship, especially those who were outcasts from the respectable social enclaves of his day. point of becoming nourishment and a source of hope for us, so we are called, both individually and in community, to enter the var-ious worlds of people around us and to give ourselves to them in a manner corresponding to Christ's sacrificial offering of him-self, to the point that we too become nourishment for them and a source of life-giving hope. This calling reveals to us the funda-mental meaning of our Christian identity. It' is accomplished not by ourselves alone, but by our cooperating with Christ working in us and influencing us by the grace of his Spirit. As might be expected, it is in the Eucharist that this process of divinization takes on its most concrete and visible form. There we gather as "church" around the table of the Lord and pray to the Father through the Son and in the Spirit. There we celebrate the fel-lowship of God's friends by reenacting Jesus' last meal on earth in its mystical identity with his sacrificial death the following day. May-3~ne 1995 375 Billy ¯ Called to Community There we welcome the presence of the risen Lord not only in our hearts and in our midst, but even in what we eat and drink. There we~celebrate the gift of "God among us" and recognize in the breaking of the bread that the Lord's vocation, like our own, is concerned with our becoming other Christs. Practical Realities These Trinitarian and Christological bases for life in com-munity do not of themselves remove the obstacles that often get in the way of our growth in the Spirit. The vision of what we can become and of what we are called to live is blocked time and time again by the fickle and obtuse human heart. As members of Christ's body, we recognize our divine calling to share in God's love and to carry on Christ's mission through time. We also rec-ognize, however, that human limitations and purely self-centered concerns often prevent us from living up to our noble aspirations. Sin in its various analogues--original, social, personal--distracts us from our mission and leads us into unholy compromises that sunder our vision and detach the remains of it from the practical realities of daily life. What follows are ten of the common diffi-culties communities face in their attempt to live out the implica-tions of their call. 1. Lack of Vision. Call it a lack of faith, a refusal to delve beneath the surface of things, an inability to see the close con-nection between the lives we live and the beliefs we espouse-- whatever you call it, a Christian community can easily get out of touch with its charism or very reason for existence. Vision. is a matter of both head and heart; minimal intellectual assent to the values and goals that originally called the community into exis-tence is not enough. Vision must seize the imagination of the members and generate in them a heartfelt desire to realize the community's objectives in their present situation. For this rea-son, a Christian community always needs inspired dreamers to keep the community's, founding vision in the forefront of its con-sciousness and prudent leaders to interpret this vision amid the practical exigencies of daily life. If the vision is not somehow kept bright and clear, the community loses its focus, dissipates its ener-gies, and eventually goes out of existence. 2. Dyoqtnctional Structures. Every community needs structures for its own good and the good of its members. Structures give 376 Review for Religious the community stability and enable it to function for a long time. Structures, however, can be a curse. If the community is not care-ful, its structures can in time lose their relevance and then inhibit the ways in which its members relate. The structures become dys-functional and deprive the community of the tranquillity it needs to live and do its work. Every community, therefore, needs to examine its structures periodically and change those that now are superflu-ous or needlessly obstruct the mem-bers' lives. Siflce there is only one perfect community (the Holy Trinity itself), communities should not be surprised to find some dysfunctional relating in their internal organization. The goal here should be to remove or minimize structures that are irrele-vant or cause some har

Issue 43.6 of the Review for Religious, November/December 1984. ; General Government and Leadership The Benedictine Prayer of Beauty A°n Annotation 19 Retreat Experience Volume 43 Number 6 Nov./Dec., 1984 R~-:v~l~v,' l:or R~!~.~(;~otJs (ISSN 0034-639X). published every two months, is edited in collaboration with the faculty members of the Department of Theological Studies of St. Louis University. The editorial offices are located at Room 428:3601 Lindell Blvd.: St. Louis. MO 63108. Rt.'.v~;w ~:or R~.~(~otJs is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus. St. Louis. MO. © 1984 by Rev~w ~:or R~.~(~otJS. Composed. printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis. MO. Single copies: $2.50. Subscription U.S.A. $10.00 a year: $19.00 for two years. Other countries: add $2.00 per year (postage). For subscription orders or change of address, write R~,vl~:w voR R~:H(;~ol~s: P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Review Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor Nov./Dec. 1984 Volume 43 Nttmber 6 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to REw~:w I.oR Rl-:lol(;~otJs; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. Queslions for answering should be sent to Joseph F'. Gallen, S.J.; Jesuit Community; St. Joseph's University; City Avenue at 54th St.; Philadelphia, PA 19131. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from REWEW I-'OU R~.:t.tGious; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; SI. Louis, MO 63108. "Out of print" issues and articles not published as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. The Spiritual Exercises and Preferential Love for the Poor Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, S.J. Father Kolvenbach was elected General Superior of the Society of J~sus in September, 1983. This article is based on an address he delivered, on February 7, 1984, to the "VII Ignafian Course." an annual program of study/reflection sponsored by Rome's Centrum Ignatianum Spiritualitatis, and was first published in its bulletin, CIS: Vol. XV. no. I (1984), pp. 77-90. Fathgr Kolvenbach, as well as the Center, may be addressed at: C.P. 6139:00195 Roma, Italy. lain very pleased to be here this evening to offer my contribution to the VII Ignatian Course. Not being a specialist, what I shall share with you will be a simple meditation on a theme that is both relevant and important: the link between the Spiritual Exercises and' our preferential love for the poor. Clearly, if not necessarily dramatically, a preferential love for the poor~is contained in the spirituality of the Spiritual Exercises. We find, for example, in the section entitled "Mysteries of the Life of Our Lord"---a text in which the personal comments of Ignatius are rare and thus all the more significant--that a preferential love for th~ poor finds indirect expression in Ignatius' emphatic reference to the situation Of those chosen to be apostles; that they were men "of humble condition" [275]. Likewise the only discourse Iogion explicitly offered for contemplation in the course of the Exercises i.s the Sermon on the Mount, which in the text'begins with.the beatitude concerning the poor [278]. Ignatius also comments that, while Jesus overturned the tables and scattered the money of the wealthy money-changers, "to the poor vendors of d6ves he spoke kindly" [277], asking them'to respect the prayerful purpose of the temple, his Father's house. But these references evidence only an indirect connection with our theme, .the preferential love of the poor. "Rules for the Distribution of Aims": A Forgotten Text There is to be found in the Exercises, however, a much mor6 direct 801 1~09 / Review for Religious, Nov.-Dec:. 1984 connection between the spiritual urge to follow the Lord and the help that must be offered to the poor. The classic means of giving assistance to the poor had always.been alms-giving. And it is in the treatment of this subject that we shall find the most explicit link between the spirituality of the Exercises and an effective love for the poor, in an oft-forgotten section of the text entitled: "Rules for the Distri-bution of Aimsr' [337-344]. Why has this passage been so often forgotten? Above all because of the very concrete and specific application it makes to a single situation. In fact, ~he document is explicitly addressed to almoners, those who by virtue of their office are supposed to look after the poor, to clerics who practiced charity as their .function. Thus the tone of the text is very. clerical, very priestly. But despite the text's heavy emphasis on ~institutionalism with its many references to ministry, condition, office and function, Ignatius also points to Christ the high priest as the one who is the model and norm for all charitable activity. This particular reference to Christ the high priest [344] expands the horizon of an otherwise purely clerical document, calling every Christian to become a sharer in Christ's ministry through the exercise of almsgiving. In fact, in this document Ignatius takes the office of almoner for granted thus also implic-itly recognizing that not every Christian is called to the direct and immediate exercise of this task in regard to the poor nevertheless he exhorts almoners not to be content to work as mere functionaries, but to be inspi~red by the ministry on behalf of the poor that was exercised by Christ himself. Such an attitude ought to be t.he concern of every Christian without exception, each according to his vocation and state of life. Ig0atius, then, clearly intends this document directly, for a specific group of persons, At.the same time, however, he makes it clear that all Christians ought to have a special bond with the poor. There is another reason why this document is so often overlooked. It is the fact that the practice of aim sgiving no longer has today the honored p lace that this preeminent exercise of charity had in the time of Ignatius. In an older economic order it was principally by means of alms that the good will of the rich helped to correct excessive social inequality--th6ugh of course in a very imperfect.way. Saint Francis. the poor man of Assisi. had his brethren pray every day so that. thanks to therich, they could continue to be poor. Modern persons, however, even if they be poor. are no longer willing to be under anv kind of demeaning economic dependency. They expect and demand to receive from the state the means of a suitable livelihood as their right, not as something subject tb arbitrary distribution, nor dependent upon the mere '~good will" of the "good rich"--an attitude that is the very opposite of what is involved in the practice of almsgiving. Too. the modern untrammeled esteem for the value of work tends to bring almsgiving into disfavor, not just because ¯ the practice is seen as an affront to human dignity, but also because it could so easily,,encourage idleness and sloth. Preferential Love for the Poor / 803 Ignatius and Help for the Poor in his day Ignatius had to face squarely this problem of helping the poor. When in 1535, hating just finished his studies in Paris. he was resting in his native air of Azpeitia. he found himself perforce involved in the overall spiritual renewal of the townspeople. The reform of, charitable works in the area could not but form a part of this general program of renewal. F~r Ignatius. there was a self-evident connection between the two. o On the one hand (and this was to be true of him later in Rome)~ Ignatius did not want to see the poor obliged to beg: all must 'simply be helped according to their need. On the other hand he positively ,encouraged-that all alms from whatever source, whether civic authorities,~'the clergy or the laity, be given to the official almoners (see MI Fontes Docum. 88: De Azpeitiaepaupe-ribus sublevandis: 1535-1542: MI Epp L 161-165, addre~s.ed tO the townspeople of Azpeitia). To avoid abuses, then. the poor ought not to have to seek alms or beg. Rather, the almoners should receive alms to be distributed to the poor. not in their own names, but "for the love of God" (MI Epp Xll, 656: lnsfruction of November, 1554). ~' In reflecting on the m, eamng of this text. there is another facet that is important for understanding the spirituality of the Exercises. It consists in.the fact that for Ignatius himself the significance of aims had gradually taken on differing forms and purposes over the years. The "pilgrim" who in 1523 had wandered about the alleyways of Venice was a solitary mendicant who lived exclusively from alms. But the "companion" who in ! 537 lodged with some of his friends in a Venetian hospice for the poor. and who wished "to preach in poverty." also sought alms for the sake of being able "to help the poor." Heno longer sought alms only for himself, but also in order to help others. From 1540 on. Ignatius the "founder" gradually came to establish two coexisting but radically different regimens of community poverty for the na-scent Society of Jesus. without ever confusing them either in. theory (a relatively easy matter) or in practice (always a more delicate affair). In terms of. this twofold approach to ~community poverty, the "formed fathers." those whose training and incorporation into the Society were complete, would continue to live only from alms. while the colleges for the training of scholastics were tO have stable and~secure incomes in order to respond better to what the Church desired of them. Only in cases of extreme necessity wouM the seeking of alms become the last resort for the colleges, and then all the companions withoul exception would be "ready to beg from door to door" to meet the need. This is still our rule today. Material and Spiritual Poverty Once the "Roman" and "German" colleges had been started in 1550, Ignatius did all in his power to Search out suffi(ient and stable sources ofalms~ what we might call in the parlance of today's economy, "to establish founda- 1~04 / Review f~r Religious, Nov.-Dec., 1984 ¯ tions." However he was able to find nobody willing to give money liberally: neither princes, nor civic authorities, nor bishops. Even in those days, it seems, money was being squandered on wars--often in the name of religion. In fact Ignatius once wrgte: "After spending so much on material arms to support religionin Germany, it wouldnot be too great a burden if the emperor spared something for spiritual arms which could more effectively gain what is intended" (14 Sept., 1555, to Francis Borgia: MI Epp IX, 614). Considerable sums were being sought and here one sees a further devel-opment in the Ignatian concept of poverty, for these funds were being sought no longer for the sake of those who were economically poor, but for the formation of future priests who were called to help the spiritually poor. The Ignatius who dreamed in 1522 of living off alms alone, like the Egyptian hermit, Onophrius, thirty years later came to discover "God in all things," even in "Egypt"--his expression for the "business dealings" connected with almsgiving that were so necessary to meet the Church's needs. In his spiritual pilgrimage, Ignatius learned to take se.,riously the admoni-tion of the Lord: "He who does not gather with me, scatters" (Lk 1 !:23). For him, alms meant "gathering" with the Lord on behalf of his brothers, the poor. It is no wonder, then, that the Spiritual Exercises should include Rules for the Distribution of Alms. through which their whole, rich spiritual doctrine is applied to the very practical and relevant necessity to help the impoverished and suffering through almsgiving and indeed through the giving of one's very self. The Spiritual Exercises and Aims for the Poor ~ The mere presence of this text On the. distribution of alms in the book of the Spiritual Exercises witnesses to the fact that the Exercises are indeed geared to "the saJvation of souls," but this spirituality faces up to poverty .of whatever sort. Thus material poverty is addressed in these Rules for the Distribution of Alms. [337-344], as is spiritual poverty, for instance in Some Notes Concerning Scruples [345-351]. The contents of the rules on almsgiving also clarifies for us the motivation that led the Society of Jesus from its earliest days to become involved in helping the poor. Already during,the bitter winter of 1538-39, Rome's sole Jesuit house sheltered 400 poor people, Ignatius himself, although utterly absorbed in the government of the young Society, and while still continuing to give the Exer-cises, .also did all he could for the poor and oppressed of Rome. In other words, if its version of the Good News is not proclaimed and expressed in a practical way for the poor, the message of the Spiritual Exercises will rightly be seen as futile and lacking in authenticity. There is yet another document which bears out this characteristic of his spirituality, namely Ignatius' letter to the Patriarch. of Ethiopia. Against the backdrop of Ethiopian asceticism with its .innumerable and excessive penitential practices, Ignatius instructed the Jesuits to work toward lessening the popular Preferential Love for the Poor / 805 esteem for these excessive corporal penances in order to draw more attention to the need of working for the poor. In a nation where social concern was so minimal, Ignatius wanted to found hospitals,.to provide help for the poor by the exhortation to almsgiving both privately and in public, to ransom prisoners, to educate the abandoned, and to help young men and unwanted girls to se.ttle down in marriage. "Thus," he wrote, "the Ethiopians will seein a palpable way that there are better works than their own fasts and suchlike" (MI Epp VIII, 680-690, April, 1555). Such distortions have often been a problem, and not just in the Eastern churches. Aims "for the Love of God" Finally, the pertinence of these rules to the text of the Spiritual Exercises is explained by the simple formula which sums up the only basis for almsgiving that is acceptable to the spirituality of the Exercises: "for the love of God." Jesuits, and all who seek or give alms, should do so "for the love of God." Alms are a way of giving concrete expression to the beatitude ~vhich Was so lovingly addressed to the poor. As they appear in the text, then, these norms guide one's process of discernment for the practice of this concrete e~pression of the love of God. ' ~ Recent commentaries on the Exercises generally judge severely any retreat centered exclusively on a prayer experience that is turned in on the person of the exercitant in some narcissistic fashion. The exp,ression solus cum solo is not meant ,to isolate a person with a solitary God. Rather it is intended to express the appropriate relationship that ought to prevail between a "self" who has received everything from others, who is also called to be for. others, and a God who reveals himself precisely as "God with us~" Despite the frequent use of the first person in the text ofthe Exercises-- which always points to personal responsibility and involvement~the com-mentaries stress the profoundly communitarian character of the Exercises, character which is clearly in evidence right from the Principle and Foundation. Any person's authentic search for God necessarily entails that person's insertion into the human community. Conversely, any person's total commitment to hu .manity could only be the result of that person's discovery of the love of God. The First Rule for the Distribution of Alms Love "from Above . After these reflections on the historical and spiritual contexts of the Riales for the Distribution of Aims, let us now examine the first of these rules: If I distribute alms to my relatives or friends or persons to whom I am attached, there are four things that must be considered: Some of these were mentioned in treating the Choice of a Way of Life. The first is that the love that moves me and causes me to give the alms must be "from above," that is, from the love of God our Lord. Hence I should be conscious within myself that Gbd is the motive of the greater or less love that I bear towa~:d these persons, and that God is manifestly the cause of my loving them more [338]. 80B / Review for ~Religious, Nov.-Dec., 1984" This rule immediately situates any gift of alms within agape, the love that, in Ignatius' terms, comes '"from above." In no way, then, should this text be seen as intending to provide merely a psychological preparation for, or .a religious exhortation to, charitable acts. It is not a pep talk for generous giving, nora way of spiritualizing the fundamental human instinct for solidarity. We should also avoid interpreting this rule in a way that merel3i invites to "purity of intention," Taking up anew an Augustinian inspiration which had previously appeared in the First Rule for Making a Good Choice of a Way of Life [184], this norm for distributing alms, while it does not in any way exclude philia (see the reference to "affection for relatives and friends"), does urge that phil[a be caught up and transformed by agape, "the love that,., must descend "from above" [184]. ~ . The expression "from above" also recalls the fourth point from the Con-templation to Attain the Lov.e of God [237]. God, the infinite ~treasury of all good, is in his trinitarian mystery both Gift and Giver of Gifts (see [237]). If, then, the giving of alms is to be divine--and therefore true and authentic--it must find its rationale within the dynamic of this mutual exchange of gifts, this loving movement of the gifts which "descend from above" [237]. There are a number of examples illustrative of this principle in Ignatian literature, Even in the most complicated of business affairs Ignatius kept his vision, of the lov~e ''from above" alive. Thus, for example, he exchanged some ten letters, with a certain Bernardino' Taro from Naples who had offered to sell his house in a complex deal involving some suspicious price fluctuations. A charitable work was involved, the payment was difficult, the Society sought a discount, and the benefactor became irritated. In all the correspondence, though, even while dealing with the complicated finances involved, Ignatius kept the whole transaction within the horizon of the loving movement that comes "from above," as when he wrote: "Let us pray that the Divine Goodness may grant us 'all the grace to be sensitive to his most holy will" (May 17, 1556, MI Epp X1, p, 411). It was not just by chance, then~ that Ignatius wrote on September 16, 1553 tO the, royal treasurer of Aragon, who had generously acted to convey mes-sages between the Jesuits of Spain and of Rome: "May God our Lord, whose love should be the foundation and norm of all love, repay you by increasing his love in your soul to just such an extent . For as there is nothing good witho, ut this love, so no!hing is lacking where it is present" (MI Epp V, pp. 488-489). The norm, then, for the appropriate distribution of alms is not, per se, our human solidarity, certainly it is not just philanthropy, but the agap~ of God himself, which takes flesh, in our human capacity to give and to forgive. The effort expended in undergoing the Spiritual Exercises so as "to rid oneself of all inordinate attachments" [1], is aimed precisely a,! allowing the divine t;gapP to take possession of our capacity to love. Thus t,he Rules for the Preferential Love for the Poor / 1107 Distribution of Alms have no other purpose than to put into practical effect what the Apostle John says in his First Letter: the man who does not love his brother most surely cannot be said to love God; and no one truly loves his brother unless it be with the love of God who first loved us (see l Jn 4:19-21). In this Ignatian concepiion, then, the principal criterion by which to judge one's preferential love for the poor is decidedly on the basis of .whether that love truly comes "from above," and does not rest on the simple fact that one is giving aid to one's poor brother. In other words, thee value of such a charitable act is to be judged in the measure in which me_re philanthropy has been taken up and transformed by divine agape: Service of the poor, to be sure! But before all else, service ,in my name," if it is to be true and authentic. Love "from Above"." for the Poor This first of the Rules for the Distribution of Alms, then, bringsphilia and agape.face to face with each other. "To give to those to whom one is attached by relationship or friendship" is not. automatically "ordered towards the love~ of God that comes from above"~except insofar as such a gift would actually reflect a preferential loye for the poor even in being given to oneYs own. We can find the interplay betweenphilia and agap~ that is evoked by this first rule applied in a realistically practical way in a letter from Ignatius to the Archdeacon of Barcelona, Jaime Cassador (February 12, 1536): "I mean, it. would be better to give to the poor when our relatives are not as poor as those, who are not relatives. But, other things being equal, I have more obligations to my relatives thar~':to others Who are not relatives" (MI Epp I, pp. 93-99). In other words, attachment even to relatives and friends must be caught up into the divine agape: the poor are to be preferred even above relatives unless these are themselves poor. . ' Love 'from Above"." for All the Poor The collection of Ignatian texts we have cited with r6gard to the first of the Rules for the Distribution of Alms raises a delicate question. The preferential love. for the materially poor is quite clearly a manifestation, an "epiphany" of the love that comes "from above," going as it does beyond philanthropy or the love (phil¢a) tha,~t is exercised towards one's relatives and friends. The well-ordered practice of this~ divine love (agape) clearly makes possible many social initiatives in the service of the economically po0~r. The fact that this love is not to be directed exclusively to the economically poor and socially marginalized springs from the Ignatian conviction th.at, in the last analysis, almsgiving is not meant to enable persons merely to become economically rich, but to enable persons to become rich in God's eyes~ to use the expression of St. Luke. Our free response to the love of God makes us deeply sympathetic toward the hopes of poor people under every form and at every level of genuinely human choice, but not in the pursuit of any and every messianic drehm, nor of any and every political or social option. Review.for Religious, NOv,-Dec., 1984 If in the text of the Spiritual ExerHses the use of the word "poor" is quite rare~ it is only at the end of the doc~aments on Election and in the Rules for the Distribuiion,,of"Alms that the term "poor" appears in its strictly social and economic sense (see [344] as an.application of [189]: Directions for the Amendment and Reformation of One's Way of Living in His State of Life). There.is no doubt at all that, after the example of the Gospel, the primary concern of the Spiritual Exercises is the conversion of hearts to the love that is "from bove ;~'w~thout such a conversion, all social activity, even the most generous, would already be found lacking, for its aim would not be "the human person taken as a whole." Why was there already urged insistently in the Old Testament the obligation to help the poor? It was not to make the poor economically rich, but because a person without money--in this sense "poor"--is not a "complete person" in the image of the love of God. A social revolution undertaken without agap~ means, and cannot but rlaean, death and hatred. As is well known, the Old Testament prophets;and finally'John the Baptist, expri~ssed themselves on social and economic matters in radical, even literally violent fashion. On this point, compared to the invec-tives of the prophetS, Christ's message seems like a comedown. And yet his "new Commandment," which should, according to Ignatius [338], be the root s'ourceoof the human love that finds its expression in almsgiving, possesses a r~adicality and an unprecedented newness that are quite capable of tra~nsfoi'ming humanity. In other words, Ignatius affirms in the Exercises that the human search for God is not authentic if it does not express itself in a loving commitment to the world of the poor: but. conversely, there is no perfect commitment to the cause of humanity, and concretely to the cause of the poor, unless it' be the fruit of one's personal discovery of the love of God that comes "from above." Love "from Above"." Opposed to All Poverty The cri/icisms offered in regard to theologies of social justice and of libera-tion do not call into question the urgency of the political, social and economic concerns that inspire these theologies. But the whole of God's revelation to the world cannot ~ever be restricted to a merely political, gocial and economic liberation, nor even to the gen'eral idea of freedom as such. Thes+ theologies do righily present one aspect of theology taken iri its entirety. In practice, theology ought to demand that the Church 'strive to reform the whole wbrld under every aspect according to the spirit of Christ. But the Church's option for the poor:should not be intended in a~way that would jeopardize the offer of salvation to all persons, the offer of that liberation which is the gratuitous gift of God proffered to all humanity. In struggling for liberation and justice, the Christian is called, not to curse those who have possessions, but to encourage theha also toward conversion to Christ. The Exercises ought never be limited to a single apostolic objective, To speak~ for purposes of illustration, of the time of Ignatius,' the Exercises were Preferential Love for the Poor / 809 never .focused exclusively upon the struggle against emerging Protesiantism alone, n6r upon the evangelization of the European masses alone, nor upon the refor~n of a corrupt 'clergy alone, nor upon missionary efforts overseas alone. In the same way in our own day, the Exercises should not be used only to arouse zeal for the social betterment of the oppressed, nor only for the better-ment of peoples who live in subhuman conditions. The Exercises are meant to stir each person who enters upon them to a radical gift of self, and it is going to be through this radical gift of oneself that the Lord is going to be perceived as calling that person "by name." This is the overall vision that Ignatius had. Like the Lord, he too had an evident preference for the poor, but he saw the poor as "persons" rather than as just ',the poor." We shall find in him no trace of any kind of paternalistic pity--itself a subtle but real form of domination. And without this kind of respectful regard for persons, one has no right to approach the poor. The Second Rule I will only make a few brief comments on the Other rules contained in this passage from .the Spiritual Exercises. The second rule to be observed in regard to the distribution of alms [339]:draws ~its inspiration from the second rule for . making a good election [185]. Here again, it is proposed that one abstract from one's :own individuality, .that one c6nsider oneself as an unknown, a person who is met for the first time, but who is esteemed, and for whom there is the desire for all perfection in the exercise of his or her office or state of life. In fact, all the rules to be observed for a suitable distribution of alms contain this same positive and rich outlook on all other persons, on our neighbors. The perfection that we ought to desire for others' as well as our-selves in distributing alms and in the exercise of our preferential love for the poor consists really:Sin wanting us and them to become other Christs. While one can makelife hell forthe neighbor, one can also be a source of living hope as well.! Ignatius' love for poverty was really and wholly a love for the person of the poor Christ (see [ 167]). Ignatius longed to be poor himself because Christ was poor. He longed to be poor as Christ was poor. In the same way, then, he proposes that Jesus must be the one who inspires us in the way that we go about distributing aims and serving the poor. To put it another way, we need to enter into Jesus' own way of exercising his preferential 10ve for the poor. Here the distinction between poverty and riches in the Spiritual Exercises becomes important: Spiritual poverty in the Exercises readily takes on the form of gratuity as opposed to greed. The gratuity urged by Ignatius for Jesuit ministries, for :instance, contrasts, and is intended' to contrast, with even the ¯ appearance of"business" or of the "marketplace'~in our approach to ministries, to ecclesiastical~offices and benefices, to the distribution of alms themselves. Powerful or rich persofls who always have others at their beck and call do 8"10 / Review for Religious, Nov.-Dec., 1984 not expect.anyLhing in return beyond a calculated, response based on quidpro quo. TheLord in the Gospel, however, is portrayed as being poor. His:service is always freely given, without a hint of such calculating expectation. To remove the ministry ofalmsgiving, then, from every suspicion of interestedness, to decline gifts 'which automatically elicit gifts in return, to prefer to give .freely to those who count.for little in the world of vested interests--this is to be poor with and for the Lord who was poor. ~Gratuity, then, is a sign expressi~,e ~f the potential for radical change in human societythat could be created~--but only by the love that~is "fromabove." In the Old Testament, the paschal mystery of the Exodus had already given evidence of our human incapacity to chang.e society through our own resour-ces alone, of the impossibility of ever really convening Pharaoh, of ever becoming satisfied with any mere social teaching~that is aimed at bettering the lot of human beings. Only God, through his gratuitous gifts, can create a new humanity, a humanity "without poor people" (Ac 4:34), a society where the "poor~' of the ExoduS will live the "new commandment" of God's free self-giving. The Third and Fourth Rules The third [340] and fourth [341] rules for distributing alms present yet another characteristic of the Lord who is poor. If a person were to consider himself or herself in the light of eternity, the realization would soon dawn that, of all the riches he~ld: nothing really belongs to the~person, that the person is forever receiving, in order then to be able to give, and, in keeping with-the Judgment of the Trinitarian God, ultimately to give oneself t'o others with and through his or her gifts. This ',eternal Judgment" is actually the Lord of the Cross who died stripped of all, in the utter poverty not just the poverty of one who dies bereft of all possessions, but the poverty of one who dies~as a complete failure. , , , Here, then, is another Characteristic of the divine agapP:' a way of giving to another that ultimately comes even to the giving of one's life. It is at this point in the Spiritual Exercises that Ignatius increasingly uses the words "humble," "humility; . humiliation." It is impossible to love divinely in a possessive or domineering way. A preferential love for the poor couM be ideological, patti, san, selective, paternafistic. But as a passage in the Treatise on the .Election (1541) by Pedro Ortiz~explains, Ignatian "humility" is the divine way~ of loving. And the divine way of loving, revealed in Christ Jesus,,(onsiSts inthe humble offering of oneself for others that they may live. It is in this more profound sense that the rules for distributing alms urge a person to "imitate as closely as he can our great High Priest, model and guide, Christ~our Lord" [344]. Our preferential love .for the poor, if authentic, will move .through inevitable humiliations toward a love that refuses to be either condescending or domi-neering, that refuses to imp.ose itself by power or violence. The desire of humble love, of "humility" in the lgnatian sense, is,~then, the prayer toincar-nate the Paschal Mystery in a way that will arrive at this kind of radical Preferential Love for the Poor ] 811 poverty with Christ poor, whether this relates just to desire--the readiness to give oneself as the Lord wants, or to the realization of desire the actual giving of o~eself to those specific poor persons to whom the Lord sends one. The Remaining Rules The rest of the rules proposed by Ignatius for distributing alms explain still more clearly the practice of almsgiving which, in the terms of St. John Chrys- 9stom. was to be the human e?~pression of God's compassion. Ignatius encourages the kind of generous and unstinting distribution of resources that would inevitably require a simplification in the lifestyle of the almsgiver [344]. In this way there is no room in the asceticism proposed by the Rules for the Distribution of Aims for the kind of spiritualizing that would permit an abstract definition of personal spiritual poverty. That person is not poor who shuns the thought of death. Nor is the person poor who ensures his or her own security by storing up provisions for the future. It is rather the person who opts for insecurity through gratuitous giving, who offers out of his or her own necessity personal goods to others, and who giyes, himself or herself in them. "To be poor," then, means not just giving what is superfluous, but the ceaseless calling into 'question, both at the personal and at the community level, one's habits in' the matter of food~ dres~s~: living quarters, en!ertainment-- not just for the sake of thrift,' but in order to be able to, give to others--to the poor. Conclusion In a letter to Father Lorenzo of M6dena (May 16. 1556) Ignatius wrote: "You must understand that our Society, in its ~ractice of a umversal charity towards all nations and classes of men. does not approve cultivating particular affection for one people or for any.individual person.~except in the measure that well-ordered love.requires" (MI Epp XL pp. 408-409). " Guided by such well-ordered love--the love which looks to "the spiritual" works which are more important'~ (Constitutions, [650]), because the goal is the whole human pers, on-~we are to dedicate ourselves to thecorporal works of mercy, among which commitment to the poor takes pride of place. And so in a ~single movement of love. Ignatius,~is both attached a.nd detached. He lives a humble love which, as we have translated it here. is the love that comes "from above." The Exercises. a school of Christian freedom, in leading beyond "philan-thropy," gives to the preferential love for the poor for all the poor_--its truly Christian dimension. It is seen as our free response to that love, for the poor which God revealed in the poor Christ. who is himself rich in the Spirit To Divest or Not to Divest: Moral Investments and Immoral Purposes Michael H. Crosby, O F.M. Cap. Of this present article, Father Crosby writes: "A growing number of Catholic and Protestant groups are deciding to divest from their shares in companies involved in the nuclear armaments ch~iin. The process [utilized by] the Midwest Capuchin Franciscans serves as a case study." This experience can certainly serve as occasion for reflection on the difficult and complex task of bringing spiritual conviction to bear on actual life situations. Father Crosby, author of Spirituality of the Beatitudes, is Project Coordinator of the National Catholic Coalition for Responsible Investment. He is also Corporate Responsibility Agent for the Midwest Capuchin Province. Father Crosby may be addressed at Beatitude Program; 10i6 North Ninth Street; Milwaukee, WI 53233. Durin _the last two weeks of April and the first weeks of May, more corporate shareholder meetings are held than at any other time of the yeai'. High on the list of concerns by church-related groups of shareholders is .the issue of nuclear weapons production. This year, as in the past, the church groups" concerns were coordinated through the New York based Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), the action arm of Protestant church,Catholic diocesan, and religious order investors concerned about the social impact 0f'business corporations and the application of social criteria to their own investments. For this spring's annual meetings, eight companies involved in different stages 'of the fiuclear weapons chain received shareholder resolutions from groups affiliated with ICCR. Some resolutions were subsequently disallowed by th'e Securities. and Exchange Commission, but several were to be debated on the floor of the annual meetings. For last year's meeting of AT&T, at least sixty-five groups filed a resolu-tion requesting the company not to renew its contract with the U.S. Govern- 812 To Divest or Not to Divest / 813 ment to manage the Sandia National Laboratories which carries out research and.development on nuclear weapons systems. Yet this year only forty groups filed witli AT&T calling for the company to establish criteria for military contracts and to terminate its nuclear weapons contracts. Similarly, for .the 1983 annual meeting of Geheral Electric, over forty groups, asked GE to consult with experts about and to support the nuclear freeze by declining to accept or to renew contracts involv!ng the development or production of nuclear'weapons~ Yet this year only thirty-one groups filed with GE asking the company to develop criteria for acceptance of military contracts. Why has there bee~ such a decline in the number of fliers in just one year? Has the U.S. Catholic Bishops statemeht The Challenge of Peace: God's Promise and Our Response fallen on 'deaf ears? Is it due to a lack of resolve and follow-through? Or is it becausethe new SEC rules make it more difficult to return to companies on an issue when the previou~ year's voting has been small? According to Ursuline Sister Valerie Heinonen, ICCR's Military Work Group Coordinator, it is hone of the above. It is, she believes, "primarily because the Roman Catholic agencies in particular carried out divestment statements or were working on divestment positions and were in the process of implementing them." My Midwest Capuchin Franciscan Provinceis one of those groups that filed with 'AT&T and GE (along with Tenneco, Dupont and Rockwell Interna-tional) last year but did notdo so this year because of our newly-inaugurated divestment posture. In rearhing this decision, we joined such Protestant denominations as the United' Presbytbrians and th6 United Church 6f Christ as well as many Catholic dioceses and 'orders, including the Salvatorian Sisters of Milwaukee and th~ Franciscan Sisters of Philadelphia. As early as April, 1982 the Adrian (MI) Dominican Sisters' general congregation declared: The c~ngregation will take a public stand for peace-making by di'.vestin~ itself, within ¯ one year. of stock currently held in the top one hundreff~diffense contractors. The portfolio managers will be instructed by the general council not to invest in these companies unless some stock is requested by the Portfoli6 AdvisofyBoard in anticipa-tion of filing a shareholder resolution. A few years ago, as Corporate Responsibility Agent for my Province, I was against divestment; yetl was concerned about the issue. I recall being part of a discussion group that struggled to define the many complex issues that must be considered in dealing with divestment: How can we balance the "peace statements" of our bishops and congregations with nuclear holdings? How do we distinguish between'.direct and indirect involvement via our stocks? Should we have stock in an), company that is part of a system that many believe is doing so much harm to so many? If we:are to do "good" via our ministries, to what degree can we do so because of "evil" returns' from questionable corporations? Should we distinguish between nuclear and con-ventional arms? Is capitalism morally evil? Or is it inorally neutral, but with some practices that are evil? Why pick on the nuclear armaments companies? 814 / Review for Religious, Nov.-Dec., 1984 How do we deal with the balance of terror? How does the Nuremberg princi-ple of .culpability apply that all citizens are responsible, for their govern-ment's decisions, and will be held liable by humanity? Divestment has no impact on companies, except for a one-hour press c0nference~, so why not stay in and fight? Have we exhausted alternatives? If we do divest,.should it be total or should we keep a few shares to "keep the pressure on?" While no papal or episcopal statements tn the Catholic Church have called for divestment in companies involved ih the nuclear armaments chain, there are many pronouncements that touch the issue. In Pacem ~in Terris, John XXIII said, "the arms race should cease." Paul Vlsaid at the UN, "let the weapons fall from .your a os, and, in Populorum Progressio, "every exhausting armaments race becomes an intolerable scandal." John Paul II said at Hir0shima. in 1981, "let us promise our fellow h~man beings that we will work untiringly for disarmament and the banishing of all nuclear wea-pons." In March, 1984, a top Vatican spokesperson warned an international conference on European disarmamgnt that a poli~y of nuclear deterrence (the backbone of the U.S. bishops justificatio, n of the U.S.nuclear arsenal) leads to mistrust and escalation of Lthe arms race. Meanwhi!e, in their pastoral leiter, the U.S. bishops called upon Catholics at every level of defense industries. [to] use th~ moral principles of this letter to form their consciences~. . .°. Those who m conscience decide that they should no longer be associated with defense activities should find support in the Catholic commumty. Those who remain in these industries or earn a profit from the weapons industry should find in the Church guidance and support for the ongoing evaluation of their work. From my reading 9f the bishops' statement, "ongoing evaluation" of involvement in the production of such weapons ultimately should lead to disassociation from-the companies. But what about those dioceses, religious orders and lay investors tha.t are "making a profit from the weapons industry" via their stocks and bonds? What about our "ongoing evaluation" leading to possible disassociation? Stich statements nudged me to begin rethinking my position about possible divestment. The issue, it seems, is not whether churches, dioceses, or congregations support or. don't support unilateral disarmameht on the part of the United States. Divestment has little or nothing to do with disarmament. More and more the question is: Should we be involved in producing more weapons, especially since each side. has enough weapons to kill the other scores of times over?.How can more.weapons be produced when the arms race has been condemned. So on this issue we're not talking about disarmamenti just about not building more. We~'re talking about the three additional bombs built each day, and the ,ever-more sophisticated delivery systems being created. I was beginning to ask questions like these when the provincial council of my Midwest Capuchin Provinc.e ~asked its Justice and Peace Committee, of which 1 am a member, to prepare a position paper on the subject of. our holdings in nuclear armaments manufacturers so that it could determine how To Divest or Not to Divest / ~115 to deal with the provincial portfolio. Some might wonder why the followers of the Poor Man of Assisi should even have a portfolio. Their concern is shared by many of us, yet we find ourselves m a predicament. The Province has almost three hundred men. Because of decisions in the past, it now owns and operates fiv~ retreat houses which need ~provincial maintenance. It owns and operates the largest minor seminary in the United States. While it has many men in white, middle-class parishes, a large number also serve in Black, Hispanic and Native American areas, including the Cheyenne and Crow reservatiohs in Montana. From three of its inner-city locations in Wisconsin and Michigan, it runs meal programs, including Detroit's famous "Capuchin Soup Kitchen." Besides having preachers and hospital chaplains and campus ministers, our members serve in Central America, the Pacific, Australia and the Near East. The dividends from the portfolio, along with salaries and donations, constitute the arinual provin-cial income budget. Since the province is highly involved in work among the poor and for social justice (on.ly one hundred or so members actually draw salaries), the portfolio's dividends are currently needed to meet normal operating expenses. All annual revenues beyond the budget are allocated to the poor or for social justice causes--unless some extraordinary expense'needs to be,met, such as helping to repair a leaking roof in one of our inner city parishes in Milwaukee (which, .by historical happenstance, is incorporated in the name of the pro-vince rather than of the diocese). Two members of.the Justice and Peace Commission developed a position paper on divestment for the provincial council: Francis Dombrowski, who was trained as a moral theologian; l, the second author, have background in Franciscan spirituality and corporate responsibility. We were to investigate the ethical issues and our Franciscan charism to,determine what we might recomm(nd to the provincial council. It was decided that, rather than leave the decision to the council, (which earlier had divested from Upjohn.because of its manufacture of an abortifacient), ~his time the province's membership at large would be asked to become involved in making the decision. The paper was divided into four major sections: I) The facts behind th~ dilemma presented by the province's shareholdings; 2) Basic principles to be used to determine continued participation in the. manufacture of nuclear-re-lated weapons; 3) An application of the Franciscan charism to the signs of our times; and 4) A proposal for action by the province. The Facts The first section outlined the situation of. the. arms race, our participation in it via our stocks and bonds~ plus the fact that the companies at issue also did much good: , Our province has invested over a quarter of a million tlollars in some of these compan-ies with government contracts for nuclear weaponry. Thus we°'~re receiving income ~116 / Review.[br Religious, Nov.-Dec:, 1984 precisely because these weapons are being built at a profit to the company and to us as~ shareholders. Iris true that these companies'make many products and items that promote good for others; For instance, G,~neral Electric is a company in which our Province has 210 . shares (worth $19,924.00 as of December 31, 1982). We also.have $~0,000 in bonds in General Electric Credit Corporation. GE makes a body scanner which hospitals have found invaluable in saving lives; yet GE is one of the seven companies that actually makes components for the hydrogen bomb and is also involved in building the MX missile system. In 1981 GE received $3 billion in military contracts from .the United States government, accounting for I I% of its sales. This, means, in actual fact, that our province is cooperating in the production of nuclear weapons by investing money in the companies that build them. ~ The paper went on to explaiwthat holding shares does not make stock-holders proximate cooperators nor principal agents in the actioi~'s of the companies. Yet it made it clear that "we are remote cooperators in'a very.real way as owners who receive dividends from our investments and interest on ou~ bonds to sustain our way of life. Because we are shareholders and partial owners, we have s6me responsibility to make surethe companies in which we invest are not involved inactivities that counter our Franciscan vision of life." The province has adapted the steps outlined in Mt 19 (go and talk, on the word of two or three; take itto the court)in trying to get companies to change "activities that counter our way of.life,:' especially through its membership in ICCR. Since 1976 it either voted its proxies, filed resolutions, or s~oken at, annual meetings of companies involved in nuclear armaments. It bought ten shares of Rockwell International to dialogue with the company which, along with Allied (Bendix), AT&T, GE, Dupont, Monsanto, Pentax and Union Carbide (at that time), actually produced those components which would " make the nuclear weapons operational. 1 was one of three or four on a negotiating team which has,engaged in ongoing dialogue with Dupont.about its involvement. So, as a province, we had been trying to make our concerns known to the corporations. Having reviewed the way we had tried to bring the Gospel. of Peace to the "~houses" of these corporations (see Mt 10:12-15); we now had to ask ourselves: "Since these companies give no indication of change in policy and ciSntinue to accept defensb contracts that will further build up our nuclear arsefials, the question israised: What is the next step in dealing with these companies: more dialogue -- or divestment? Basic Principles 2) The second section of our position paper developed principles to be used in determining our continued participation in the manufacture of nuclear weapons~ It distinguished nuclear weapons from conventional weapons, and singled out "top" defense contractors because of the difficulty in determining the degree of involvement. Can a company like Exxon or Mobil, which provides gas for military trucks, be put in the same category as General To Divest or Not to Divest Dynamics, which makes airplanes and nuclear submarines that can deliver nuclear bombs? The principles included a lengthy treatment of just-war defense and the. -attitude of non-violence. The next area taken up dealt with deterrence. The paper shared why its ~position differed from that of the bishops by not accepting deterrence as a viable rationale. In this difference~,with the bishops' ,approach, the. paper reiterated the position of the leadership of the Conference of Major Superiors of Men, The paper noted: There is also a moral question as to whether or not we can threaten to use nuclear weapons against a country to keep it under control. It is morally wrong to use such weapons even against a limited target because the effects of radiation would be deadly , for many beyond the target. There is no proportion between any good achieved and the untold destruction in the aftermath. If it is immoral to use these weapons, it is also immoral to in'tend to use them as a threat. The mere verbal threat to use them against ~ another nation with the secret intent not to actually use them is unrealistic. The threat is effective only if the intention to use them is real. The position the paper took seems to differ little from the way the Vatican thought seems to have been evolving, especially given its recent, March statement at the European disarmament conference. The final part of the "Principles" section considered principles for cooperation and "non-cooperation in evil. The two traditional points were made quite clear: One who by his/her approval, vote~ consent, together with others causes harm knowingly is guilty of i,njustice~and is obliged to make restitution in proportion to the efficacy of his/her consent. Cooperation means helping or assisting another in the performance of an~ injustice. Whoever takes an active part in an unjust action is guilty of the injustice if his/her efficacious cooperation is formal, that is, intended and deliberate. Material cooperation means not really wanting the injustice, but helping in it or contributing to it without a sufficient reason. Ordinarily, materia, I cooperation is morally wrong. According to traditional Catholic teaching, however, material cooperation is per-mitted if (and only if) two conditions are fulfilled: . a. The manner of one's cooperation is not a morally evil'act in itself, but only some participation or contribution to the evil or injustice done by another. b. The reason for one's cooperation is sufficiently important and proportionate to the ~:vil involved. By the time I r~ad the r~aterial presented by Francis Dombrowski, especially the principles related to (non)cgoperation, I had begun to believe that it would b,e difficu!t, if not impossible, for us t6 justify crntinued holdings in ,n~uclear armaments companies. This growing conviction was reinforced when I realized our portfolio could be diversified without any serious financial loss. We had. no "sufficient reason" to continue material cooperation. When I was definitely leaning this way, it was my research into the Franciscan charism that finally made me convinced that we could no longer hold stock in such companies. 81B / Review for Religious, Nov.-Dec., 1984 Application The third section of the paper noted that the times when Francis lived in Assisi vis~-vis wars and preparation for war were similar to our own era. According to Arnoldo Fortini, a biographer of Francis.and former mayor of° Assisi, war was "a condition of life for every city?: A militaristic way 'of thinking and acting became normative of the way opposing groups settled their differencesl Groups armed themselves to threaten their enemies, and were ready to use those arms to destroy their enemies in order to preserve their way of life, Fortini notes of the Christians of that era that they were so controlled by such an attitude that ?they could~not even imagine a faith that was not sustained by military skill." Within such an environment, Francis began to imagine a f~ith that did not need to be buttressed through armaments. It would be a way that society would p~erceive as totally alien to its way of operating and dealing with opposition. The paper noted: In the face of the militarism of his fellow citizens, Francis realized they were not about to change their ways: So he and his followers had to "divest" themselves of those ways. Thus the friars were not to acquire property, lest they take up arms to protect it. For their part, the laity ~fellow citizens as well) would bring the Franciscan charism to beai upon their lives and society through non-cooperation. They would not be able to bear any ii~thal weapons if they were to be faiihful to Frdncis' vision of life in that militaristic" milieu . it seems quite clear that his society shrouded in faith and religion the manufacture, use and deployment of lethal~ weapons. Francis' "No" must be applied to our day'as well. If Francis said no, and if Jesus said "No" to Peter who wanted to use a weapon of violence for self-protection, our response too can only be "no more of this" (Lk 22:51). What other response can we make, not as citizens of Assisi, but of the United Stfites, but to separate ourselves from this way of settling disputes and dealing with our enemies? We have been born as citizens of~the United States; we have unknowingly accumulated shares in companies manufacturing nuclear weapons. But we can choose now to respond to these realities with the,charism of Francis. ~ Proposal for Action 4) The final part of the paper presented a "Proposal for Action 'by the Province" which built on the previous three sections. After a summary of the main issues, the paper concluded that a nuclear war of defense cannot be morally justified because it,,does not discriminate between combatants and non-combatants, and' damage inflicted would be greater~than the good to be obtained. It noted that the Gospel of Peace and nonviolence, combine~d with the Franciscan call for peacemaking in a way that refused the'~bearing of arms, called us to a stance of nonviolence and nbncooperation. Next, the'~,paper countered '~the present position justifying deterrence on the grounds that it lacked solid moral underpinnings, as well as the evident fact that the possession of weapons did not help ,negotiations, but had instead increased the arms race. Th~ next point called for a freeze of further production of~veapons. ThissuEport for a nuclear freeze was followed by noting that a threat of"first To Divest or NOt to Divest ] 819 strike" is incompatible with the just-war theory and a nonviolent position and "has been directly condemned in the U.S. bishops' pastoral on war and peace." Finally, the paper again presented the dilemma of having stock in nuclear armaments companies and reached the conclusion: Since these nuclear weapons and their systems are being produced by corporations in which we have investments and since we, as a province, are making money on the production of these weapons, we feel it is an unjustified form of material cooperation to continue our investments. The good products these same companies manufacture and sell in no way can compensate for the incalculable destruction these weapons can inflict and forthe tremendous fear, mistrust and intrigue that the possession of such weapons causes between nations and peoples, not to mention the misuse of natural resources. technology and money that could be used for jobs and for the poor and hungry of the World. Given the paper's rationale, the provincial council recommended to the. province's membership a "clear decision of divestment from corporations that have major nuclear weapons contracts from the government." A criteria to determine "major" was fixed at $10 million. . Furthermore, the,council recommended that there should be total divest-ment rather than to keep a few token shares to continue to pressure the companies, as groups like the Adrian Dominicans have decided to do. Whether there should be total divestment or'whether a few token shares should be held to continue to pressure companies can certainly be debated. Sr. Valerie Heinonen believes those divesting should h~ld on to some shares~,or else "we're losing a forum. I don't see how we can reach corporate manage-ment if.we don't have at least some stock." When the position paper was presented to the province along with the recommendations of the Council. a large percentage (77%) of the membership responded, two-hundred and ten in all. Three choices had been offered: 1) we should divest for the reasons indicated in the paper; 2) we should not divest but continue our present corporate responsibility efforts; and 3) we should not divest and not continue our corporate responsibility efforts. One-hundred fifty-four (73.33%) voted for divestment, fo.rty-nine (23.33%) said there should be continued corporate responsibility efforts and a small number, seven (3~.33%), said we should do neither. ¯ The fact that over 96% of the respondents felt Jomething had to be done indicated, a deep concern about .this issue . Given the evolution of thinkin~g about this issue by many of us in the province, plus the growing number of groups th.a,t are beginning to divest, it is clear that this is an issue which won't be going away. In many ~vays, our Franciscan charism might have helped make our corporate decision as one, sided as it turned out to be. Y~t. whether other groups decided to divest or not to divest demands a ~erious investigation, given their charism and/or mission staterfients. All will have to face the dilemma squarely; it is a matter of si .mply bringing our faith to bear on the modern world. General Government: Its Leadership Role Today Gerald A. Arbuckle, S.M. Father Arbuckle's last article was "Planning the Novitiate Process: Reflections of an Anthro-pologist" (July/August, 1984). His duties in the general administration of his congregation keep him on extended journeys, but he may be addressed at his generalate headquarters: Padri Maristi; Via Alessandro Poerio, 63; 00152 Roma, Italy. any general administrations of religious congregations in the turbulent times of the 1960s and 1970s must surely have hoped that the decade of the 1980s would be marked by the tranquillity, security and growth that seemed so obviously to characterize their histories prior to Vatican 1I. But these hopes will never be realized. Religious life, like the Cht~rch itself, was challenged in Vatican II to serve the needs of people in a world that would continue to be in rapid, even turbulent, technological,'econoniic, political and cultural change. The niore religious seek to live up tO their vocation, the more in fact will they be drawn to share the hope~, anxieties and frustrations of people caught up in a world of change,~ with all the consequent stresses and strains of adjustment that this involvement brings. A further reason why the status quo of the pre-Vatican II era will n'ot be reinstated is the fact that many religious congregations ale discovering that their very future is in doubt. In view of the oft-heard prediction that "a reason.able expectation would seem to be that most religious communities the Church today~ will eventually become extinct,"2 religious in increasing numbers are askingthemselves questions ~uch as: Will the apostolate to which I dedicated my life survive when so few professed are entering my congregation? Will my province survive? Who will look after me when I am too old to work? Will my congregation itself survive? 820 General Government Toda.v / 1~21 Viewing these realities and questions from the "center," many of those involved in thework of general administration often find themselves at a loss to know what to do. On the one hand, these administrators would agree with the management expert, Peter Drucker, that all organizations (including religious local com-munities, provinces and congregations) will "become slack, easygoing, diffuse" unless challenged, and that: in turbulent tir~es the enterprise has to be kept lean and muscular, capable of taking strain but capable also of moving fast and availing itself of opportunity. This is particu-larly important if such times follow long years of comparative calm, ease and , predictability.~ Administrative: personnel may also have come to accept the harsh reflection that: when survival depends on change, human institutions often tend perversely towards suicide, in times of social upheaval, clinging to yesterday's images providessolace,a 'But, for religious congregations to su~ive and grow, more than solace is necessary. "It will take l~rave and visionary change, not just solace." On the other hand, the same general administrators may feel thoroughly' inadequate to do the type of brave and visionary "challenging for ch~ange"that~ is necessary. They feel that successive general chapters since Vatican II have so weakened their administrative authority that they have little or no effective authortty and power .to challenge the congregat~ion .or even prrvinces "tO become lean and muscular." In fact, some may even fear to do anything at all, lest tha_t result in a still further whittling away of whatever administrative authority is left them by general ch~ipters. Little wonder, therefore, if such administrations are experiencing frustra-tion, adr~inistrative identity crises, a sense of helplessness. They may even"feel somewhat .marginalized, unwanted, Within the veu congregation they have been elected to serve. Some administrations accept without question a mere figurehead role, feeling that any constructive effrrts'at challenging will achieve nothing at all. Others may initiate a spree of feverish activity, but if they lack dearly worked out goals and strategies based on sound information, then such activity is without value and only serves to intensify a feeling of frustration in all i:oncerned. ~ Unfortunately, a major reason~for the feeling of helplessness and frustration is the failure of'many persc, ns to understand that the obvious exercise of administrative authority or bureaucratic direction i~ not the only form of leadership that is opeh to administrators. In fact, while varying degrees of bureaucrati~ authority are essential in organizations, nonetheless such author-ity will be ineffective if at key points in the administration prophetic leadership is laeking~ No matter how little administratix~e authority general governments have, they can and they must exercise prophetic leadership within their.con-gregations. Paradoxically the lack of bureaucratic or administrative authority can even be an advantage. General administrations should be able to give ~129 / Review for Religious, Nov.-Dec., 1984 mgre time to the demands of future planning, to the design of carefully planned visitations of provinces, if they do not have to be involved in the day-to-day turmoil of dealing with special-interest groups and "congregational power politics.". . In this paper, I will set out some ways in which, general administrations can exercise this crucial prophetic leadership. By way of background, I ~will also summarize relevant insights of management experts into the difficulties and challenges that confront administrations of secular organizations and businesses in the 1980s. Religious administrators can learn much from such writers--not the least being that secular administrators have to :face some major issues which are very similar to those which confront the genei~al admin-istrations of religious congregations. Secular organization~ themselves cannot survive and grow without a type of "prophetic" leadership! Models of Contemporary General Administrations Three model~ of general administrations can be distinguished on the basis of a continuum where centralization and decentralization of administrative authority are the two poles of reference. The Maximum DecentraliZi~tion Model The central administration of congregations organized in this fashion have onl); afigurehead role. The superior general and councilors merely symbolize the internationality ot~ tl~e congregation. Whatever administrative powers are left to them are of no real significance at all. The Maximum Centralization Model' Organized with a minimum of decentralization, all important matters in these congregations relat.ing to policies and appointments of key administrators (for example, provincials, formation personnel) are controlled by°the central administration: Delegation of authority to lower levels i~ minimal, only in matters .of little importance. ~ This model may characterize newly founded congregaiions, or congrega-tions which are small in membership and/or have a single, clearly defined apostolic activity, such as missionary activity. The In-betwedn Model: Mininial Centralization with Maximal Decentralization The choice of major administrators and personnel (fdr example provin-cials, formation, personnel) belongs to the~provinces. The role of the general administration in such appoin~tments is of no r~eal significance. However gen-eral administration does retain important supervisory powers, the significance ¯ of Which may.develop only in time. For example, the,superior general in such congregations may have ov~erall direction in matters relating to initial formation, without the legislation spell- General Government Today / 823 ing out precisely what this is to mean in practice. The general council may have authority to approve or reject provincial chaptbr~de~zisions according to guidelines set by the general chapter'decrees. It may have the power to control levels of expenditure within provinces. It may h~ix;e thai power,to stop a hou~;i~ being Opened or closed. The~h~ in ~hich a general administration might use these powers could at times effectively influence policy within provinces. SpecifiE instances of general administration, of course, may not fit precisely . into one or other of these models. But they will tend to approximate one rather than another. The type of frustration and malaise 1 described in the opening paragraphs will be found more particularly in the first and third models. These are the models which are the special concern of this article. Leadership Challenges in rSeculal" Organizations Today In a recent article, Ronald Lippitt stated that, for most leaders and follow-ers in the 1980s, three assumptions must be eradicated.: The first assumption whichmust disappear is that success depends on a vertical model of leadership, acc6rding to which decisions are to be made at the top, and people are to obey without contributing to the decision-making. The second assumption to be removed is the belief that "doing it by yourself" is a sign of strength. The spirit of' rugged individualism must give way to the spirit of ihterde~pendence'and collegiality at all levels of an organization. The third assumption which~has no'place in a "lean and muscular"~organi-zation is the belief that "competition is a necessary motivation for achieve-ment." This assumption,' claimsLippit~ "blocks seeking help, sharing resources, and pooling' complementary abilities--all requirements for survival, growth and development in the decades ahead."5 Sociologist Amitai Etzioni, in his recent analysis of the future of American so~iety,.says very much the same thing: The attribtites we Americans need most for the next generation is an enhanced com-mitment to othei:s and to shared concerns., l say "enhanced" because the commitment has not vanished but waned, and because a larger,measure is required~if.Americans are to do with less government and yet sustain themselves as a community. "rl3e commit-ment required., is for both ego and otl~er to attend to each other and to their shared world. 1 hence refer to it as ~mutuality.TM Again, he states that American society has become caught up with exces-sive individualism: We were affluent and had a sense that we could do anything. This attitude was fed by the pop-psychology idea of self-actualization--that everyone's first obligation was personal fulfillment.7 Taking these insights into account, .we can conclude that for survival and growth, leadership must have the ability to inspire in staffs an.effective will- 1~94 / R. eview for Religious, Nov.-Dec., 1984 ingness to share ideas, skills, in a spirit of interdependence and .collegiality. Goal setting, the commitment to evaluate performance in light of these goals, will take place effectively because managements and.their staffs feel an atmo-sphere of mutuality or interdependence. No command from above will necessarily effect goal-setting, collegiality or a ~spirit of interdependence. This point is stressed by R. K. Greenleaf: "The very essence of leadership, going out ahead .to show the way, derives from more than usual openness to inspiration."8 He asks the question: "why would anybody accept the leadership of another except that the other sees more clearly where it is best to go?" Significantly he comments: "Perhaps this is the current problem: too many who presume .to lead do not see more clearly and, in. defense of their inadequacy, they all the more strongly argue that the ,system' must be preserved--a fatal error in this day of candor.", So the one who aspires to leadership must have the knowledge necessary "to see more clearly." But still moi'e-is required than knowledge. There is needed the spark of drive, of initiative, the call to follow: "A.leader ventures to say: 'I will go; come with me!''9,, ~., The leadership exemplified here is not the monarchical or hierarchical type--types closed to opinions and information of.others--but the type we call charismatic or prophetic. The prophet is a future-oriented person. He has an-acute.understanding of new needs and new opportunities, He opposes the. tendency in all ,human organizations ~t0 treat established institutions or methods of Ol~eration, at a given point in history, as though they were definitive.~0 Leadership of the prophetic type can see beyond the present problems, even temporarY s.uccesses, and can inspire others with a vision for change and with the courage to become involved in. realizing the vision in practice. The leader, says: "'I will go; follow me!' while knowing that the path is uncertain, even dangerous." i i Leaders of this type are rare, but the harsh reality is that unless organiza-tions of all kinds can find them and place them at various key levels so that their talents can be used, the organizations and their administrations will not survive. The organizations will die, for they will cease to b6 relevant. These leaders will, inter alia, help establish the values explained by Lippitt and others as essential for the survival and growth of organizations in the 1980s and beyond. It is not necessary for those in official control of organizations to have to a high degree all the qualities depicted by Greenleaf, but what is the sine qua non of success is the ability to spot people who do have the necessary creative and ~innovative skiils~ and then place these people in the right positions in which they can effect!vely inspire change. This is What Drucker means when he writes that "in turbulent times, my organization. '. needs to control the assignment of its resources. It needs to think through Where !the results are likely to be. It needs to know the performing and productive people." General Government Today But, to utilize such people to their full potential, there needs to be on the part of those in charge a firm discipline. Potential change-agents can easily be pushed aside because people are uncomfortable with their prophetic and innovative voices. There is also the danger that change-agents will dissipate their strengths and abilities over too wide an area. But the use of firm discipline will not be~ popular, for it will demand a "systematic withdrawal of resources--money, but above all, people--from yesterday's efforts,"12 that is, withdrawal from projects that are no longer relevant and/or productive, and the systematic encouragement Of change-agents, who can guarantee the survival and growth of the organization. Patience and courage are key virtues in leadership. In recent years some researchers into how effective leadership emerges in organizations have explicitly turned to cultural anthropology for insights into the nature, purpose and necessity of culture. This has produced some very challenging studies and conclusions. The leader who ignores basic:human needs for meaning, for symbols, for clearly articulated values and goals, for identity, as these are expressed in culture, will fail to achieve a following---even in business. o Hence, A. Pettigrew, reflecting on the interrelationship between leadership and culture, believes that the process of ghaping culture is the first task of management: "The [leader] not only creates the rational and tangible aspects of organizations, such as structure and technology, but also is the creator of symbols, ,ideologies, language, beliefs, rituals, and myths."13 J. MacGregor Burns distinguishes two types of leadership. There is first what he calls "transactional leadership." This type of leadership is concerned with the day-to-day smooth running of the organization. No organization can do with6ut this type. But no organization can survive for long if there is also lacking what Burns calls "transforming leadership:" This kind of leadership is a response to the fact that all people have need of a sense of purpose, of meaning, for a vision that helps to raise them in,their work above the daily grind. Inspired by this leadership people are moved to become more active themselves, more creative in their own work.14 T. E. Deal and A. A. Kennedy in their 1982 publication, Corporate Cul-tures: The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life, assert that every business has a culture which has a major effect on the success of the business. In what they call "strong cultures" everyone knows the goals of the corporation, and every-one is working for them.~s People know clearly what is expected of them. This makes them feel i~ strong sense of belonging and of being valued. In conse-quence, according to Deal's and Kennedy's research, people are more likely to work harder. In companies that have strong cultures, managers "take the lead in supporting and shaping the culture," They give considerable time and energy to ,thinking about the values, heroes, and rituals of the culture," for their primary task is to manage "value conflicts that arise in the ebb and flow of daily events." 16 Such companies have bright futures. They have the resilience 1~96 / Review for Religious, Nov.-Dec,, 1984 to adapt to changing circumstances.~ When difficulties arise they can "reach deeply into their shared values and beliefs for the truth and courage to see them through."~7 In 1982 also, T.J. Peters and R. H. Waterman produced their best-selling book, In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Compan-ies. ~8 This study also draws heavily on the insights of cultural anthropologists. The authors list the three qualities that make for excellence in the compan-ies they researched: bias for action, closeness to the customer, and high pro-ductivity through people. By "bias for action" they mean the ability of the companies.to move very quickly in changing policy and action, "and, more important, to be continuously innovative both in making the product.and providing services.''~9 Their findings on the qualities of the leadership present in the most suc-cessful companies are interesting. Common to all leaders is what the authors call the "hands-on, value-driven style." Such leaders have the ability to articu-late and transmit to others the essential values of their companies. In this they effectively create a strong corporate culture:. "Clarifying the value system and breathing life into it are the greatest contributions a leader can make."~° In order to transmit values the leaders must be mobile, constantly in touch with the grassroots of the company. In order to keep the leadership team active and unhindered by bureaucratic pressures at the tenter, the leadership at the top is kept surprisingly small, lean. The leaders the authors studied had lofty visions which could evoke excitement and enthusiasm for thousands of employees. But they were also people committed to practical detail: "In this role, the leader is a bug. for detail~ and directly instills values through deeds rather than words; no oppor-tunity is too small. So it is at once attention to ideas and attention to detail.TM The leaders of the Successful companies did not depend on a charismatic personality for success. Rather, they made themselves into effective leaders through hard work, sustained perso.nal commitment to the values they believed in, and a certain stubbornness in their efforts to build up a strong corporate culture based on these values.22 By "high productivity through people," the authors mean "the ability top companies have of treating employees with dignity and expecting them to contribute in innovative ways on a day-to-day basis.''23 For the 'researchers this quality appeared critical. New ideas and contented customers would result only when all in the organization--not just the people at the top--were motivated by the right, values.24 In the top quality firms, in consequence, those who innovate are treated as heroes, "even though those employees are occasionally a little bit at odds with the corporate bureaucracy,"2~ The authors refer to successful cdmpanies as having "simultaneous loose-tight properties." By this they mean: that at the same time there is .very firm central direction and maximum decentralization (in fact, some of the firms are radically decentralized). General Government Today / 1127 Firm central direction is achieved by the "hands-on, value-driven" ap-proach. 'The leadership sees its task as one of stressing values crucial to the firm's culture, for example, closeness to the customer, innovation, quality. The more these values are emphasized the more certain it is that they will be realized in practice. Values which are clearly articulated and emphasized them-selves act as the control mechanism.26 Within the clear framework of these values, individuals throughout all levels of the company feel encourage.d to innovate. Leadership and Authority in Periods of Cultural Change All the above authors stress the role of leadership if "weak cultures" are to become "strong cultures." However, no author sufficiently clarifies the rela-tionship between leadership and bureaucratic authority. For example, what role, if any, has authority in cultural change? ~ John R. Sheets. S.J., provides the precision necessary for this key question to be answered. He sees a common denominator in all expressi0.ns of leader-ship. It is an ability "to draw others beyond the point where they presently find themselves to a point of greater realization of their common aspirations. It is a power to draw others toward a center of closer unity."27 He sees the role of the leader very much as Greenleaf has described it or as MacGregor Burns views transforming leadership: "While he stands within the group, he has at the same time a certain transcendence, being ahead of the group, as one who has already realized the goal to a large'extent, and who now acts as a focal point drawing others to the realization of the same goal."28 But, unlike these authors, Sheets pinpoints three fundamental qualities of leadership~ ethos, pneuma and logos. Ethos is that quality o~f leadership that is concerned with values. The leader has interiorized within himself a .set of values, and the living out of these values in his own life draws others to follow and seek the same interiorization. Pneuma refers to the power conveyed by the leader and the power that is aroused in the group. It is characterized by inspiration, enthusiasm, energy. Logos is that quality of leadership related to judgment. It is described in various ways: reason, balance, discretion~ prudence, intelligence, knowledge. Where there is logos the leader has the power of judgment how to give a "constant and consistent shape to the aspirations of the group."~9 As Sheets says, genuine l~adership involves all three of these qualities. Within any one person, the qualities are to be found in varying degrees, "very oftenowith one of the characteristics assuming a particular prominence to the point where one might be designated according to one of these, as a moral or ethical leader, a charismatic leader, an intellectual leader.''3° A genuine leader will build on the particular aspect in which he is strong and call on others to complement his efforts with other qualities in which he is deficient. True leadership then aims to evoke teamwork. "Leadership," as described here, differs from "authority." Whereas leader- ~121~ / Review for Religious, Nov.-Dec., 1984 ship aims to motivate people to interiorize new values and attitudes freely, authority commands people,to act in certain ways. Rather than aiming to attract people to respond freely, authority imposes an obligation on people to act. In periods of cultural change, when people undergo deep value and atti-tudinal alterations, authority is to be used very infrequently, and then only with caution and considerable sensitivity. In-depth and lasting change can occur in and through leadership, but such change is rarely the result of author-ity commanding action. Support at key points, however, may have to come from authority. For example,~the actual placement of a person withleadership or change-agent qualities within a group may require the official use of author-ity. So also would the removal of an ineffective leader be an ffct of authority. In strong business cultures, authority is used very sparingly, but with effectiveness and according to definite criteria. Thus, for example, the selec-tion and appointment of key national, regional and local managers is gener- .ally the prerogative of central administration. Such people are chosen because they have the leadership qualities described. Without people of leadership gifts at key levels of management, the future growth and even survival of the business would be in danger. In brief, therefore, leadership aims to motivate people freely tO change by accepting new values, new attitudes. The new values and attitudes, together with the conseqt~ent alteration in behavior patterns, effect cultural changes. Leadership also aims to develop teamwork, to involve the whole group in ¯pr°blem-s°lving' George Foster concludes his fine analysis of why develop-ment projects in. the Third World succeed or fail, With a description of the qualities needed in ¯a community change-agent: The ethic of helping people change involves restraint and caution in missionary zeal. It means that developmental personnel should be careful not to plan for people, but to work with them in searching for realistic answers to their problems . It means learnirig to be humble, to be willing to lear.n . It means a genuine . desire to help in a realistic way based on full understanding of the nature of culture and culture change . a~ Foster's research findings, and his concluding description of the qualities ~'equired in a community change-agent; confirm the.universal validity of the clarifications provided by Sheets and the other authors above. "Strong, and "Weak, Cultures in Religious Life A religious congregation is not a business organization. The fundamental aim of a religious congregation is not monetary profit to satisfy investors, nor is it to supply the material needs of customers. Neither can a religious congregation, unlike a business enterprise, fully gauge its success or failure by whether or not its "products" are being "sold." Nor ought we to consider a religious congregation to be definable only in terms of a social grouping--one, for example, designed to serve the human-welfare needs of its members. General Government Today / 829 A religious congregation has meaning only in relationship to the kingdom of God. Its members consecrate themselves to God in the Church to offer ¯. to the world visible proof of the unfathomable mystery of Christ, inasmuch as in themselves they really present "Christ in contemplation on the mountain, or proclaiming the kingdom of God to multitudes, or healing the sick and the maimed and converting sinners to the good life, or blessing children and doing good to all men, always in obedience to the will of the Father who sent him" (LG 46).32 Effective consecration demands of religious that they keep on discerning how best to serve the Church with "boldness of initiatives" in accordance with the particular and unique charism of their congregation, being prepared to drop this or that form of apostolate which is no longer responsive to the real pastoral needs of people.33 This does not mean that religious cannot, and must not, learn from all kinds of social organizations---even from business enterprises--about how to improve their efforts to give "to the world proof of the unfathomable mystery of Christ." With St. Paul, we religious believe that "we are only the earthen-ware jars that hold this treasure [our Christian faith].34 Our faith is incarnated in and through people, groups, customs, cultures. On the sociological level at least, our religious congregations, like the Church itself, do show "organizational traits which in many respects resemble those of secular organizations.TM The way our religious congregations or communities are organized may well either hinder or facilitate our efforts to give "the world proof of .the unfathomable mystery of Christ." Discernment, after all, does not consist just in zealous and constant prayer. It also consists in being open to whatever way the Holy Spirit may speak to us--including the. way that ordinary folk live and organize their lives. We should not be startled to learn that the Holy Spirit has something to teach us from what happens in the. mundane actions of the marketplace. Perhaps the Lord is. also telling us to be open to. contemporary research in business methods when he said: ,For the children of this world are more astute in dealing with their kind than are thechildren of light."~6 In businesses which, have strong cultures, goals, objectives, values, are clearly .articulated and interiorized by all concerned. People are accountable for their actions because they know what is expected of them, and they are motivated so to act. There is constant contact with customers, making it possible to see how best to respond to their needs. Business leaders are value-oriented. They value service, not just to the customer, but also to their employees with whom they are in frequent contact. Written communications are acceptable, but personal .presence to staff.at key levels by leaders is far more emphasized. Finally, innovators are 'vigorously encouraged, despite the risks involved, for innovation that is a response to customer needs is seen as ultimately the guarantee of survival and growth: If we look at those religious congregations that are actually moving into a 1~30 / Review for Religious, Nov.-Dec., 1984 stage of revitalization, we see that they are developing strong cultures. Mutatis mutandis, these congregations have many of the marks that we have seen characterize strong cultures. There is the rediscovery of key religious-life and congregational values, together with their interiorization and their expression in innovative apostolic action.37 Apostolic innovators are valued and en-couraged as congregational "culture heroes." Leaders have articulated their values, including the values that particularly relate to the charism of the founder. In variou~ ways, and with risks taken in faith, they have communi-cated these insights and values to the others, drawing them also to do the same. They have done this not by multiplying the ~number of documents and letters of exhortation, but by going directly~ to key°groups and personnel in .the congregation, and drawing them by their presence to accept the same values and convictions.38 Through~: cooperative teamwork, these leaders have encouraged a new sense of spiritual purpose to develop in the members of the congregation. A heightened, sense of morale emerges, because clarified and interiorized values and goals give a renewed sense of meaning and direction~to members~ lives. Those congregations that are not revitalizing have weak cultures. There is confusion about values, uncertainty about goals and objectives. Those who ought to be the leaders because they hold official positions in thecongregation are lacking in the know-how and/or the spiritual courage to give leadership. Many of their religious, mainly because leadership is lacking, cannot agree on what values should be retained and acted on. This leads to more and more ¯ frustration. Often the attitude of these religious to authority is ambivalent, On the one hand, there is a cynical or angry rejection of authority in the congrega-tion because it is seen as irrelevant and powerless. On the other hand, there is a hankering ~ifter authority to give direction--but when officials do attempt to use authority they are quickly rejected. There is a failure to recognize the fact that change cannot come through the bare use. of authority, but only through leadership. Since few religious have been trained in the exercise of leadership, it is difficult for members to. understand the distinction between authority and leadership. Potential change-agents or. innovators in the congregation are frequently marginalized, Sometimes this marginalization takes place because those in authority consider them "disloyal" or "troublemakers," for they Question the status q.uo.39 General administrators may maintain a schedule of visitations in the pro-vinces, but' unless the visitations are done with goals based on real needs of the congregation, then the visits only intensify feelings of frustration among members. The exhortations of the general administrators,~and their follow-up letters to the visited provinces, come across as irrelevant, out of touch with real issues, and thus reinforce the view that general administrations have no longer any role of importance in religious congregations. Religious congregations with weak cultures thus described have reached General Government Today what is now called the "breakdownstage." If the situation is left unchecked, these congregations will die--not because the Holy Spirit has failed, nor because the charisms of the congregations have become irrelevant, but because key people in the congregations have not "read the signs of the times" and acted accordingly.~° "Hands, On, Value-Driven" Leadership For several centuries prior to Vatican I1, general administrations often obtained their identity and role-definition from the authority they could exer-cise: the power, to appoint key people, such as provincials and formation staffs; the power to visit and check on whether or not age-old and universally accepted congregational customs were being maintained. The more adminis-trative positions became institutionalized, the more the faithgospel vision of the founding persons became obscured, together with their innovative ability to discern and react to often unattended pastoral needs of the peop!e of their times. General administrations became far more comfortable with their authority roles than with the challenges of leadership. Theologically, the emphasis was often on the need for the changing world to adapt to the unchanging Church. In similar vein, the world had also to adapt to the unchanging cultures 'of religious eongregations~ The stress by administrators, far from encouraging departures from what was done in the past; was to insist on conformity to the tried ways of the congregational culture-heroes of former times.41 With the coming of Vatican II, two interconnected emphases in particular undermined the clarity of this role-definition, and thus the traditional security o~f general administrations. The first was a renewed stress on the mission of the Church to enter and influence a world in rapid change. The second was the move to decentralize the government of religious life. The Church recognized once more that it had a mission to a world in change. Yesterday's methods were not necessarily adequate for new pastoral needs.42 The Church is called to be Christ to the world. Since religious are "to be more radical Christians, in the sense of trying to live the life and holiness of the Church in all its radicalness~''"3 they must seek to excel in cohtfibuting to the pastoral and apostolic innovation that was needed. Now the task of general governments is determined primarily by the mission which religious life and each eongregatiori has within the Church, and not by the authority they may have because the constitutions say so. The role of a general administration is to call the entire corporate body to the realization of its two-fold aim: union with Christ and service to the neighbor according to the particular faithgospel vision of the founding person. The decentralization of religious-life government left many general admin-istrations at a loss to know what to do in administration.On the one hand, the theology of Vatican II insisted that religious should be pastorally innovative and open to change. On the other hand, general administrations had no 839 / Review for Religious, ~lov.-Dec., 1984 experience of how to stimulate and lead such innovation. Especially adminis-trations belonging tO the first and third models above particularly felt con-fused and anxious since, without authority, they could not see what they should do to facilitate this revitalization. Many provinces also seemed quite willing to ignore their general adminis-trations, seeing them merely as innocuous and vague symbols of the interna-tionality of the community. In quite recent years, however, an awareness seems to be growing in some provinces that decentralization has not produced the miraculous renewal or revival that it was expected to evoke. There is a vague, ill-defined turning toward "the center." But unless central governments act with genuine leadership, the opportunity thus given them will be lost. To transform a weak business culture into a strong one there must bea radical change in values, with a consequent and effective commitment to action. And if a religious congregation is to move from a weak to a strong culture, there must likewise be a radical reconversLon to a new set of values, or a return to the original values of the founder. Founders of religious congregations laad the faith and courage to enter on a journey. They attracted others to join them in showing "the Church and the world a quality of life that calls them back to the design of God in Christ Jesus."~ The outcome of the journe~ was never certain. Each religious and each congregation which accepts this new challenge of reconversion begins, as it were. another spiritual journey. This will involve, like the first journey, "an anguished and sometimes perilous exploration,"45 an adventure in faith, hope and love. Similarly, general administrations which summon their congregations to a second journey, to a process of refounding, must expect periods of darkness, misunderstanding, even rejection. Like their founders before them, they will need far more than human expertise or ingenuity to maintain the dynamism and creativity of their leadership. A feeling of identity and security in their leadership will come, not from any authority they may still have nor from any authority newly obtained from their general chapters, but from union with Christ in his life, death and resurrection. In order to utilize resources to the best possible advantage, I believe that these general administrations must concentrate their leadership efforts on four categories or groupings of persons within their congregations: -on themselves as leaders; -on the congregation as a whole; -on groups tha.t hold, or potentially hold, leadership positions; -on all who are involved in the preparation of the general chapter. 1 will no~w take each.category in,turn. Leadership Directed at Themselves "The Church is an evangblizer; 'but she begins by being evangelized her-self." So wrote Paul VI. "She is the community of believers, the community of General Government Today hope lived and communicated, the community of brotherly love; and she needs to listen unceasingly to what she must believe, to her reasons for hoping, to the new commandment of love . [The Church] is evangelized by constant conversion and renewal, in order to evangelize the world with credibility.''~6 These words apply with equal force and validity to general administrations, for these are called to evangelize their own congregations. They can do so only by first evangelizing themselves. General administrators themselves form a group which mirrors the congregation as a whole in that they come from different cultural backgrounds, have different prejudices, both cultural and personal, which interfere with communication, have different formative and educational training, hold different theological orientations. If these adminis-trators are to be welded into a leadership team in which each is encouraged by the rest to use his leadership qualities, one of ethos, another of pneuma, another of logos, then they must face the cold reality that they themselves will have to undergo a culture change. They will have to move from being a "weak dultural group" of the congregation, with each being an individualist, to become a "strong cultural group" in which each person is in fact a ,team member. Each member will have to become increasingly and personally ope~, " not just. to changes in knowledge, information, or the intellectual rationale for action and practice, but to new attitudes, values, skills, the .removal of preju-dices, and the development of mature relationships within the team itself,47 The courage and the honesty to be open as individuals to such radical changes is needed, so that a genuine administration community for evangelizing emerges, one that is credible to the congregation. This will come only if administrators are prepared to commit themselves to deep prayer and asceticism: Only in prayerful discernment will the team members be~able to discover what the Holy Spirit is asking of them and how they can help to disentangle the pure charism of the founder from the accretions of time. Faced with the demands of the contemporary Church and world, they will experience the same sense of shock as the founder did in his day. It is true that there must be serious commitment to study and to scientific methods of obtaining factual informa-tion relating to the works of the congregation and the needs of the apostolate. But such information will be of little value, will be merely "a noisy gong or a clanging bell,"48 if the uses to which it is put are not discerned in an atmo-sphere of brotherly love and prayer. In brief, if general administrators expect to enable their entire congregation to move from weak to strong religious-life cultures, they must themselves first, individually and as a group, undergo the same cultural transformation. The top priority for each administration, there(ore, is to set aside definite periods of the year in which administrators can all be present for planning, for praying together, for sharing personal and corporate faith experiences, for discerning how the Holy Spirit wishes to use them in the service of the congregation. Nothing should interfere with this priority. At times a skilled facilitator may be an invaluable adjunct in helping team members to become 834 ] Review for Religious, Nov.-Dec., 1984 yet more vitally involved in their own and their team's religious-life cultural change. ~, Leadq'ship Directed to the Congregation as a Whole Superiors general and their administrations, when confronted by the stark reality ofa weak congregational culture, are tempted to react with a strongly worded pastoral letter (or even a series of them) about the need for the members to undergo conversion. Normally, this temptation must be vigor-ously~ resisted. Historically, such letters seem to have little or no effect.49 Generally th6 letters are ignored, or if read, they may evoke yet further cynicism, even anger, directed toward central government. In successful business operations in which the "hands-on, value-driven" style of leadership is used, 'leaders avoid frequent and lengthy communications from the center to subordinates. Theyl prefer to improve communication by personalizing the process on a one-to-one basis or on a one-to-group basis. However, a general administration team, after lengthy and prayerful dis'- cernment, may conclude that a prophetic communication in letter form to the whole congregation is necessary, even though there are good grounds to a~ssume the message will be rejected, even by the vast majority of the congrega-tion. Out of great love for the Church and for the congregation, the adminis, trati0n may feel the need to speak out loudly and clearly, "to uproot and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant."50 The decision to write such a prophetic challenge should not be. taken lightly: If it is done, then, as far as possible, it should be followed up with personal contact by means of general administrators in touch with key groups in the congregation. Explanations of the letter can be given, and reactions received, in a discerning atmosphere. Leadership Directed to Key Groups ,qt is at the level of key groups within the congregation that the central government's efforts at "hands-on, value-~lriven" and "loose-tight" leadership should be concentrated. In most congregations the following groups would be important to concentrate on: .-p~ovincial councils -formation staffs -provincial chapters -other interest groups ,of various kinds, such as justice and peace commit-tees or spirituality and mission seminars (some of the groups may be of an inter-provincial or international nature). It may, be necessary, particularly in the early stages, to spend considerable time with provincial councils. The aim should be to create a discernment atmosphere similar to the one needed at the general administration level, in which~provincial¢council goals are established, and objectives and strategies worked out to .realize these goals. Considerable prudence and patience are General Government Today required since provincial councils may well consider that the initiation of change is primarily the function of authority, not leadership. Or, despite information to the contrary, the councils may even deny that there are prob-lems confronting their provinces. And they may consider the discernment process simply a waste of time, "something that only general administrations have time for!", Where these _views exist, general administrators may find the challenge to act as catalysts in culture change extremely demanding. George Foster's advice quoted above needs to be recalled: leadership to be effective requires a "full understanding of the nature of culture and culture change." Those of us who take for granted the computer age, and assume cultural changes can occur with the same speed that characterizes computerized travel arrangements and purchasing, will find it very hard to appreciate the fact that radical cultural change is always a very slow process. General administrators, when faced with negative responses from provincial councils, may be tempted, like all change-agents when confronted by rejection or lack of interest, to find escape routes. They may be tempted to return to the generalate in order to "write a report" for the benefit of.the particular provincial council that is hesitant or refuses to respond. This process of writing the report will console the administrator, encouraging the belief that "something is hap-pening." But it is very unlikely that anything at a!! is happening if the adminis-trator still refuses to implement a "hands-on~ leadership approach by being present to the difficult provincial council--with the report in hand if necessary. Prior to working with the provincial council, the general administrator may well need to visit various people or groups in the. province in order to assess the level of cultural weakness or strength of the membership at large. But g~neral administrators should avoid doing what provincials or local super-iors should do. namely, the pastoral, personal interviews of members. The more general administrators become involved on the personal level, the less time they will have to concentrate on leadership at the level of key groups. The general administration's concern should be primarily for the welfare of the congregation as a whole. Normally, whatever is undertaken by general administrators must have this overall aim in mind. I believe the failure of general administrations to be clear about their primary aim has resulted in the administrators suffering from overwork, stress, even burnout. Again. the advice of George Foster makes sense: "The ethic of helping p~ople change involves.restraint and caution in missionary zeal." Formation staffs in the post-Vatican Church are under particular pressure to work out goals and methods for initial formation. The general administra-tor responsible for formation must be prepared to spend considerable time with formation personnel, encouraging them and working with them to clarify what should be done in light of definite criteria. It might also be necessary to work with provincial councils, of several 836/ Review for Religious, No'v.:Dec., 1984 provinces in an effort to develop something like an interprovincial or interna-tional training center where the best formation staff available can be concen-trated. It is increasingly impossible for congreg~.tions with declining numbers of religious and student candidates to have many formation houses. At the same time, the quality of initial formation will be a major influence on the future health of any congregation. If a reasonable development of the forma-tion program is to take place, the general administrator will.~need to exercise considerable patience, all the while being careful never to give up on the "hands-on, value-driven" approach. The closure of a formation house which has existed for a very long time, for:example, can be a traumatic experience for members of a province. The general administrator may well have to be available for a protracted period to enable their passage through this. difficult time. As regards provincial chapters, it is important for the general administra-tion to be involved, not because it wants to use whatever authority it might still have to insist on changes in legislation, but because chapters, if rightly prepared, provide an entire province with the chance to participate in a com-munal discernment process. The general administration's task will be to encourage provincial councils to adopt the discernment process both by way of preparation and during the actual chapter.S~ If some provinces have uged only parliamentary debating and 16bbying systems, it will not be° easy to convince them' of the advantages of communal discernment processes.52 General administrations have the chance also of bringing to the provinces at such times an overview of religious life in general and of the state of,their own congregation in particular, which provinces are m danger of forgetting their discernment processes. General administratoi's, when presefit at chapters, can help to counter narrow nationalistic or parochial attitudes whiizh can so easily develop in provinces to the detriment of their work of evangelization. Meetings of religious from particular interest groups often attract many of thoseoinvolved in apostolic reflection and innovation. These religious can encourage one another at such meetings, and stimulate the prophetic people among them to new forms of apostolic action. At times, the general administration itself can sponsor regional or interna-tional gatherings of concerned religious to reflect on subjects of fundamental importance for cultural change of the congregation, for example, the charism of the congregation, and its history and relevance for the work of evangeliza-tion, the relationship between the congregation's charism and the Church's call for more involvement in justice and peace issues. There is every chance that from these gatherings will emerge individuals with the type of leadership necessary for the survival and growth of the congregation. Leadership in Preparing the General Chapter The general chapter of a congregation is meant to ~:enew and protect the spiritual patrimony of the institute. It should be ~ moment of grace, of the General Government Todqy ] 837 action of the H01y Spirit in a congregation provided there is adequate prepa-ration, an atmosphere of communal prayerful discernment during the chapter itself, and a planned follow-up after the chapter.53 The task of the general chapter is to challenge the congregation to face the future. For this purpose the goals of the institute must be evaluated (and if necessary, reformulated) in ligh! of changing pastoral needs, of the theology of mission, of the charism of the congregation and its human and spiritual resources. The means to realize these goals must be evaluated and, if necessary, changed. ~For example, the chapter must decide whether or not a congregation of the first or third models described above can realize its apostolic and religious life goals if the central government has little or no authority to complement its leadership role. For the sake of the overall good of the congre-gation, should central government have an important role in the choice of provincials and formation staffs--that is, in the appointment of key change-agents in the congregation? Remember, of course, that in successful business operations the leadership rarely uses authority. But it does use authority to appoint key staff throughout the organization, after considerable consultation of those who know the candidates. But a more fundamental question must be answered by the general chap-ter. What form of government and what kind of authority should it have if t.he congregation is to realize its primary purpose of service to the People of God? No general chapter can face such questions, nor do what it is supposed to do~ without thorough preparation. Too often general chapters are considered the work only of the capitulants, not of the congregation as a whole. When this happens, the general chapter will have little or no practical impact on the religious-life cultural change of the institute. There is' little sense in having a chapter if the whole congregation does not own it from beginning to end, that is, from the time of preparation through to and including the implementation stage. The general administration has a most crucial role to play in stimulating the whole congregation to become involved in preparing for the chapter t~hrough prayer, study, reflection, and dialog.54 This will be a demanding and time-consuming task, especially if the failure of previous general chapters has left people feeling cynical, apathetic, even angry about being invited to be involved in preparatory work. For this reason, it may be necessary for the general administration to initiate the planning of the chapter many months, even a year or two, before the chapter is due to ~begin. The follow-through after the chapter has ended is as important as the preparation, though this stage is likely to be overlooked for two reasons. Capitulants may feel the enthusiasm of the chapter experience itself will be enough to guarantee an automatic post-chapter follow-through by the con-gregation as a whole. But enthusiasm alone at a chapter will ensure, nothing. Secondly, an entirely new general administration may be elected at the chapter. It may not immediately have the skills or the coherence for teamwork 838 / Review for Religious, Nov.-Dec., 1984 even to see that the follow-through stage must be planned and implemented immediately after the chapter. Hence, as a service to the whole congregation, the outgoing administration, drawing on its own experience, could,suggest to the chapter itself or to the new administration several alternative plans for the post-chapter follow-through. , The purpose of religious government is "the building of a united commun-ity in Christ in which God is sought and loved before all things, and the mission of Christ is generously accomplished."55 With this purpose in mind~ the general chapter must elect the superior general and ~the assistants~ The election is a dramatic moment in the cultural-change process of a general congregation, the process in which the institute is trying to deepen its religious-life values. The outgoing general administration cannot, and must not, seek to influence capitulants to vote for certain people. But, if its evangelizing presence has had an.impact over its years of government, then the capitulants will be aware:of what they should expect to find in members chosen for the new administration~ The primary question for the voters should be: Who ,has the leadership qualities necessary to be of service to the whole congregatio, n?°A .person may be able to speak many languages, but if he or she lacks leadership qualities, then voters should automatically consider other candidates. Since general administrators are to be at the service of the whole congregation, the folio.wing question should not even be considered: Will he or she better represent my province? Summary By way of summary, what particular points should general administra-tions be sensitive to if they are to exercise effective leadership? Firstly, culture change is a complex, slow and often painful process, requiring new values, attitudes and behavior patterns. Since revitalization of a religious congregation involves a cultural change, one in which the institute moves from a weak to a strong culture, the process will be slow and painful. The pain will be salvific if individuals and communities approach change in a prayerfully discerning way. Secondly, general administrations are called to lead their congregations to revitalization. They do this by articulating and communicating the values which form the foundation of the religious-life culture change of the congrega-tion. This means that in implementing the "hands-on, value-driven" and '~loose-tight" principles of leadership, general administrators must .resist the temptation to solve problems for people~ Their overriding task is to communi-cate the values in light of which the congregations' members themselves decide ¯ freely what to do. Thirdly, in order to communicate values and to guarantee that they tak+ deeper and deeper roots within the congregation,general administrators must be in as frequent personal contact with provincial administrations and key General Government Today / 839 groups in the provinces as is possible. They cannot lead by remaining in the generalate. Strong administrative discipline is required to prevent central governments from assuming administrative responsibilities that would hinder or prevent general administrators from being in the field. Planned follow-up visits are required by general administrators to provincial councils and other key groups at various stages after important planning sessions have been held. This would help the development of an accountability process. The more successful, over time, that the communication of values is, the less frequent will the visits have to be. Fourthly, implicit in all that has been said is the assumption that the primary concern of the general administrators is the corporate well-being of the congregation. General administrators should not normally take over the personal, pastoral visitations of each religious by the provincials. The more they become personally involved in this type of ministry, themselves, the less time and energy they have for their primary task. Fifthly, general administrators should constantly be on the lookout for potential or actual innovators, prophetic figures, congregational "heroes," who, ~f rightly placed, would have the ability to summon others to reconversion. Conclusion Many general administrations today are confused about how to lead their congregations through the processes of revitalization. It is true that "leader-ship styles of the past will no longer be functional or useful.''56" But the challenges that general administrations face today are not unique to them. Survival and growth are not automatic for secular organizations and busi-nesses either. General administrations of .religious congregations, especially those which need revitalization or reconversion, can learn much from the style and methods of the leaders of successful businesses and other secular organizations¯ ~ General administrators are to lead, not by taking more and more respon-sibilities from the provinces, nor by trying to coerce people into reconversion through the use of some form of authority, but by clarifying, articulating and transmitting the congregation's values and goals to all members. Their task is to build strong religious-life cultures, in which congregational "heroes," inno-vators, refounders, prophets, are valued people. The stress is on working with, not for members of the congregation. The basic and primary skill required of general administrators as leaders is the ability to work with others, first and most of all with each other, so that teamwork emerges, and then with key groups and personnel in the provincesP7 They will be evangelizer~ to their own congregation to the degree that they, as a team and as individuals, are open to evangelization themselves. They must strive to be specialists in their own congregation "in the sense of expe-riencing God more vividly in the following of Christ and making that expe-rience the basis" for the evangelization of their fellow religiousP8 I]40 / Review for Religious, Nov.-Dec., 1984 General administrators need insights from research into leadership, skills and expertise. But we need to be reminded that, as Paul VI notes, while "techniques of evangelization are good, [nonetheless] even the most advanced ones could not replace the gen.tle action of the Spirit. The most perfect prepa-ration of the evangelizer has no effect without the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit the m.ost convincing dialectic has no power over the heart of man. Without him the most highly developed schemas resting on a truly sociglogi-cal or psychological basis are quic, kly seen to be quite valueless."59 NOTES ~See The Church in the Modern World, I. 2See Raymond L. Fitz, S.M. and Lawrence J. Cada. S.M., ~The Recovery of Religious Life" in REVIEW FoR RELIGIOUS, Vol. 34, No. 5, 1975, p. 706. 3Managing in Turbulent Times (London: Pan, 1980), p. 43. 4E. Ward, "Christian Missions--Survival: in What Forms" in International Bulletin of Mission-ary Research. 1982, p. 8. 5Ronald Lippitt, "The Changing Leader-Follower Relationships of the 1980s" in The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Vol. 18, No. 3, 1982, p. 397. 6Amitai Etzioni, An Immodest Agenda: Rebuilding America Before the21st Century (N.Y.: McGraw-Hill, 1983), p. 26f. 7Amitai Etzioni, "U.S. Needs a 'Moral and Social Recovery'" in U.S. News & Worm Report, 9 Jan. 1984, p. 591- SRobert K. Greenleaf, Servant ~Leadership: A Journey into the Nature "of Legitimate Power and Greatness (N.Y.I Paulist Press, 1977). p. 15. 91bid. ~0See Roger Aubert (Ed). Prophets in the Church (N.Y.: Paulist Press, 1968), p. 2. ~Robert K. Greenleaf, op. cit., p. 15. ~2Peter Drucker. op. cit., p. 43. ~3Cited by Thomas~ J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman Jr: In S~arch of Excellence: Lessons from America's,Best-Run Companies (N.Y.: Harper & Row, 1982), p. 104. ~4See James MacGregor Burns, Leadership (N.Y.: Harper & Row, 1978)., ~5(Reading. Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1.9~2), p. 15f. ~Ibid. p. 141. ~71bid, p. 196. A Similar cultural approach to management analysis is to be found in Richard Tanner Pascale and Anthony G. Athos. The Art of Japanese Management (l:ondon: Allen Lane. 1982). ~sOp. cit. ~gThomas J. Peters, "Well-Run Companies: The Secret of Success" in U.S. News & Worm Report, 10 Oct. 1983, p. 74. -'0Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman. Jr. op. cit., p. 291. e :qbid. p. 287. ~-'See op, cit., p. 288. -'3Thomas J. Peiers. "Well-Run Companies: The Secret of Success," p. 74. 24See Thomas J. Peters and Robert,H, Waterman, Jr. op. cit., p. 310. ¯ ~-5Thomas J. Peters, "Well-Run Companies: The Secret of Success," p. 75. -'6See T.homas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr. op. cit. p. 318. 27"A Discussion on Leadership and Autfiority" in Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits (St. Louis: American Assistancy Seminar on Jesuit Spirituality; 1972), Vol. IV. No. 2~, p. 55. ~Slbid, p. 56. -'91bid. p. 58. -~01bid. 3~ Traditional Cultures: And the Impact of Technological Change (N.Y2 ~Harper. 1962), p. 269. This text is further explained by Gerald A. Arbuckle in The Role of Change-Agents in Devel- General Government Today / 1141 opment (Sydney: Action for World Development, 1972). a2Mutuae Relationes (Rome: S.C. for Religious and for Secular Institutes & S.C. for Bishops. !978): par. 10. ~lbid. par. 12 -~2 Co 4:7. 3~Mady A. Thung, The Precarious Organization." Sociological ~cplorations of the Church's Mission and Structur~ (The Hague: Mouton, 1976), p. I. For relevant sociological analyses of Church structures and management, see: Alvin J. Lindgren and Norman Shawchuck, Manage-ment for Your Church: How to Realize ),our Church's Potential Through a Systems Approach (Nashville: Abingdon, 1977); Lyle E. Schaller, Effective Church Planning (Nashville: Abifigdon, 1979); Peter E Rudge, Ministry and Management." The Stud), of Ecclesiastical Administrations (London: Tavistock. 1968). -~6Lk 16:18. 37See Lawrence Cada, 'S.M., Raymond Fit~., S.M., Gertrude Foley. S.C. Thomas Giardino, S.M., and Carol Lichetenberg, S.N.D. de N. Shaping the Coming Age of Religious life (N.Y.: Seabury Pr~ess, 1979), p. 60. ~SFor helpful historical insights ~ee Raymond Hostie, S.J., The Life and Death of Religious Orders: A Psycho-Sociological Approach (Washington: Cara, 1983), pp. 276-281. 39See J. P. Donero, F.S.C. and T. D. Frary, New Responses in Religious Life (N.Y.: Alba House, 1979), pp. 20-22. 4°See Raymond L. Fitz, S.M. and Lawrence J. Cada. S.M., "The Recovery of Rdligious Life." 4~For relevant comments see Thomas More Page, C.F.X., "Managing and Planning Change in Religious Institutes" in REvIEw I:OR REI:~G~OUS, Vol. 31, No. 3, 1972, pp. 386-401. 42The most challenging restatement of this emphasis is to be found in the Apostolic Exhortation of Paul VI, ten years after Vatican II, Evangelii Nuntiandi, 1975, nn. 18, 20, 63. 43Leonardo Boff,,O.F.M~:, God's Witnesses in the Heart of the WorM(Chicago: Claret Center for Resources in Sl~irituality, 1981). p. 226. '~F. J. Moloney, S.D.B., Disciples and Prophets: A Bibfical Model for the Religious Life (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1980), p. 169. 45Quoted by Paul V. Robb, S.J. in "Conversion as a Human Experience" in St.udies in the Spirituality of Jesuits (St, Louis: American Assistancy Seminar on Jesuit Spirituality, 1982), p. 4. ~Op. cir., par. 15. ~TSee for helpful comments.'John Adair, Effective Leadership: A Modern Guide to Developing Leadership Skills (London: Pan Books, 1983). pp. 159-186. ~Sl Co 13:1': 49See Raymond Hostie, S.J., op. cit., p. 277. 5°Jr I:10. ~ For an explanation of the lg.natian method of deliberation, see John C. Futrell, S.J., "Commu-nal Discernment: Reflections on Experience" in Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits (St. Louis: American Assistancy Seminar on Jesuit Spirituality, 1972). ~2Two studies by W. Biddle and L. oBiddle will be helpful to leaders in cultural change: 7~te Community Development Process: The Rediscovdry of LoCal Initiative (N.Y.: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965) and Encouraging Community Development: A Training Guide for Local Workers (N.Y.: Holt, Rineh

Not Available ; The Hon'ble Vice President of India Shri. M. Venkaiah Naidu visited ICAR-Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture (CRIDA), Hyderabad on 3rd July, 2018. He was the Chief Guest for the "Consultative Meeting on Doubling of Farmers' Income in Telangana State and Adjoining Areas". Shri. Md. Mahmood Ali, Deputy Chief Minister, Telangana State was the Guest of Honour. Dr. K. Alagusundaram, Deputy Director General (NRM), ICAR, New Delhi, Shri. C. Parthasarathi, APC & Principal Secretary (Agriculture), Telangana State; Dr. K. Sammi Reddy, Director (Acting), CRIDA; Directors and scientists of local ICAR institutes, senior officials of PJTSAU, senior officials from Telangana State, NGOs, Industrialists, Bankers and progressive farmers participated in the meeting. Hon'ble Vice President addressing participants of consultation meeting Deputy Director General (NRM) Dr. K. Alagusundaram, ICAR, New Delhi welcomed the dignitaries and the participants while briefing about the various rainfed technologies developed by CRIDA for the benefit of farmers of dryland agriculture. Hon'ble Vice President Shri. M. Venkaiah Naidu, chaired the interactive session with scientists, research scholars, farmers and representatives of NGOs. He stated that the multifaceted strategy is needed to protect agriculture as agriculture is now under distress. During interactive session, farmers of Ranga Reddy district mentioned that their farm income has been substantially increased due to the interventions of ICAR-CRIDA, KVKs and SAUs. Book releasing during consultation meeting New Research Initiatives CRIDA was awarded a competitive research project entitled "Innovative and contextual agromet. advisory services for climate smart agriculture" funded by Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Ministry of Earth Sciences under Monsoon Mission-II with budget outlay of the Rs. 311.48 lakhs. ICRISAT and ICAR-IIPR, Kanpur are the partner institutes. Dr. P. Vijaya Kumar, Project Coordinator, AICRPAM, ICAR-CRIDA is the Principal Investigator of this project. Dr. AVM Subba Rao and Dr. Santanu Kumar Bal are the CoPrincipal Investigators from ICAR-CRIDA and Dr. Anthony Whitbread and Dr. R.K. Mishra are the Co-Principal Investigators from ICRISAT and ICAR-IIPR, respectively. CRIDA - Newsletter 2 Minimum tillage with crop residue retention on soil surface produced higher crop yields while maintaining better health of rainfed Alfisol The results of 6 year old experiment on conservation Agriculture (CA) in rainfed Alfisol showed that the surface retention of crop residues @ 2-6 t/ha produced 5-13% higher sorghum yield and 28-45% higher cowpea yield as compared to no residue application control. About 56% higher organic carbon (6.80 g/kg) content was recorded with the application of sorghum stover @ 6 t/ha as compared to control (4.36 g/ kg). The increase in available N with the application of 6t and 4t crop residue was to the extent of 19.5 and 28% respectively while significantly higher contents of soil available P (10.67 kg/ha) and K (288.8 kg/ha) were observed with application of sorghum residue @ 4 t/ha. Significantly higher microbial biomass carbon (MBC) and dehydrogenase activity (DHA) were recorded with the application of sorghum stover @ 4 t/ha. Besides reducing the bulk density, the application of residues had a significant influence on the mean weight diameter (MWD) of the soil aggregates. The highest overall soil quality index (SQI: 9.58) was observed with the residue application @ 6 t/ha. A significant positive relationship was observed between SQI and pooled cowpea seed yield (R2 =0.82) and pooled sorghum grain yield (R2 =0.69). This study also clearly indicated that the adoption of minimum tillage in combination with adequate crop residue cover, the soil moisture increased and soil temperature decreased which in-turn made the crops to withstand the mid season dry spells without much adverse effects. Crop residue retention in the field Development of track width & ground clearance enhancing platform and matching Implements for low horse power tractor A reconfigured platform for small horse power tractor with matching weeding and spraying implements was developed. Such new developments will increase effective use of tractor for weeding and spraying operations in crops like maize, castor, red gram, cotton, chilies etc. The developed platform basically consists of three components (i) Front wheel axle (ii) Rear drive wheel axle and (iii) Reworked steering set system for enhanced track width. The prototype high clearance platform fitted mini tractor matching rotary weeder consists of a main frame with hitch mast, gear box housing with power transmission provision, rotor shaft assembly with soil working tools. The developed boom sprayer unit basically consists (i) Base frame to give support / fix various components (ii) Pump with manifold for flow control and pressure regulation (50 lpm & 30kg / cm2 rating) (iii) Boom with height adjustable frame work and (iv) High pressure hose pipes. The pump gets the required power from tractor. The nozzles on the boom were fitted with spacing adjustable provision to use for different types of rainfed crops. The weeding efficiency of rotary machine varied 74 to 82.5.% and 78.5 to 86.8% for castor and pigeon pea, respectively. In case of maize crop, the weeding efficiency observed to be 73.9%, which was low compared to other two crops due to narrow row spacing. The boom sprayer was operated in cotton crop at two growth stages; the first one at flowering stage (75 DAS) and second operation in bolls expansion stage (90 DAS). The operator can steer the tractor comfortably and sprayer worked satisfactorily. The field capacity of the machine ranged from 1.7 - 2.0 ha/hr. The newly developed implements shown significant advantage in monitory terms when compared with traditional practice of bullock operated blade harrow and hand labour spray operation (15 - 20% lower cost). Track width and ground clearance enhanced platform fitted low horse power tractor with matching weeding and spraying implements Research Highlights July - December, 2018 3 Scientific Activities XXVIIth Research Advisory Committee (RAC) meeting The XXVIIth meeting of the Research Advisory Committee of the institute was held during 10-11 November, 2018 under the chairmanship of Dr. Panjab Singh, former Secretary, DARE & Director General, ICAR. The committee reviewed the progress and recommended for strengthening of farming systems research with horticulture and livestock components, scaling up of NICRA interventions to more villages and restructuring of the institute by creating divisions of Social Sciences and Climate Change. Further, RAC suggested to align the research programmes with the challenges and development needs of dryland farmers. RAC meeting in progress Field Institute Research Council (IRC) meeting Field Institute Research Council (IRC) Meeting for 2018-19 was held on 25th September, 2018 at Gunegal Research Farm (GRF) and on 5th October, 2018 at Hayathnagar Research Farm (HRF) under the chairmanship of Dr. K. Sammi Reddy, Director (Acting). The chairman IRC, Dr. K. Sammi Reddy, Director (Acting), Project coordinators, Heads of Divisions / Sections and scientists visited various experiments and discussed thoroughly on various treatment effects. Interaction during field IRC Various suggestions like displaying of the experimental and treatment boards at the experimental site, periodical monitoring of soil moisture in CA related experiments, rainfall amount, rainy days and crop yields needs to correlated for all the experiments etc., were made in field IRC. Quinquennial Review Team (QRT) Under the Chairmanship of Dr. J.C. Katyal, former Vice Chancellor, CCS Haryana Agriculture University & former DDG (Education), ICAR, two review meetings were conducted. QRT meeting was held during 18-19 June, 2018 at UAS, Bengaluru and reviewed the work done by both AICRPDA and AICRPAM centers located in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala & Tamil Nadu. Another meeting was held at ICAR-CRIDA, Hyderabad during 16-18 August, 2018 to finalize the QRT report. QRT visit to AICRPDA center, Bengaluru Dr. J.C. Katyal presented the salient recommendations of QRT to DG, ICAR and other officials in presence of DDG (NRM) and ADG (A, AF & CC) on 13th September, 2018 at ICAR, New Delhi. Honorable DG, ICAR has appreciated the work done by the QRT. QRT meeting in progress Hindi fortnight celebrations The Hindi fortnight was organized from 1st to 14th September, 2018 at ICAR-CRIDA, Hyderabad. On this occasion, Hindi Noting & Drafting, Hindi-English technical terminology and other Hindi competitions were organized. Winners were awarded on concluding day, 14th September, 2018. CRIDA - Newsletter 4 Interface meeting on agricultural contingencies for Andhra Pradesh In view of the low rainfall and its poor distribution in some parts of Andhra Pradesh, at the behest of ICAR-CRIDA, an interface meeting was organized by ICAR-CRIDA on August 3, 2018 with Department of Agriculture and ANGRAU under the chairmanship of special Commissioner of Agriculture, Government of A.P. to review and develop mid-course action plans for Rayalaseema (Anantapuramu, Kurnool, Kadapa and Chittoor), Prakasham, Nellore and Guntur districts. The participants included Director of Research, ANGRAU, Special Commissioner of Agriculture, A.P., Joint Collector, Kadapa, Senior scientists from ANGRAU, JDAs, ADAs, Scientists from KVKs and farmer representatives. Dr. NV Naidu, Director of Research ANGRAU, conducted the proceedings of the meeting. Dr. KV Rao, ICAR-CRIDA and Dr. S Malleswari, ANGRAU made detailed presentations on current rainfall scenario and forecast for the forthcoming weeks. Sri D. Muralidhar Reddy, Special Commissioner in his address emphasized that department should gear up to rescue the crops in the field, plans to cover unsown area and preparation of documents for early drought declaration procedures. Dr. NDRK Sharma, Consultant, Department of Agriculture, highlighted the implementation of agriculture contingency plans during past years and requested the officers to prioritize the interventions based on the uptake of preferred technology options by the farmers. Sensitization on district agricultural contingency plans for Mizoram In an interface meeting of ICAR-Mizoram State held on 24.09.2018 to sensitize the Senior officers of the State on District Agricultural Contingency Plans (DACPs). This is the first meeting on sensitization of DACPs to senior officials in the North-Eastern states of India. Mr. Lalsawta, Cabinet Minister for Finance & Planning chaired the meeting. Mr. Lalthanliana, Cabinet Minister for Horticulture, LAD & SWD and Mr. Lalmingthanga, Commissioner & Secretary, Agriculture were guests of honour. Secretaries from Horticulture, Sericulture, Animal Husbandry & Veterinary Science; Directors of various line departments; Director, ICAR - Research Complex, NEH Region and Director, ATARI, Umiam also attended the meeting. Dr. N. Prakash presented the technologies developed by ICAR RC for NEH and Dr. Deka highlighted how KVK set up is actively participating in dissemination of technologies. The Commissioner of Agriculture highlighted that only 30% of the food grains are produced in Mizoram. Mr. Lalthanliana mentioned that farming community in Mizoram are facing multi-faceted problems. Mr. Lalsawta emphasized on developing viable alternatives to Jhum cultivation which is responsible for meager yields. Dr. S. Desai, Principal Scientist, ICAR-CRIDA made a presentation on "Sensitization on District Agricultural Contingency Plans to meet the weather aberration impacts on agriculture in Mizoram".The Commissioner & Secretary, Agriculture appreciated the efforts and emphasized on more sensitization about DACPs among district officials. The meeting ended with vote of thanks by Ms. Shakuntala, JD, ICAR Research Complex, Kolasib centre. Contingency Plans Interface meeting in progress Interface meeting at Mizoram July - December, 2018 5 Technology Transfer Hon'ble Prime Minister's interaction with SHGs & women groups at ICAR-CRIDA Web telecasting of Hon'ble Prime Minister's interaction with SHGs & Women's groups was organized by Krishi Vigyan Kendra – Ranga Reddy District, ICAR-CRIDA on 12.07.2018 in KVK Campus, Hayathnagar Research Farm, ICAR-CRIDA. About 74 SHG women from four different villages of Ranga Reddy District, Telangana State participated. The Hon'ble Prime Minister's interaction with SHG women emphasized on improving the economic status of farm families through supporting SHG women by strengthening the Self Help Groups. The Prime Minister highlighted about DAY-NRLM programme (Deen Dayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihood Mission). Almost 30 lakh SHG women are being supported under Mahila Kisan Sashakthikaran Pariyojana (MKSP) to promote sustainable agriculture practices and the objective of Mission Antyodaya is to develop poverty free panchayats. Web telecasting of Hon'ble Prime Minister's interaction with SHGs & women's groups Parthenium awareness week organized Training cum awareness programme on integrated management of Parthenium was organized by KVK-CRIDA, Ranga Reddy District on 21st August, 2018. About 50 participants from Agriculture College, farmers, teaching and extension officials attended the programme. Subject matter specialists from KVK-CRIDA highlighted the technical aspects of Parthenium management, invasion of Parthenium in India, plant physiology-spread, impact and harmful effects of weed on crop, composting of weed. Displayed posters and removed weeds from demo plots and office premises of KVK. National nutrition month organized The theme for National Nutrition Month for 2018 was "Go Further with Food". On this occasion, organized 3 training programmes and method demonstrations i.e. (i) Prevention of anaemia – preparation of low cost nutritious recipes on 6th September, 2018, (ii) Value addition to millet products as food security & income generating activity on 11th September, 2018, (iii) Demonstration on dried green leafy vegetables – different recipes to prevent Iron & Calcium deficiency on 18th September, 2018 in KVK adopted villages Gummadivelli, Kolanguda and Nerrapally, for about 291 women. These programmes involved total 291 women, of which 67 were SC /ST, 224 were others. Distributed 200 drumstick plants as part of National Nutrition Week to women of self help groups. National women farmers' day (Mahila Kisan Divas) & technology day National Women Farmers' Day (Mahila Kisan Divas) and Technology Day was organized by Krishi Vigyan Kendra-Ranga Reddy District, ICAR-CRIDA on 15th October, 2018 at Hayathnagar Research Farm with the participation of women farmers from Ranga Reddy district. Dr. V. Maruthi, Head & Principal Scientist, KVK briefed the importance of the day and women's role in agriculture. Dr. K. Sammi Reddy, Director (Acting), ICAR-CRIDA, presided over as Chief Guest and addressed about the women farmers' role in agriculture, drudgery management practices to be followed by women farmers, nutritional disorders and health issues. Dr. Y. G. Prasad, Director, ATARI, Guest of honour, requested the women farmers to utilize skill training programmes of KVK related to dairy and floriculture and NARI (Nutri sensitive agri-resources and innovations) programme of ICAR through KVK. The resource persons Dr. K. Aruna, Professor and Head (Retd.), AICRP (Home Science) informed the women farmers about the health, nutrition, diet, nutritive value of millets and gave a detailed presentation on nutritional disorders and remedies. Sri DGP Sharma, Senior Executive officer, Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) has explained different schemes in KVIC, loan facilities and Honey production and rearing techniques. Two brochures on Good management practices of chickpea and redgram cultivation, pamphlets on fall army worm in maize, pink bollworm in cotton, hydroponics in fodder cultivation, balanced nutrition diet for livestock were released. Five progressive women farmers and women entrepreneurs from Ranga Reddy District were felicitated on this occasion. National women farmers' day celebration CRIDA - Newsletter 6 World soil day organized ICAR-CRIDA celebrated world soil day on 5th December, 2018 at ICAR- CRIDA under the Chairmanship of Dr. G. Ravindra Chary, Director (In charge), ICAR-CRIDA, Hyderabad. Around 200 participants comprising of students, scientists, technical officers, KVK officials attended the awareness programme. Dr. G. Ravindra Chary explained historical background of World Soil Day, the usage of Soil Health Cards and its interpretation for effective nutrient management in the field crops for sustainable crop yields. Dr. K.L. Sharma, Principal Scientist, educated the participating students about the importance of soils and clarified the doubts raised by the students. The students were sensitized about the importance of soils through demonstrations, posters and exhibits and practical insights to laboratories. On this occasion posters on "Know your soils", "Soil profile" and "Identification of Nutrient deficiencies in Plants and Crops" were displayed for the benefit of the students. Dr. G. Ravindra Chary, Director (In-Charge) addressing students Kisan Diwas organized during Swachhtha Pakhwada KVK-CRIDA, Ranga Reddy District organized one day Kisan Diwas on 23rd December, 2018 as a part of Swachhtha Pakhwada (16-31st December, 2018). Dr. V. Maruthi, Principal Scientist & Head, KVK welcomed the invited farmers from 12 mandals of Ranga Reddy District and enlightened the objectives of the Kisan Diwas. Dr. K. Sammi Reddy, Director (Acting), ICAR-CRIDA, Hyderabad was the Chief Guest. He explained to the farmers about the importance of Swachatha and also emphasized to prepare manure from the wastes generated on farmers' fields. Dr. K. Srinivas, Principal Scientist & OIC, HRF shared experiences on Swachhta initiatives by farmers and civil society officials. Farmers were felicitated based on the initiatives/adoptable measurers expressed during the interaction. SMSs from KVK gave lectures on Good Agricultural Practices in horticulture, agriculture, women empowerment and animal husbandry. Farmers visited demonstration units, exhibition, posters presentation of KVK and gained knowledge. About 107 members including farmers, farm women, ADAs, AOs, AEOs, ATMA officials attended the programme and got handful information with printed literature. Felicitation to farmer during Swachhatha Pakhwada Around 200 farmers including farm women and school going children participated in the awareness campaign of Swachhtha Pakhwada in Farmers First Village. The people were trained in the knowledge about segregation of biodegradable and nondegradable wastes. AICRPs XV Biennial workshop of AICRPAM organized The XVth Biennial workshop of the AICRP on Agrometeorology (AICRPAM) was organized at Regional Agricultural Research Station, University of Agricultural Sciences, Vijayapura, Karnataka during 15-17 November, 2018. Participants of XV Biennial workshop, AICRPAM The objective of the workshop was to review the research progress made during 2017-18 and finalization of the technical program for the year 2018-2020. Monsoon mission II project meeting at ICRISAT Monsoon mission II project meeting was held at ICRISAT, Patancheru, Hyderabad on 10th September, 2018. Dr. Peter Carberry, DG, ICRISAT, Dr. G. Ravindra Chary, Director (In-charge), Dr. P. Vijaya Kumar and Dr. AVM. Subba Rao from AICRPAM, ICAR-CRIDA, Dr. Suryachandra Rao, Associate Mission Director, Shri S.M.D. Jeelani, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune, Dr. Anthony Whitbread, Research Program Director, Dr. AVR Kesava Rao, Dr. K.P.C. Rao and Dr. D. Ram, ICRISAT July - December, 2018 7 National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) Sixth NICRA Annual Review Workshop Organized A two day Annual Review workshop of National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) was inaugurated by Dr. T. Mohapatra, Secretary, DARE & Director General, ICAR at NASC, New Delhi on 7th August, 2018. Chhabilendra Roul, Special Secretary, DARE & Secretary, ICAR, Shri B. Pradhan, FA & Additional Secretary, DARE & ICAR, Dr. K. Alagusundaram, DDG (Agril. Engg. & NRM I/c), Dr. AK Singh, DDG (Agril. Extn.), Dr. Anand Kumar Singh, DDG (Hort. Science & Crop Sciences I/c), Dr. Joykrushna Jena, DDG (Fisheries), Dr. S Bhaskar, ADG (A, AF&CC), Dr. SK Chaudhari, ADG (SWM), Dr. K Sammi Reddy, Director (Acting), ICAR-CRIDA, Hyderabad and NICRA Expert Committee Members viz., Dr. B Venkateswarlu, Ex-VC,Vasantrao Naik Marathwada Krishi Vidyapeeth Krishinagar, Parbhani; Dr. V Praveen Rao, Vice Chancellor, PJTSAU, Hyderabad; Dr. CL Acharya, Ex-Director, ICAR-IISS, Bhopal; Dr. KK Singh, ADG (Farm Engg.), ICAR; Dr. YS Ramakrishna, ExDirector, ICAR-CRIDA, Hyderabad; Dr. HE Shashidhar, Retired Professor of Genetics, UAS, GKVK, Bengaluru; Dr. RC Upadhyay, Principal Scientist (Retd.) NDRI, Karnal; Dr. AG Ponniah, Ex-Director, ICAR-CIBA, Chennai; Prof. UC Mohanty, Professor IIT, Bhubaneswar; Dr. NK Krishna Kumar, Coordinator, Biodiversity International, New Delhi; Dr. Praduman Kumar, Ex-Head, Economics, IARI, New Delhi, Dr. N. Sudhakar, Ex-Director, ATARI and Dr. H. Senapati, Former Dean, OUAT, Bhubaneshwar, Chairmen of Zonal monitoring teams and Directors of NICRA partner institutes participated in the review workshop. Dr. K. Sammi Reddy, Director (Acting), ICAR-CRIDA presented the highlights of achievements of NICRA Project during the last two years (2016-17 to 2017-18). Various events during sixth NICRA annual review workshop participated in this meeting and discussed on developing a farmer-friendly app and web site for disseminating agromet advisories. AICRPDA centres organized stakeholder consultation workshops Stakeholder consultation workshops were organized in the adopted villages by 9 AICRPDA centres viz. Akola, Arjia, Anantapuramu, Bengaluru, Kovilpatti, Phulbani, SK Nagar, Solapur and Vijayapura to discuss on strengthening the traditional rainfed integrated farming systems (TRIFS). Dr. S. Bhaskar, ADG (A, AF&CC), Dr. G. Ravindra Chary, Project Coordinator (AICRPDA), scientists from AICRPs/ICAR Institutes/ SAUs/KVKs, officials from state line departments, ATMA, NGOs and most importantly farmers participated and gave feedback for identifying component-wise suitable interventions for strengthening traditional RIFSs in the respective agroclimatic zones of the centres. Stakeholder workshop in Sunderpura village, Bhilwara district, Rajasthan on 26.10.2018 Stakeholder workshop in Kalenhalli village, Tumkur District, Karnataka on 13.08.2018 CRIDA - Newsletter 8 Important Visitors Ms. Arnella Trent, Senior Crop Analyst, International Production Assessment Division, U.S. Department of Agriculture / Foreign Agriculture Service along with Mr. Dhruv Sood, Agricultural Specialist from U.S. Consulate, Mumbai visited ICAR-CRIDA on 4th September, 2018 to discuss the cotton crop production, planting area and general assessment of the crop in Telangana State. During their visit information regarding dryland agriculture, soils, watershed management and extension activities was exchanged with them. A total of 1637 students from Karnataka, Tamil Nadu & Andhra Pradesh, 40 Scientists from NAARM, Hyderabad, 283 Agricultural Officers from Tamil Nadu & Telangana and 328 farmers from Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh & Tamil Nadu visited ICAR-CRIDA, Hyderabad during the period. Dr. T. Mohapatra in his inaugural address suggested to make the 151 Climate Resilient Villages (CRVs) to CRV Cluster Villages and the need to actively involve State Governments for successful upscaling of CRVs. There were eight Technical sessions under different themes viz., Resilience through Natural Resources Management, Resilience through Crop Improvement and Adaptation, Technology Demonstration Component Session: Lessons from Technology Demonstration and Future Roadmap, Resilience through Adaptation in Horticultural Crops, Pests, Diseases & Pollinators,Assessment of Impacts on Fisheries-Adaptation and Mitigation Options, Vulnerability Assessment, Socio-Economic Impacts and Farm Advisories, Adaptation Strategies for Climate Resilient Livestock Production, Integrated Modeling Framework. Each session chaired by concerned DDGs and co-chaired by NICRA Expert Committee members and concerned ADGs from ICAR, New Delhi. A detailed session-wise recommendations was presented by Dr. M Prabhakar, PI, NICRA, ICARCRIDA, Hyderabad in the plenary session chaired by Dr. K Alagusundaram, DDG (NRM), ICAR. Zonal Monitoring Committee Visits During the period, zonal monitoring committee visits were organized in the KVKs of ATARI zones viz. Guwahati, Barapani, Kolkata, Jodhpur, Jabalpur, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. Zonal monitoring committee's visits to various zones were organized to review the technical progress of different modules like NRM, crop production, livestock & fishery and institutional interventions in the NICRA villages and for making appropriate suggestions for improvement. ZMC with VCRMC members, Dimapur ZMC with VCRMC members, Malda July - December, 2018 9 Visits Abroad Dr. K. Sammi Reddy, Director (Acting), ICAR-CRIDA visited Katowice, Poland to participate in the UNFCCC COP-24/CMP14/ CMA1.3 and to organize the side event at Indian Pavilion at COP24 during 30th November - 5th December, 2018. During the visit, he has organized the Side Event at Indian Pavilion @ COP24 on the theme "Scaling up Adaptation Strategies for Climate Resilient Agriculture" on 5th December, 2018. This side event was Chaired by Dr. Anthony Simons, Director General, World Agroforestry Centre (WAC), Nairobi and Co-Chaired by Prof. N.H. Ravindranath, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru. In this side event Dr. Reddy has presented two papers and Dr. R.S. Sinha, Additional Commissioner (NRM), Department of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare, Government of India presented a paper. The side event was very successful as about 25 Indian and foreign delegates were present. After thorough deliberations, the following conclusions were drawn, • There is a need to revise the vulnerability atlas of India taking into consideration the dimensions and definition of vulnerability and risk in the recent Assessment Report of IPCC. • NICRA project was successful in establishing 151 model climate resilient villages in 151 vulnerable districts. But there is a need to upscale the climate resilient villages in highly and medium vulnerable districts. • There is a need to scaling up successful IFS models developed for different agro-climatic regions of India by taking into consideration the resources available with farmers. Dr. K. Sammi Reddy organizing side event at Indian Pavilion, COP24, Katowice, Poland Dr. Suseelendra Desai, Principal Scientist (Plant Pathology) participated in the Regional Conference on "Role of Soil and Plant Health Towards Achieving Sustainable Development Goals in Asia-Pacific" held during 20-24 November, 2018 at Bangkok, Thailand. APAARI, Department of Agriculture, Thailand and Indian Phytopathological Society jointly organized the conference and the participants included diverse experts from research, development, extension, policy makers, private sectors, professional societies, civil society organizations and donor organizations, to share specific long-term experiences on the neglect of soil and plant health in the Asia-Pacific region. Dr. Desai was invited to deliver a lead lecture on "Potential impacts of climate change on plant pathogens and biocontrol agents and adaptation strategies". He also chaired a technical session on "Plant health management – case studies" along with Dr. GD Sinniah from Sri Lanka. The conference deliberated on soil and plant health aspects in detail and agreed to formulate a group to address these issues in the years to come. Dr. Desai delivering lecture Dr. K.V. Rao, Principal Scientist (Soil and Water Conservation Engineering), Division of Resource Management visited United Kingdom (UK) to participate in Workshop on "Advancing Drought Monitoring, Prediction and Management Capabilities" during 18th - 20th September, 2018 at Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK . CRIDA - Newsletter 10 Forthcoming Events Sl. No. Title of the event Dates 1. XXVI Biennial Workshop of AICRP for Dryland Agriculture, at AICRPDA Bengaluru Centre, UASB 16-19th January, 2019 2. Republic Day 26th January, 2019 3. National Science Day 28th February, 2019 4. ICAR-CRIDA Foundation Day 12th April, 2019 5. IRC meeting 23-25, April, 2019, 9-10th May, 2019 6. World Environment Day 5th June, 2019 DOE sponsored Model Training Course on "Extension Strategies for Participatory Natural Resource Management in Rainfed Agriculture" Model Training Course sponsored by DOE was organised at ICAR-CRIDA during September 24 - October 1, 2018. Twenty eight officials from eight different states viz., Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Goa, Punjab and Karnataka attended the model training course. The course covered various extension strategies of Soil and water conservation measures for enhanced productivity in drylands, Technologies for sustainable NRM in Rainfed areas, Horticulture systems in Rainfed Agriculture for sustainable NRM and enhanced productivity, Enhancing productivity of crops and cropping systems through effective use of natural resources, Farming systems approach for sustainable NRM in drylands, Role of Livestock and their management for enhancing productivity and income in drylands, Gender mainstreaming in NRM, Communication tools and techniques for sustainable NRM. Inaugural session of Model Training Course on "Extension Strategies for Participatory Natural Resource Management in Rainfed Agriculture" ICAR-Short Course on 'Assessment of Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change in Agriculture' A ten day short course on 'Assessment of vulnerability and adaptation to climate change in agriculture', sponsored by the Agricultural Education Division of the ICAR, was conducted during 28th November to 7th December, 2018 at ICAR-CRIDA. The short course has provided the participants with various concepts, approaches and methods used in assessing vulnerability and adaptation. Twenty one participants from five ICAR institutes and eight state agricultural universities participated. A majority of the participants expressed that their expectations from the short course were fulfilled to a large extent. Participants of ICAR Short Course on "Assessment of Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change in Agriculture" KVK Programmes About 34 training programmes were organized during the period July to December, 2018 on different aspects of agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandry, farm mechanization and women empowerment to farmers and farm women from Ranga Reddy district. 1142 farmers and farm women were benefitted from these training programmes. Human Resource Development July - December, 2018 11 Participation in Seminars and Symposia Name of the Personnel Workshop / Seminar / Symposium / Meeting Duration Venue K. Sammi Reddy International Consultation Workshop on Adapting agriculture in semiarid India to a global temperature rise by 1.5 0C. 3-4 October, 2018 WOTR, Pune National Workshop on Sustainability of Indian Agriculture, Natural Resource Perspective with special reference to water. 11 October, 2018 IIWM, Bhubaneswar 83rd Annual Convention of the Indian Society of Soil Science. 27-28 November, 2018 AAU, Anand UNFCCC COP-24 / CMP14 / CMA1.2 Meeting. 30 November to 5 December, 2018 Katowice, Poland G. Ravindra Chary & B.M.K. Raju Brainstorming workshop on "Prioritization of Rainfed Districts in India" organized by NRAA & ICAR-CRIDA. 11-12 December, 2018 NASC, New Delhi C.A. Rama Rao Stakeholders Consultation Meeting on NICRA. 20 July, 2018 NASC, New Delhi Expert consultation meeting for Impact Assessment of the AP Drought Mitigation Project of Govt. of A.P. 14 August, 2018 WASSAN, Hyderabad National Workshop on Promotion of Developing Climate Resilient Villages for Sustainable Food and Nutritional Security. 4-5 October, 2018 MANAGE, Hyderabad 26th Annual Conference of Agriculture Economics Research Association (India) on 'Agriculture and Sustainable Development Goals. 15-17 November, 2018 ICAR-NDRI, Karnal, Haryana Brainstorming meeting conducted by NRAA. 11-12 December, 2018 NASC, New Delhi B.M.K. Raju & R. Nagarjuna Kumar Consultation Meeting on 'Risk and vulnerability of agriculture to climate change: A district level assessment'. 20 July, 2018 NASC, New Delhi B.M.K. Raju 72nd Annual Conference of Indian Society of Agricultural Statistics (ISAS) organized with a broader theme of 'Statistics, Informatics, Engineering Interventions and Business Opportunities: A Road-Map To Transform Indian Agriculture Towards Prosperity' 13-15 December, 2018 ICAR - CIAE, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh Boini Narsimlu International Conference on "Global Water Security for Agriculture and Natural Resources" organized by ASABE USA & ISAE India. 3-6 October, 2018 Hotel, Taj Krishna, Hyderabad R. Nagarjuna Kumar ICAR-ICT Road map. 6 July, 2018 IIMR, Hyderabad National Workshop on Artificial Intelligence in Agriculture: Status and Prospects. 30-31 July, 2018 NASC, New Delhi Josily Samuel and P.K. Pankaj 'Workshop on CLEM-Crop Livestock Enterprise Modelling'. 22-23 October, 2018 ICRISAT, Hyerabad D. Sudheer Indian International Science Festival-Agriculture Conclave. 5 -7 October, 2018 Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh G. Sri Krishna Hands on Training to Master trainers of KVKs on TCS-ICAR-KVK Sandesh. 3 August, 2018 ATARI, Zone X, Hyderabad Training of Trainers for KVKs, SAUs and ICAR institutes. 25-27 September, 2018 PJTSAU, Hyderabad Annual Zonal Workshop of KVKs Zone X 20-22 September, 2018 ATARI-CRIDA G. Nirmala, K. Nagasree & Anshida Beevi C.N. 9th National Extension education Congress on "Climate Resilient Agriculture – Innovations and Technologies" 15-17 November, 2018 CAEPHT, Ranipool, Sikkim CRIDA - Newsletter 12 1. Dr. K. Sammi Reddy, Director (Acting), ICAR – CRIDA was inducted as the Fellow of the Indian Society of Soil Science (ISSS), New Delhi. He received "ISSS Fellow Award" from His Excellency Honorable Governor of Gujarat Shri O.P. Kohli at 83rd Annual Convention of the ISSS held at Anand on 27.11.2018. Dr. K. Sammi Reddy receiving ISSS Fellow Award from Shri O. P. Kohli, Honorable Governor of Gujarat 2. AICRPDA-Vijayapura centre received "ICAR-Vasantrao Naik Award" for Outstanding Research and Application in Dryland Farming Systems for 2017" during ICAR Foundation Day and Award Ceremony on July 16, 2018 at NASC, New Delhi. AICRPDA Vijayapura centre receiving ICAR-Vasantrao Naik Award 3. Dr. G. Ravindra Chary, Project Coordinator (DLA) received "Indian Society of Agronomy Gold Medal Award" on 24.10.2018 during XXI Biennial National Symposium on Doubling Farmers' income through Agronomic Interventions under Changing Scenario at MPUAT, Udaipur, Rajasthan. Dr. G. Ravindra Chary receiving Indian Society of Agronomy Gold Medal Award 4. Dr. G. Nirmala, Principal Scientist (Agril. Extension) & Head, TOT was honored with "SEE Fellow Award" during 9th National Extension Education Congress organized by Society of Extension Education Agra at CAEPHT, Ranipool, Sikkim during 15-17 November, 2018. Dr. G. Nirmala receiving SEE Fellow Award 5. Dr. K. Nagasree, Principal Scientist (Agril. Extension) received "Best Extension Professional Award" during 9th National Extension Education Congress organized by Society of Extension Education Agra at CAEPHT, Ranipool, Sikkim during 15-17 November, 2018. Dr. K. Nagasree receiving Best Extension Professional Award Awards and Recognition July - December, 2018 13 6. Dr. B.M.K. Raju, Principal Scientist (Agril. Statistics) was included as "Member of Task Force" constituted by NRAA, DAC & FW, Govt. of India for 'Prioritization of rainfed districts in India'. 7. Dr. R. Nagarjuna Kumar, Scientist received the "Best Paper Award" for the paper "Spatial Rice Decision Support System (SRDSS) for effective rice crop management", Current Science Vol. 116, No. 3 by IIRR, presented during Annual day Celebrations of IIRR organized at ICAR-IIRR, Hyderabad on 15th December, 2018. 8. Dr. R. Nagarjuna Kumar, Scientist received the "Outstanding Scientist Award 2018" during the International Conference on Agriculture, Horticulture and Food Science held at Hotel Hans, New Delhi during 29-30 December, 2018. 9. Dr. Anshida Beevi C.N., Scientist (Agril. Extension) conferred with "Ganga Singh Chauhan Memorial Award-2018" for outstanding research contributions in the field of Extension Education during 9th National Extension Education Congress organized by Society of Extension Education Agra at CAEPHT, Ranipool, Sikkim during 15-17 November, 2018. Dr. Anshida Beevi C.N. receiving Ganga Singh Chauhan Memorial Award 10. Dr. Anshida Beevi C.N., Scientist (Agril. Extension) received "Best Paper Presentation Award-2018" for the paper "Drudgery Reducing Technologies for Women Empowerment in the Rainfed Areas" during 9th National Extension Education Congress 11. Sri Mula Mahender Reddy of KVK, Chandippa village of Ranga Reddy district received "Best Farmer Award" by Aaj Tak News Channel on 24th October, 2018 for outstanding contribution in "Raised Platform / Elevated Animal Shed in Semi-Intensive Goat Farming". Sri. Mula Mahender Reddy receiving "Best Farmer Award" by Aaj Tak News Channel Personnel Information Appointments / Promotions / Transfers / Joining Name and Designation Joined/ Transferred/ Promoted/ Appointed Date w.e.f Transfers/ Joinings Shri Rajkumar Dhakar, Scientist, ICAR-CRIDA Transferred as Scientist, ICAR- IARI, New Delhi 25.08.2018 Dr. B. Krishna Rao, Principal Scientist, ICAR-CRIDA Joined as Director (A&R), WALAMTARI, Hyderabad on deputation (12.09.2018 to 11.09.2021) 12.09.2018 Dr. A. Amarender Reddy, Principal Scientist Transferred to ICAR-CRIDA, Hyderabad 06.09.2018 Smt. D. Lakshmi Aruna Gayathri T-3 (Farm Assistant) 22.12.2018 Shri Bandi Srikanth Goud T-3 (Farm Assistant) 26.12.2018 Shri Awinash Brahamwanshi T-1 (Fieldman) 28.12.2018 Promotions Shri Rajkumar Dhakar, Scientist (Agricultural Physics) Promoted to next higher pay Rs. 7000/- 02.05.2016 Shri G. Venkatesh, Scientist (Agro-forestry) Promoted to next higher pay Rs. 8000/- 01.01.2014 Promoted to next higher pay Rs. 9000/- 01.01.2017 Shri Sarath Chandran M. A., Scientist (Agricultural Meteorology) Promoted to next higher pay Rs. 7000/- 01.01.2018 CRIDA - Newsletter 14 Cultural and Welfare Activities Swachhtha Pakhwada Swachhtha Pakhwada was celebrated by ICAR-CRIDA during 16-31 December, 2018. The date-wise activities set out in the programme were implemented at ICAR-CRIDA main office, Hayathnagar Research Farm, Gunegal Research Farm and surrounding residential areas and in villages, involving all the employees of ICAR-CRIDA, farmers and civil society members, VIPs, media persons. Swachhtha Pakhwada Celebration at farmers first village The concluding function of Swachhtha Pakhwada was organized on 31st December, 2018. A brief account of the Swachhtha Pakhwada activities carried out from 16th – 31st December, 2018 was presented. Prizes for debate and essay writing competitions held during the fortnight were distributed. The event received good media coverage. Vanamahotsavam ICAR-CRIDA Cultural and Recreation Club organized Vanamahotsavam at Hayathnagar Research Farm of the institute on 20th November, 2018. All the CRIDA staff members actively participated in the cultural activities. The events generated great enthusiasm and unity among staff. Director (Acting), ICAR-CRIDA distributing prizes to winners XIV Meeting of ICAR-CRIDA IJSC Second meeting of XIV IJSC was held on 20th October, 2018 in Director's Committee room under the Chairmanship of Dr. K. Sammi Reddy, Director (Acting) and Chairman, IJSC, ICAR-CRIDA. The meeting was attended by following official side members Dr. K.L. Sharma, Dr. R. Nagarjuna Kumar, Sri B.D. Phansal, CAO, Sri A. Srinivasa Murthy, SFAO and Dr. Ravikanth V. Adake, Official side Secretary and Dr. (Smt.) K. Salini, Scientist (Genetics & Plant Breeding) Promoted to next higher pay Rs. 7000/- 15.09.2015 Dr. Prabhat Kumar Pankaj, Sr. Scientist (Livestock Production & Management) Promoted to next higher pay Rs. 9000/- 08.05.2015 Dr. (Smt.) R. Rejani, Sr. Scientist Principal Scientist 30.08.2017 Dr. S. M. Vidya Sekhar, Chief Technical Officer (T-9) Advance increment 03.02.2017 Dr. (Smt.) D. Anantha V. Rao, Chief Technical Officer (T-9) Advance increment 03.02.2017 Shri Ram Kumar, Assistant Chief Technical Officer (T-7-8) Chief Technical Officer (T-9) 24.02.2018 Shri S. Vijaya Kumar, Senior Technical Officer (T-6) Assistant Chief Technical Officer (T-7-8) 25.10.2015 Shri K. Surender Rao, Chief Technical Officer (T-9) Advance increment 03.02.2017 Shri G. Prabhakar, Senior Technical Officer (T-6) Assistant Chief Technical Officer (T-7-8) 03.11.2017 Appointment Dr. K.L. Sharma Appointed as Vigilance Officer 15.11.2018 ICAR-CRIDA extends best wishes to them Retirements Name Designation Date of superannuation Dr. (Smt). K. Usha Rani Assistant Chief Technical Officer 04.10.2018 Shri B. Anjaiah SSS 31.10.2018 Shri Buchaiah Ennapally Senior Technician 30.11.2018 Shri Jainender Assistant Chief Technical Officer 31.12.2018 Our best wishes for happy and peaceful retired life to all of them July - December, 2018 15 BOOK-POST To _______________________________________ _______________________________________ _______________________________________ Published by : Dr. G. Ravindra Chary, Director (Acting), ICAR-CRIDA Editorial Board Chairman : Dr. K. Sammi Reddy, Head, DRM Editors : Dr. (Mrs.) K. Nagasree, Pr. Scientist (TOT) Dr. P. K Pankaj, Senior Scientist (TOT) Dr. R. Nagarjuna Kumar, Scientist, (SDA) Dr. Anshida Beevi C.N., Scientist, (TOT) Hindi Translation : Dr. P.K. Pankaj, Sr. Scientist, (TOT) Dr. S.R. Yadav, Asstt. Director (OL) Secretarial Assistance : Mrs. M.A. Rekha, PA Photo credits : Mr. K. Surender Rao, CTO ICAR-Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture Santoshnagar, Saidabad PO, Hyderabad - 500 059 Ph: 040-24530157/161/163 Fax: 040-24531802 E-mail: news.crida@icar.gov.in Website: www.crida.in staff side members Sri V. Venunath, CJSC Member, Sri B. Krishna, Secretary, Staff side, Sri S. Ratnashankar Rao, Sri D. Srinivas, Sri A. Mallesh Yadav and Sri S. Shankar Reddy. Agenda points were discussed in the meeting. क्रीडा, हैदराबाद में स्वर्गीय श्री अटल बिहारी वाजपेयी जी, भूतपूर्व प्रधानमं त्री, भारत सरकार का प्रथम मासिक श्रद्धांजलि दिवस आयोजित भारतीय कृ षि अनुसं धान परिषद (आईसीएआर) के दिशा-निर्देशानुसार कें द्रीय बारानी कृ षि अनुसं धान सं स्थान (क्रीडा-CRIDA), हैदराबाद के प्रांगण में रविवार दिनांक 16 सितंबर, 2018 को भारत रत्न स्वर्गीय श्री अटल बिहारी वाजपेयी जी, भूतपूर्व प्रधानमं त्री, भारत सरकार को प्रथम मासिक श्रद्धांजलि दिवस के अवसर पर श्रद्धा सुमन अर्पित किए गए। इस अवसर पर आयोजित विशेष कार्यक्रम में कार्मिको को सं बो ं धित करते हुए सं स्थान के निदेशक महोदय डॉ के सम्मी रेड्डी ने स्व. वाजपेयी जी को महान कवि, समाज सेवी, सर्वप्रिय जननेता तथा देश-विदेश में भारत की छवि को निखारने वाला राजनेता बताते हुए उनके सिद्धांतो को अपनाने पर बल ं दिया। आपने स्व. वाजपेयी के सं घर्षों से परिपूर्ण जीवन का उल्लेख करते हुए देश को नई ऊं चाइयो पर प ं हुंचाने हेतु उन्हेंप्रेरणा स्त्रोत बताया। इस कार्यक्रम में डॉ पी के जैन, वैज्ञानिक-एफ, एआरसीआई, हैदराबाद ने मुख्य अतिथि के रूप में पधारकर वाजपेयी जी की प्रसिद्ध इक्यावन कविताओं का सं क्षिप्त परिचय दिया तथा उनकी श्रेष्ठ कविताओ का ं वाचन करते हुए भावार्थ समझाते हुए वर्तमान परिदृश्य में उनकी उपयोगिता को सिद्ध करते हुए उनके उद्देश्यों का अनुपालन करने का अनुरोध देश्यों किया। आपने कौरव कौन कौन पांडव; ऊं चाई के साथ विस्तार भी हो; मुझे इतनी ऊं चाई कभी मत देना; मौत से ठन गई; सामने वार कर फिर मुझे आजमा; बिखरे नीड; सवेरा है मगर पूरब दिशा में; सच्चाई यह है कि; ऊं चाई; आओ मन की गांठें खोलें; नामक कविताओ का ं विस्त रूप से भा तृ वार्थ समझाया। इस विशेष कार्यक्रम का सं चालन डॉ नागार्जुन कु मार, वैज्ञानिक ने, धन्यवाद ज्ञापन डॉ एस आर यादव ने तथा डॉ पंकज कु मार ने कार्यक्रम के आयोजन में विशेष भूमिका निभाते हुए सं पूर्ण सहयोग प्रदान किया। इस अवसर पर सं स्थान के अधिकांश वैज्ञानिक एवं अन्य कार्मिक उपस्थित थे। South zone sports meet ICAR-CRIDA sports contingent comprising 31 participants and 1 CDM participated in the ICAR South Zone Sports Meet - 2018 organized by ICAR-CTRI, Rajahmundry at DSA stadium, Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh during 5th-9th September, 2018. In this tournament, Mr. B. Kiran Kumar, SSS, secured 1st place in javelin throw and Mr. Mukund, Senior Technical Assistant secured 2nd place in cycling. Mr.B. Kiran Kumar receiving 1st prize in Javelin throw Mr. Mukund receiving 2nd prize in cycling Independence day celebrations The 72nd Independence Day was celebrated on August 15, 2018 with pride and patriotic zeal. The Director hoisted the flag and addressed the staff of CRIDA. In this occasion, Director distributed cash awards (CCS & CCRC) to the X class toppers of CRIDA staff children and motivated the staff with his message to work with dedication and boost institute's growth. Director (Acting), ICAR-CRIDA addressing the staff CRIDA - Newsletter 16 Dr. K Sammi Reddy, Director (Acting), ICAR-CRIDA Small Farm Mechanization is the Key for Successful Adoption of Climate Resilient Technologies by Farmers in Rainfed Areas Over the years, the National Agricultural Research System (NARS) has contributed significantly to development and transfer of technologies for a more viable and sustainable rainfed agriculture. Of late, timely farm operations has become an expensive preposition due to shortage of agricultural labour in rainfed areas. To obtain the proper response from the rainfed crops, small farm mechanization is the key to meet the timeliness of operations in quick session for establishment of crop and enhancing inputs and moisture use efficiency. Realizing the fact, CRIDA and AICRP on dryland agriculture have identified small farm mechanization as one of the prioritized research area and made continuous untiring efforts to develop dryland farm implements. So far, CRIDA has developed nearly 23 dryland farm implements which are being widely adopted by rainfed farmers. More than 3 lakh units of CRIDA BBF Planters have been sold to farmers during the last 5-6 years in states of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana etc. Since about 85% of the rainfed farmers are small and marginal who can't afford to procure farm implements, rainfed farm mechanization is not happening at desired pace. Therefore, CRIDA under its flagship programmes, NAIP and NICRA has conceptualized the Custom Hiring Centre (CHC) and implemented successfully in 151 climate resilient villages (CRVs) of vulnerable districts under NICRA. Suitable farm implements were identified for each CRV through focused group discussions with the farmers pertaining to their farm operations. To oversee the requirements, service and maintenance aspects of these machines, a village climate risk management committees (VCRMC) have been constituted. This approach has showed many positive results in enhancing the crop productivity in climate resilient village clusters due to timely availability of improved implements at affordable cost for the small and marginal farmers in their own village or nearby village. Dr. K. Sammi Reddy, Director (Acting), ICAR-CRIDA From the Director's Desk . निदेशक की कलम से ……… वर्षा आधारित क्षेत्रों में क षेत्रों िसानो द्ं वारा जलवायु समुत्‍थान प्रौद्योगिकियो को सफलतापू ं र्वक अपनाने में छोटे कृषि यंत्रों कत्रों ी मुख्‍य भूमिका पिछले कु छ वर्षों में, राषटरीट्य कृ षि अनुसं धान प्रणाली (एनएआरएस) ने अधिक व्‍यवहार्य एवं टिकाऊ वर्षा आधारित कृ षि के लिए प्रौद्योगिकियो के ं विकास एवं हस्‍तांतरण में महत्‍वपूर्ण योगदान दिया है। वर्षा आधारित कृ षि में कृ षि श्रमिको कं ी कमी के कारण कृ षि कार्यों में देरी से कृ षि कार्य अधिक खर्चीला होता जा रहा है। वर्षा आधारित फसलो कं ी सही प्रतिक्रिया के लिए, फसलो कं ी बुआई एवं निवेशो तथा नमी उपयोग ं क्षमता को बढ़ाने के लिए सत्र में समयबद्ध रूप से कृ षि कार्यों को पूरा करने में छोटे कृ षि यंत्रों कत्रों ी प्रमुख भूमिका होती है। इस बात को ध्‍यान में रखते हुए, क्रीडा एवं अखिल भारतीय समन्वित बारानी कृ षि अनुसं धान परियोजना ने छोटे कृ षि यंत्रों को त्रों प्राथमिक अनुसं धान क्षेत्र के रूप में पहचाना है एवं बारानी कृ षि उपकरणों के विकास में निरंतर अथक प्रयास जारी है। अब तक, क्रीडा द्वारा करीब 23 बारानी कृ षि उपकरणो का ं विकास किया गया है जिन्‍हें वर्षा आधारित किसानो द्ं वारा व्‍यापक रूप से अपनाया जा रहा है। महाराष्‍ट्र, मध्‍यप्रदेश, तेलंगाना आदि राज्‍यों में ्‍यों पिछले 5-6 वर्षों के दौरान क्रीडा बीबीएफ प्‍लांटरों की 3 लाख से अधिक इकाइयां बेची जा चुकी हैं। करीब 85 प्रतिशत वर्षा आधारित किसान छोटे एवं सीमांत हैं जो कृ षि उपकरणो को खरीद नही ं ं सकते, जिसके कारण वांछित गति से वर्षा आधारित क्षेत्रों में यां क्षेत्रों त्रिकीकरण नही हो पा रहा है। अत: क्रीडा के ं प्रमुख कार्यक्रमो के अंत ं र्गत एनएआईपी एवं निक्रा ने कस्‍टम हायरिं ग केंद्र की अवधारणा को अपनाते हुए निक्रा के अतिसंवेदनशील जिलो के 151 जल ं वायु समुत्‍थान गांवो (सीआर ं वी) में इसे सफलतापूर्वक कार्यान्वित किया है। उपयुक्‍त कृ षि उपकरणो कं ी पहचान प्रत्येक जलवायु समुत्‍थान गांव के कृ षि कार्य में जुड़ेकिसानो से ं विचारविमर्श के उपरांत की गई है। इन उपकरणो कं ी आवश्‍यकताओ, से ं वाओं एवं रख-रखाव के विभिन्‍न पहलूओ को पूरा करने के ल ं िए, गांव जलवायु जोखिम प्रबं धन समितियो (ं वीसीआरएमसी) का गठन किया गया है। इस कदम से कई सकारात्‍मक परिणाम देखने में आए हैं जैसे कि उनके अपने गांव या समीपवर्ती गांव में छोटे एवं सीमांत किसानो को सही समय पर उन्नत ं उपकरण सस्‍ती कीमतो पर उपलब् ं ‍ध होने के कारण जलवायु समुत्‍थान गांवों की फसलो कं ी उत्पादकता में बढ़ोत्‍तरी हुई है। डाॅ. के . सम्मी रेड्डी, निदेशक (कार्यकारी), भाकृ अनुप-क्रीड ; Not Available

Not Available ; The Hon'ble Vice President of India Shri. M. Venkaiah Naidu visited ICAR-Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture (CRIDA), Hyderabad on 3rd July, 2018. He was the Chief Guest for the "Consultative Meeting on Doubling of Farmers' Income in Telangana State and Adjoining Areas". Shri. Md. Mahmood Ali, Deputy Chief Minister, Telangana State was the Guest of Honour. Dr. K. Alagusundaram, Deputy Director General (NRM), ICAR, New Delhi, Shri. C. Parthasarathi, APC & Principal Secretary (Agriculture), Telangana State; Dr. K. Sammi Reddy, Director (Acting), CRIDA; Directors and scientists of local ICAR institutes, senior officials of PJTSAU, senior officials from Telangana State, NGOs, Industrialists, Bankers and progressive farmers participated in the meeting. Hon'ble Vice President addressing participants of consultation meeting Deputy Director General (NRM) Dr. K. Alagusundaram, ICAR, New Delhi welcomed the dignitaries and the participants while briefing about the various rainfed technologies developed by CRIDA for the benefit of farmers of dryland agriculture. Hon'ble Vice President Shri. M. Venkaiah Naidu, chaired the interactive session with scientists, research scholars, farmers and representatives of NGOs. He stated that the multifaceted strategy is needed to protect agriculture as agriculture is now under distress. During interactive session, farmers of Ranga Reddy district mentioned that their farm income has been substantially increased due to the interventions of ICAR-CRIDA, KVKs and SAUs. Book releasing during consultation meeting New Research Initiatives CRIDA was awarded a competitive research project entitled "Innovative and contextual agromet. advisory services for climate smart agriculture" funded by Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Ministry of Earth Sciences under Monsoon Mission-II with budget outlay of the Rs. 311.48 lakhs. ICRISAT and ICAR-IIPR, Kanpur are the partner institutes. Dr. P. Vijaya Kumar, Project Coordinator, AICRPAM, ICAR-CRIDA is the Principal Investigator of this project. Dr. AVM Subba Rao and Dr. Santanu Kumar Bal are the CoPrincipal Investigators from ICAR-CRIDA and Dr. Anthony Whitbread and Dr. R.K. Mishra are the Co-Principal Investigators from ICRISAT and ICAR-IIPR, respectively. CRIDA - Newsletter 2 Minimum tillage with crop residue retention on soil surface produced higher crop yields while maintaining better health of rainfed Alfisol The results of 6 year old experiment on conservation Agriculture (CA) in rainfed Alfisol showed that the surface retention of crop residues @ 2-6 t/ha produced 5-13% higher sorghum yield and 28-45% higher cowpea yield as compared to no residue application control. About 56% higher organic carbon (6.80 g/kg) content was recorded with the application of sorghum stover @ 6 t/ha as compared to control (4.36 g/ kg). The increase in available N with the application of 6t and 4t crop residue was to the extent of 19.5 and 28% respectively while significantly higher contents of soil available P (10.67 kg/ha) and K (288.8 kg/ha) were observed with application of sorghum residue @ 4 t/ha. Significantly higher microbial biomass carbon (MBC) and dehydrogenase activity (DHA) were recorded with the application of sorghum stover @ 4 t/ha. Besides reducing the bulk density, the application of residues had a significant influence on the mean weight diameter (MWD) of the soil aggregates. The highest overall soil quality index (SQI: 9.58) was observed with the residue application @ 6 t/ha. A significant positive relationship was observed between SQI and pooled cowpea seed yield (R2 =0.82) and pooled sorghum grain yield (R2 =0.69). This study also clearly indicated that the adoption of minimum tillage in combination with adequate crop residue cover, the soil moisture increased and soil temperature decreased which in-turn made the crops to withstand the mid season dry spells without much adverse effects. Crop residue retention in the field Development of track width & ground clearance enhancing platform and matching Implements for low horse power tractor A reconfigured platform for small horse power tractor with matching weeding and spraying implements was developed. Such new developments will increase effective use of tractor for weeding and spraying operations in crops like maize, castor, red gram, cotton, chilies etc. The developed platform basically consists of three components (i) Front wheel axle (ii) Rear drive wheel axle and (iii) Reworked steering set system for enhanced track width. The prototype high clearance platform fitted mini tractor matching rotary weeder consists of a main frame with hitch mast, gear box housing with power transmission provision, rotor shaft assembly with soil working tools. The developed boom sprayer unit basically consists (i) Base frame to give support / fix various components (ii) Pump with manifold for flow control and pressure regulation (50 lpm & 30kg / cm2 rating) (iii) Boom with height adjustable frame work and (iv) High pressure hose pipes. The pump gets the required power from tractor. The nozzles on the boom were fitted with spacing adjustable provision to use for different types of rainfed crops. The weeding efficiency of rotary machine varied 74 to 82.5.% and 78.5 to 86.8% for castor and pigeon pea, respectively. In case of maize crop, the weeding efficiency observed to be 73.9%, which was low compared to other two crops due to narrow row spacing. The boom sprayer was operated in cotton crop at two growth stages; the first one at flowering stage (75 DAS) and second operation in bolls expansion stage (90 DAS). The operator can steer the tractor comfortably and sprayer worked satisfactorily. The field capacity of the machine ranged from 1.7 - 2.0 ha/hr. The newly developed implements shown significant advantage in monitory terms when compared with traditional practice of bullock operated blade harrow and hand labour spray operation (15 - 20% lower cost). Track width and ground clearance enhanced platform fitted low horse power tractor with matching weeding and spraying implements Research Highlights July - December, 2018 3 Scientific Activities XXVIIth Research Advisory Committee (RAC) meeting The XXVIIth meeting of the Research Advisory Committee of the institute was held during 10-11 November, 2018 under the chairmanship of Dr. Panjab Singh, former Secretary, DARE & Director General, ICAR. The committee reviewed the progress and recommended for strengthening of farming systems research with horticulture and livestock components, scaling up of NICRA interventions to more villages and restructuring of the institute by creating divisions of Social Sciences and Climate Change. Further, RAC suggested to align the research programmes with the challenges and development needs of dryland farmers. RAC meeting in progress Field Institute Research Council (IRC) meeting Field Institute Research Council (IRC) Meeting for 2018-19 was held on 25th September, 2018 at Gunegal Research Farm (GRF) and on 5th October, 2018 at Hayathnagar Research Farm (HRF) under the chairmanship of Dr. K. Sammi Reddy, Director (Acting). The chairman IRC, Dr. K. Sammi Reddy, Director (Acting), Project coordinators, Heads of Divisions / Sections and scientists visited various experiments and discussed thoroughly on various treatment effects. Interaction during field IRC Various suggestions like displaying of the experimental and treatment boards at the experimental site, periodical monitoring of soil moisture in CA related experiments, rainfall amount, rainy days and crop yields needs to correlated for all the experiments etc., were made in field IRC. Quinquennial Review Team (QRT) Under the Chairmanship of Dr. J.C. Katyal, former Vice Chancellor, CCS Haryana Agriculture University & former DDG (Education), ICAR, two review meetings were conducted. QRT meeting was held during 18-19 June, 2018 at UAS, Bengaluru and reviewed the work done by both AICRPDA and AICRPAM centers located in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala & Tamil Nadu. Another meeting was held at ICAR-CRIDA, Hyderabad during 16-18 August, 2018 to finalize the QRT report. QRT visit to AICRPDA center, Bengaluru Dr. J.C. Katyal presented the salient recommendations of QRT to DG, ICAR and other officials in presence of DDG (NRM) and ADG (A, AF & CC) on 13th September, 2018 at ICAR, New Delhi. Honorable DG, ICAR has appreciated the work done by the QRT. QRT meeting in progress Hindi fortnight celebrations The Hindi fortnight was organized from 1st to 14th September, 2018 at ICAR-CRIDA, Hyderabad. On this occasion, Hindi Noting & Drafting, Hindi-English technical terminology and other Hindi competitions were organized. Winners were awarded on concluding day, 14th September, 2018. CRIDA - Newsletter 4 Interface meeting on agricultural contingencies for Andhra Pradesh In view of the low rainfall and its poor distribution in some parts of Andhra Pradesh, at the behest of ICAR-CRIDA, an interface meeting was organized by ICAR-CRIDA on August 3, 2018 with Department of Agriculture and ANGRAU under the chairmanship of special Commissioner of Agriculture, Government of A.P. to review and develop mid-course action plans for Rayalaseema (Anantapuramu, Kurnool, Kadapa and Chittoor), Prakasham, Nellore and Guntur districts. The participants included Director of Research, ANGRAU, Special Commissioner of Agriculture, A.P., Joint Collector, Kadapa, Senior scientists from ANGRAU, JDAs, ADAs, Scientists from KVKs and farmer representatives. Dr. NV Naidu, Director of Research ANGRAU, conducted the proceedings of the meeting. Dr. KV Rao, ICAR-CRIDA and Dr. S Malleswari, ANGRAU made detailed presentations on current rainfall scenario and forecast for the forthcoming weeks. Sri D. Muralidhar Reddy, Special Commissioner in his address emphasized that department should gear up to rescue the crops in the field, plans to cover unsown area and preparation of documents for early drought declaration procedures. Dr. NDRK Sharma, Consultant, Department of Agriculture, highlighted the implementation of agriculture contingency plans during past years and requested the officers to prioritize the interventions based on the uptake of preferred technology options by the farmers. Sensitization on district agricultural contingency plans for Mizoram In an interface meeting of ICAR-Mizoram State held on 24.09.2018 to sensitize the Senior officers of the State on District Agricultural Contingency Plans (DACPs). This is the first meeting on sensitization of DACPs to senior officials in the North-Eastern states of India. Mr. Lalsawta, Cabinet Minister for Finance & Planning chaired the meeting. Mr. Lalthanliana, Cabinet Minister for Horticulture, LAD & SWD and Mr. Lalmingthanga, Commissioner & Secretary, Agriculture were guests of honour. Secretaries from Horticulture, Sericulture, Animal Husbandry & Veterinary Science; Directors of various line departments; Director, ICAR - Research Complex, NEH Region and Director, ATARI, Umiam also attended the meeting. Dr. N. Prakash presented the technologies developed by ICAR RC for NEH and Dr. Deka highlighted how KVK set up is actively participating in dissemination of technologies. The Commissioner of Agriculture highlighted that only 30% of the food grains are produced in Mizoram. Mr. Lalthanliana mentioned that farming community in Mizoram are facing multi-faceted problems. Mr. Lalsawta emphasized on developing viable alternatives to Jhum cultivation which is responsible for meager yields. Dr. S. Desai, Principal Scientist, ICAR-CRIDA made a presentation on "Sensitization on District Agricultural Contingency Plans to meet the weather aberration impacts on agriculture in Mizoram".The Commissioner & Secretary, Agriculture appreciated the efforts and emphasized on more sensitization about DACPs among district officials. The meeting ended with vote of thanks by Ms. Shakuntala, JD, ICAR Research Complex, Kolasib centre. Contingency Plans Interface meeting in progress Interface meeting at Mizoram July - December, 2018 5 Technology Transfer Hon'ble Prime Minister's interaction with SHGs & women groups at ICAR-CRIDA Web telecasting of Hon'ble Prime Minister's interaction with SHGs & Women's groups was organized by Krishi Vigyan Kendra – Ranga Reddy District, ICAR-CRIDA on 12.07.2018 in KVK Campus, Hayathnagar Research Farm, ICAR-CRIDA. About 74 SHG women from four different villages of Ranga Reddy District, Telangana State participated. The Hon'ble Prime Minister's interaction with SHG women emphasized on improving the economic status of farm families through supporting SHG women by strengthening the Self Help Groups. The Prime Minister highlighted about DAY-NRLM programme (Deen Dayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihood Mission). Almost 30 lakh SHG women are being supported under Mahila Kisan Sashakthikaran Pariyojana (MKSP) to promote sustainable agriculture practices and the objective of Mission Antyodaya is to develop poverty free panchayats. Web telecasting of Hon'ble Prime Minister's interaction with SHGs & women's groups Parthenium awareness week organized Training cum awareness programme on integrated management of Parthenium was organized by KVK-CRIDA, Ranga Reddy District on 21st August, 2018. About 50 participants from Agriculture College, farmers, teaching and extension officials attended the programme. Subject matter specialists from KVK-CRIDA highlighted the technical aspects of Parthenium management, invasion of Parthenium in India, plant physiology-spread, impact and harmful effects of weed on crop, composting of weed. Displayed posters and removed weeds from demo plots and office premises of KVK. National nutrition month organized The theme for National Nutrition Month for 2018 was "Go Further with Food". On this occasion, organized 3 training programmes and method demonstrations i.e. (i) Prevention of anaemia – preparation of low cost nutritious recipes on 6th September, 2018, (ii) Value addition to millet products as food security & income generating activity on 11th September, 2018, (iii) Demonstration on dried green leafy vegetables – different recipes to prevent Iron & Calcium deficiency on 18th September, 2018 in KVK adopted villages Gummadivelli, Kolanguda and Nerrapally, for about 291 women. These programmes involved total 291 women, of which 67 were SC /ST, 224 were others. Distributed 200 drumstick plants as part of National Nutrition Week to women of self help groups. National women farmers' day (Mahila Kisan Divas) & technology day National Women Farmers' Day (Mahila Kisan Divas) and Technology Day was organized by Krishi Vigyan Kendra-Ranga Reddy District, ICAR-CRIDA on 15th October, 2018 at Hayathnagar Research Farm with the participation of women farmers from Ranga Reddy district. Dr. V. Maruthi, Head & Principal Scientist, KVK briefed the importance of the day and women's role in agriculture. Dr. K. Sammi Reddy, Director (Acting), ICAR-CRIDA, presided over as Chief Guest and addressed about the women farmers' role in agriculture, drudgery management practices to be followed by women farmers, nutritional disorders and health issues. Dr. Y. G. Prasad, Director, ATARI, Guest of honour, requested the women farmers to utilize skill training programmes of KVK related to dairy and floriculture and NARI (Nutri sensitive agri-resources and innovations) programme of ICAR through KVK. The resource persons Dr. K. Aruna, Professor and Head (Retd.), AICRP (Home Science) informed the women farmers about the health, nutrition, diet, nutritive value of millets and gave a detailed presentation on nutritional disorders and remedies. Sri DGP Sharma, Senior Executive officer, Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) has explained different schemes in KVIC, loan facilities and Honey production and rearing techniques. Two brochures on Good management practices of chickpea and redgram cultivation, pamphlets on fall army worm in maize, pink bollworm in cotton, hydroponics in fodder cultivation, balanced nutrition diet for livestock were released. Five progressive women farmers and women entrepreneurs from Ranga Reddy District were felicitated on this occasion. National women farmers' day celebration CRIDA - Newsletter 6 World soil day organized ICAR-CRIDA celebrated world soil day on 5th December, 2018 at ICAR- CRIDA under the Chairmanship of Dr. G. Ravindra Chary, Director (In charge), ICAR-CRIDA, Hyderabad. Around 200 participants comprising of students, scientists, technical officers, KVK officials attended the awareness programme. Dr. G. Ravindra Chary explained historical background of World Soil Day, the usage of Soil Health Cards and its interpretation for effective nutrient management in the field crops for sustainable crop yields. Dr. K.L. Sharma, Principal Scientist, educated the participating students about the importance of soils and clarified the doubts raised by the students. The students were sensitized about the importance of soils through demonstrations, posters and exhibits and practical insights to laboratories. On this occasion posters on "Know your soils", "Soil profile" and "Identification of Nutrient deficiencies in Plants and Crops" were displayed for the benefit of the students. Dr. G. Ravindra Chary, Director (In-Charge) addressing students Kisan Diwas organized during Swachhtha Pakhwada KVK-CRIDA, Ranga Reddy District organized one day Kisan Diwas on 23rd December, 2018 as a part of Swachhtha Pakhwada (16-31st December, 2018). Dr. V. Maruthi, Principal Scientist & Head, KVK welcomed the invited farmers from 12 mandals of Ranga Reddy District and enlightened the objectives of the Kisan Diwas. Dr. K. Sammi Reddy, Director (Acting), ICAR-CRIDA, Hyderabad was the Chief Guest. He explained to the farmers about the importance of Swachatha and also emphasized to prepare manure from the wastes generated on farmers' fields. Dr. K. Srinivas, Principal Scientist & OIC, HRF shared experiences on Swachhta initiatives by farmers and civil society officials. Farmers were felicitated based on the initiatives/adoptable measurers expressed during the interaction. SMSs from KVK gave lectures on Good Agricultural Practices in horticulture, agriculture, women empowerment and animal husbandry. Farmers visited demonstration units, exhibition, posters presentation of KVK and gained knowledge. About 107 members including farmers, farm women, ADAs, AOs, AEOs, ATMA officials attended the programme and got handful information with printed literature. Felicitation to farmer during Swachhatha Pakhwada Around 200 farmers including farm women and school going children participated in the awareness campaign of Swachhtha Pakhwada in Farmers First Village. The people were trained in the knowledge about segregation of biodegradable and nondegradable wastes. AICRPs XV Biennial workshop of AICRPAM organized The XVth Biennial workshop of the AICRP on Agrometeorology (AICRPAM) was organized at Regional Agricultural Research Station, University of Agricultural Sciences, Vijayapura, Karnataka during 15-17 November, 2018. Participants of XV Biennial workshop, AICRPAM The objective of the workshop was to review the research progress made during 2017-18 and finalization of the technical program for the year 2018-2020. Monsoon mission II project meeting at ICRISAT Monsoon mission II project meeting was held at ICRISAT, Patancheru, Hyderabad on 10th September, 2018. Dr. Peter Carberry, DG, ICRISAT, Dr. G. Ravindra Chary, Director (In-charge), Dr. P. Vijaya Kumar and Dr. AVM. Subba Rao from AICRPAM, ICAR-CRIDA, Dr. Suryachandra Rao, Associate Mission Director, Shri S.M.D. Jeelani, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune, Dr. Anthony Whitbread, Research Program Director, Dr. AVR Kesava Rao, Dr. K.P.C. Rao and Dr. D. Ram, ICRISAT July - December, 2018 7 National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) Sixth NICRA Annual Review Workshop Organized A two day Annual Review workshop of National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) was inaugurated by Dr. T. Mohapatra, Secretary, DARE & Director General, ICAR at NASC, New Delhi on 7th August, 2018. Chhabilendra Roul, Special Secretary, DARE & Secretary, ICAR, Shri B. Pradhan, FA & Additional Secretary, DARE & ICAR, Dr. K. Alagusundaram, DDG (Agril. Engg. & NRM I/c), Dr. AK Singh, DDG (Agril. Extn.), Dr. Anand Kumar Singh, DDG (Hort. Science & Crop Sciences I/c), Dr. Joykrushna Jena, DDG (Fisheries), Dr. S Bhaskar, ADG (A, AF&CC), Dr. SK Chaudhari, ADG (SWM), Dr. K Sammi Reddy, Director (Acting), ICAR-CRIDA, Hyderabad and NICRA Expert Committee Members viz., Dr. B Venkateswarlu, Ex-VC,Vasantrao Naik Marathwada Krishi Vidyapeeth Krishinagar, Parbhani; Dr. V Praveen Rao, Vice Chancellor, PJTSAU, Hyderabad; Dr. CL Acharya, Ex-Director, ICAR-IISS, Bhopal; Dr. KK Singh, ADG (Farm Engg.), ICAR; Dr. YS Ramakrishna, ExDirector, ICAR-CRIDA, Hyderabad; Dr. HE Shashidhar, Retired Professor of Genetics, UAS, GKVK, Bengaluru; Dr. RC Upadhyay, Principal Scientist (Retd.) NDRI, Karnal; Dr. AG Ponniah, Ex-Director, ICAR-CIBA, Chennai; Prof. UC Mohanty, Professor IIT, Bhubaneswar; Dr. NK Krishna Kumar, Coordinator, Biodiversity International, New Delhi; Dr. Praduman Kumar, Ex-Head, Economics, IARI, New Delhi, Dr. N. Sudhakar, Ex-Director, ATARI and Dr. H. Senapati, Former Dean, OUAT, Bhubaneshwar, Chairmen of Zonal monitoring teams and Directors of NICRA partner institutes participated in the review workshop. Dr. K. Sammi Reddy, Director (Acting), ICAR-CRIDA presented the highlights of achievements of NICRA Project during the last two years (2016-17 to 2017-18). Various events during sixth NICRA annual review workshop participated in this meeting and discussed on developing a farmer-friendly app and web site for disseminating agromet advisories. AICRPDA centres organized stakeholder consultation workshops Stakeholder consultation workshops were organized in the adopted villages by 9 AICRPDA centres viz. Akola, Arjia, Anantapuramu, Bengaluru, Kovilpatti, Phulbani, SK Nagar, Solapur and Vijayapura to discuss on strengthening the traditional rainfed integrated farming systems (TRIFS). Dr. S. Bhaskar, ADG (A, AF&CC), Dr. G. Ravindra Chary, Project Coordinator (AICRPDA), scientists from AICRPs/ICAR Institutes/ SAUs/KVKs, officials from state line departments, ATMA, NGOs and most importantly farmers participated and gave feedback for identifying component-wise suitable interventions for strengthening traditional RIFSs in the respective agroclimatic zones of the centres. Stakeholder workshop in Sunderpura village, Bhilwara district, Rajasthan on 26.10.2018 Stakeholder workshop in Kalenhalli village, Tumkur District, Karnataka on 13.08.2018 CRIDA - Newsletter 8 Important Visitors Ms. Arnella Trent, Senior Crop Analyst, International Production Assessment Division, U.S. Department of Agriculture / Foreign Agriculture Service along with Mr. Dhruv Sood, Agricultural Specialist from U.S. Consulate, Mumbai visited ICAR-CRIDA on 4th September, 2018 to discuss the cotton crop production, planting area and general assessment of the crop in Telangana State. During their visit information regarding dryland agriculture, soils, watershed management and extension activities was exchanged with them. A total of 1637 students from Karnataka, Tamil Nadu & Andhra Pradesh, 40 Scientists from NAARM, Hyderabad, 283 Agricultural Officers from Tamil Nadu & Telangana and 328 farmers from Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh & Tamil Nadu visited ICAR-CRIDA, Hyderabad during the period. Dr. T. Mohapatra in his inaugural address suggested to make the 151 Climate Resilient Villages (CRVs) to CRV Cluster Villages and the need to actively involve State Governments for successful upscaling of CRVs. There were eight Technical sessions under different themes viz., Resilience through Natural Resources Management, Resilience through Crop Improvement and Adaptation, Technology Demonstration Component Session: Lessons from Technology Demonstration and Future Roadmap, Resilience through Adaptation in Horticultural Crops, Pests, Diseases & Pollinators,Assessment of Impacts on Fisheries-Adaptation and Mitigation Options, Vulnerability Assessment, Socio-Economic Impacts and Farm Advisories, Adaptation Strategies for Climate Resilient Livestock Production, Integrated Modeling Framework. Each session chaired by concerned DDGs and co-chaired by NICRA Expert Committee members and concerned ADGs from ICAR, New Delhi. A detailed session-wise recommendations was presented by Dr. M Prabhakar, PI, NICRA, ICARCRIDA, Hyderabad in the plenary session chaired by Dr. K Alagusundaram, DDG (NRM), ICAR. Zonal Monitoring Committee Visits During the period, zonal monitoring committee visits were organized in the KVKs of ATARI zones viz. Guwahati, Barapani, Kolkata, Jodhpur, Jabalpur, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. Zonal monitoring committee's visits to various zones were organized to review the technical progress of different modules like NRM, crop production, livestock & fishery and institutional interventions in the NICRA villages and for making appropriate suggestions for improvement. ZMC with VCRMC members, Dimapur ZMC with VCRMC members, Malda July - December, 2018 9 Visits Abroad Dr. K. Sammi Reddy, Director (Acting), ICAR-CRIDA visited Katowice, Poland to participate in the UNFCCC COP-24/CMP14/ CMA1.3 and to organize the side event at Indian Pavilion at COP24 during 30th November - 5th December, 2018. During the visit, he has organized the Side Event at Indian Pavilion @ COP24 on the theme "Scaling up Adaptation Strategies for Climate Resilient Agriculture" on 5th December, 2018. This side event was Chaired by Dr. Anthony Simons, Director General, World Agroforestry Centre (WAC), Nairobi and Co-Chaired by Prof. N.H. Ravindranath, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru. In this side event Dr. Reddy has presented two papers and Dr. R.S. Sinha, Additional Commissioner (NRM), Department of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare, Government of India presented a paper. The side event was very successful as about 25 Indian and foreign delegates were present. After thorough deliberations, the following conclusions were drawn, • There is a need to revise the vulnerability atlas of India taking into consideration the dimensions and definition of vulnerability and risk in the recent Assessment Report of IPCC. • NICRA project was successful in establishing 151 model climate resilient villages in 151 vulnerable districts. But there is a need to upscale the climate resilient villages in highly and medium vulnerable districts. • There is a need to scaling up successful IFS models developed for different agro-climatic regions of India by taking into consideration the resources available with farmers. Dr. K. Sammi Reddy organizing side event at Indian Pavilion, COP24, Katowice, Poland Dr. Suseelendra Desai, Principal Scientist (Plant Pathology) participated in the Regional Conference on "Role of Soil and Plant Health Towards Achieving Sustainable Development Goals in Asia-Pacific" held during 20-24 November, 2018 at Bangkok, Thailand. APAARI, Department of Agriculture, Thailand and Indian Phytopathological Society jointly organized the conference and the participants included diverse experts from research, development, extension, policy makers, private sectors, professional societies, civil society organizations and donor organizations, to share specific long-term experiences on the neglect of soil and plant health in the Asia-Pacific region. Dr. Desai was invited to deliver a lead lecture on "Potential impacts of climate change on plant pathogens and biocontrol agents and adaptation strategies". He also chaired a technical session on "Plant health management – case studies" along with Dr. GD Sinniah from Sri Lanka. The conference deliberated on soil and plant health aspects in detail and agreed to formulate a group to address these issues in the years to come. Dr. Desai delivering lecture Dr. K.V. Rao, Principal Scientist (Soil and Water Conservation Engineering), Division of Resource Management visited United Kingdom (UK) to participate in Workshop on "Advancing Drought Monitoring, Prediction and Management Capabilities" during 18th - 20th September, 2018 at Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK . CRIDA - Newsletter 10 Forthcoming Events Sl. No. Title of the event Dates 1. XXVI Biennial Workshop of AICRP for Dryland Agriculture, at AICRPDA Bengaluru Centre, UASB 16-19th January, 2019 2. Republic Day 26th January, 2019 3. National Science Day 28th February, 2019 4. ICAR-CRIDA Foundation Day 12th April, 2019 5. IRC meeting 23-25, April, 2019, 9-10th May, 2019 6. World Environment Day 5th June, 2019 DOE sponsored Model Training Course on "Extension Strategies for Participatory Natural Resource Management in Rainfed Agriculture" Model Training Course sponsored by DOE was organised at ICAR-CRIDA during September 24 - October 1, 2018. Twenty eight officials from eight different states viz., Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Goa, Punjab and Karnataka attended the model training course. The course covered various extension strategies of Soil and water conservation measures for enhanced productivity in drylands, Technologies for sustainable NRM in Rainfed areas, Horticulture systems in Rainfed Agriculture for sustainable NRM and enhanced productivity, Enhancing productivity of crops and cropping systems through effective use of natural resources, Farming systems approach for sustainable NRM in drylands, Role of Livestock and their management for enhancing productivity and income in drylands, Gender mainstreaming in NRM, Communication tools and techniques for sustainable NRM. Inaugural session of Model Training Course on "Extension Strategies for Participatory Natural Resource Management in Rainfed Agriculture" ICAR-Short Course on 'Assessment of Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change in Agriculture' A ten day short course on 'Assessment of vulnerability and adaptation to climate change in agriculture', sponsored by the Agricultural Education Division of the ICAR, was conducted during 28th November to 7th December, 2018 at ICAR-CRIDA. The short course has provided the participants with various concepts, approaches and methods used in assessing vulnerability and adaptation. Twenty one participants from five ICAR institutes and eight state agricultural universities participated. A majority of the participants expressed that their expectations from the short course were fulfilled to a large extent. Participants of ICAR Short Course on "Assessment of Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change in Agriculture" KVK Programmes About 34 training programmes were organized during the period July to December, 2018 on different aspects of agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandry, farm mechanization and women empowerment to farmers and farm women from Ranga Reddy district. 1142 farmers and farm women were benefitted from these training programmes. Human Resource Development July - December, 2018 11 Participation in Seminars and Symposia Name of the Personnel Workshop / Seminar / Symposium / Meeting Duration Venue K. Sammi Reddy International Consultation Workshop on Adapting agriculture in semiarid India to a global temperature rise by 1.5 0C. 3-4 October, 2018 WOTR, Pune National Workshop on Sustainability of Indian Agriculture, Natural Resource Perspective with special reference to water. 11 October, 2018 IIWM, Bhubaneswar 83rd Annual Convention of the Indian Society of Soil Science. 27-28 November, 2018 AAU, Anand UNFCCC COP-24 / CMP14 / CMA1.2 Meeting. 30 November to 5 December, 2018 Katowice, Poland G. Ravindra Chary & B.M.K. Raju Brainstorming workshop on "Prioritization of Rainfed Districts in India" organized by NRAA & ICAR-CRIDA. 11-12 December, 2018 NASC, New Delhi C.A. Rama Rao Stakeholders Consultation Meeting on NICRA. 20 July, 2018 NASC, New Delhi Expert consultation meeting for Impact Assessment of the AP Drought Mitigation Project of Govt. of A.P. 14 August, 2018 WASSAN, Hyderabad National Workshop on Promotion of Developing Climate Resilient Villages for Sustainable Food and Nutritional Security. 4-5 October, 2018 MANAGE, Hyderabad 26th Annual Conference of Agriculture Economics Research Association (India) on 'Agriculture and Sustainable Development Goals. 15-17 November, 2018 ICAR-NDRI, Karnal, Haryana Brainstorming meeting conducted by NRAA. 11-12 December, 2018 NASC, New Delhi B.M.K. Raju & R. Nagarjuna Kumar Consultation Meeting on 'Risk and vulnerability of agriculture to climate change: A district level assessment'. 20 July, 2018 NASC, New Delhi B.M.K. Raju 72nd Annual Conference of Indian Society of Agricultural Statistics (ISAS) organized with a broader theme of 'Statistics, Informatics, Engineering Interventions and Business Opportunities: A Road-Map To Transform Indian Agriculture Towards Prosperity' 13-15 December, 2018 ICAR - CIAE, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh Boini Narsimlu International Conference on "Global Water Security for Agriculture and Natural Resources" organized by ASABE USA & ISAE India. 3-6 October, 2018 Hotel, Taj Krishna, Hyderabad R. Nagarjuna Kumar ICAR-ICT Road map. 6 July, 2018 IIMR, Hyderabad National Workshop on Artificial Intelligence in Agriculture: Status and Prospects. 30-31 July, 2018 NASC, New Delhi Josily Samuel and P.K. Pankaj 'Workshop on CLEM-Crop Livestock Enterprise Modelling'. 22-23 October, 2018 ICRISAT, Hyerabad D. Sudheer Indian International Science Festival-Agriculture Conclave. 5 -7 October, 2018 Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh G. Sri Krishna Hands on Training to Master trainers of KVKs on TCS-ICAR-KVK Sandesh. 3 August, 2018 ATARI, Zone X, Hyderabad Training of Trainers for KVKs, SAUs and ICAR institutes. 25-27 September, 2018 PJTSAU, Hyderabad Annual Zonal Workshop of KVKs Zone X 20-22 September, 2018 ATARI-CRIDA G. Nirmala, K. Nagasree & Anshida Beevi C.N. 9th National Extension education Congress on "Climate Resilient Agriculture – Innovations and Technologies" 15-17 November, 2018 CAEPHT, Ranipool, Sikkim CRIDA - Newsletter 12 1. Dr. K. Sammi Reddy, Director (Acting), ICAR – CRIDA was inducted as the Fellow of the Indian Society of Soil Science (ISSS), New Delhi. He received "ISSS Fellow Award" from His Excellency Honorable Governor of Gujarat Shri O.P. Kohli at 83rd Annual Convention of the ISSS held at Anand on 27.11.2018. Dr. K. Sammi Reddy receiving ISSS Fellow Award from Shri O. P. Kohli, Honorable Governor of Gujarat 2. AICRPDA-Vijayapura centre received "ICAR-Vasantrao Naik Award" for Outstanding Research and Application in Dryland Farming Systems for 2017" during ICAR Foundation Day and Award Ceremony on July 16, 2018 at NASC, New Delhi. AICRPDA Vijayapura centre receiving ICAR-Vasantrao Naik Award 3. Dr. G. Ravindra Chary, Project Coordinator (DLA) received "Indian Society of Agronomy Gold Medal Award" on 24.10.2018 during XXI Biennial National Symposium on Doubling Farmers' income through Agronomic Interventions under Changing Scenario at MPUAT, Udaipur, Rajasthan. Dr. G. Ravindra Chary receiving Indian Society of Agronomy Gold Medal Award 4. Dr. G. Nirmala, Principal Scientist (Agril. Extension) & Head, TOT was honored with "SEE Fellow Award" during 9th National Extension Education Congress organized by Society of Extension Education Agra at CAEPHT, Ranipool, Sikkim during 15-17 November, 2018. Dr. G. Nirmala receiving SEE Fellow Award 5. Dr. K. Nagasree, Principal Scientist (Agril. Extension) received "Best Extension Professional Award" during 9th National Extension Education Congress organized by Society of Extension Education Agra at CAEPHT, Ranipool, Sikkim during 15-17 November, 2018. Dr. K. Nagasree receiving Best Extension Professional Award Awards and Recognition July - December, 2018 13 6. Dr. B.M.K. Raju, Principal Scientist (Agril. Statistics) was included as "Member of Task Force" constituted by NRAA, DAC & FW, Govt. of India for 'Prioritization of rainfed districts in India'. 7. Dr. R. Nagarjuna Kumar, Scientist received the "Best Paper Award" for the paper "Spatial Rice Decision Support System (SRDSS) for effective rice crop management", Current Science Vol. 116, No. 3 by IIRR, presented during Annual day Celebrations of IIRR organized at ICAR-IIRR, Hyderabad on 15th December, 2018. 8. Dr. R. Nagarjuna Kumar, Scientist received the "Outstanding Scientist Award 2018" during the International Conference on Agriculture, Horticulture and Food Science held at Hotel Hans, New Delhi during 29-30 December, 2018. 9. Dr. Anshida Beevi C.N., Scientist (Agril. Extension) conferred with "Ganga Singh Chauhan Memorial Award-2018" for outstanding research contributions in the field of Extension Education during 9th National Extension Education Congress organized by Society of Extension Education Agra at CAEPHT, Ranipool, Sikkim during 15-17 November, 2018. Dr. Anshida Beevi C.N. receiving Ganga Singh Chauhan Memorial Award 10. Dr. Anshida Beevi C.N., Scientist (Agril. Extension) received "Best Paper Presentation Award-2018" for the paper "Drudgery Reducing Technologies for Women Empowerment in the Rainfed Areas" during 9th National Extension Education Congress 11. Sri Mula Mahender Reddy of KVK, Chandippa village of Ranga Reddy district received "Best Farmer Award" by Aaj Tak News Channel on 24th October, 2018 for outstanding contribution in "Raised Platform / Elevated Animal Shed in Semi-Intensive Goat Farming". Sri. Mula Mahender Reddy receiving "Best Farmer Award" by Aaj Tak News Channel Personnel Information Appointments / Promotions / Transfers / Joining Name and Designation Joined/ Transferred/ Promoted/ Appointed Date w.e.f Transfers/ Joinings Shri Rajkumar Dhakar, Scientist, ICAR-CRIDA Transferred as Scientist, ICAR- IARI, New Delhi 25.08.2018 Dr. B. Krishna Rao, Principal Scientist, ICAR-CRIDA Joined as Director (A&R), WALAMTARI, Hyderabad on deputation (12.09.2018 to 11.09.2021) 12.09.2018 Dr. A. Amarender Reddy, Principal Scientist Transferred to ICAR-CRIDA, Hyderabad 06.09.2018 Smt. D. Lakshmi Aruna Gayathri T-3 (Farm Assistant) 22.12.2018 Shri Bandi Srikanth Goud T-3 (Farm Assistant) 26.12.2018 Shri Awinash Brahamwanshi T-1 (Fieldman) 28.12.2018 Promotions Shri Rajkumar Dhakar, Scientist (Agricultural Physics) Promoted to next higher pay Rs. 7000/- 02.05.2016 Shri G. Venkatesh, Scientist (Agro-forestry) Promoted to next higher pay Rs. 8000/- 01.01.2014 Promoted to next higher pay Rs. 9000/- 01.01.2017 Shri Sarath Chandran M. A., Scientist (Agricultural Meteorology) Promoted to next higher pay Rs. 7000/- 01.01.2018 CRIDA - Newsletter 14 Cultural and Welfare Activities Swachhtha Pakhwada Swachhtha Pakhwada was celebrated by ICAR-CRIDA during 16-31 December, 2018. The date-wise activities set out in the programme were implemented at ICAR-CRIDA main office, Hayathnagar Research Farm, Gunegal Research Farm and surrounding residential areas and in villages, involving all the employees of ICAR-CRIDA, farmers and civil society members, VIPs, media persons. Swachhtha Pakhwada Celebration at farmers first village The concluding function of Swachhtha Pakhwada was organized on 31st December, 2018. A brief account of the Swachhtha Pakhwada activities carried out from 16th – 31st December, 2018 was presented. Prizes for debate and essay writing competitions held during the fortnight were distributed. The event received good media coverage. Vanamahotsavam ICAR-CRIDA Cultural and Recreation Club organized Vanamahotsavam at Hayathnagar Research Farm of the institute on 20th November, 2018. All the CRIDA staff members actively participated in the cultural activities. The events generated great enthusiasm and unity among staff. Director (Acting), ICAR-CRIDA distributing prizes to winners XIV Meeting of ICAR-CRIDA IJSC Second meeting of XIV IJSC was held on 20th October, 2018 in Director's Committee room under the Chairmanship of Dr. K. Sammi Reddy, Director (Acting) and Chairman, IJSC, ICAR-CRIDA. The meeting was attended by following official side members Dr. K.L. Sharma, Dr. R. Nagarjuna Kumar, Sri B.D. Phansal, CAO, Sri A. Srinivasa Murthy, SFAO and Dr. Ravikanth V. Adake, Official side Secretary and Dr. (Smt.) K. Salini, Scientist (Genetics & Plant Breeding) Promoted to next higher pay Rs. 7000/- 15.09.2015 Dr. Prabhat Kumar Pankaj, Sr. Scientist (Livestock Production & Management) Promoted to next higher pay Rs. 9000/- 08.05.2015 Dr. (Smt.) R. Rejani, Sr. Scientist Principal Scientist 30.08.2017 Dr. S. M. Vidya Sekhar, Chief Technical Officer (T-9) Advance increment 03.02.2017 Dr. (Smt.) D. Anantha V. Rao, Chief Technical Officer (T-9) Advance increment 03.02.2017 Shri Ram Kumar, Assistant Chief Technical Officer (T-7-8) Chief Technical Officer (T-9) 24.02.2018 Shri S. Vijaya Kumar, Senior Technical Officer (T-6) Assistant Chief Technical Officer (T-7-8) 25.10.2015 Shri K. Surender Rao, Chief Technical Officer (T-9) Advance increment 03.02.2017 Shri G. Prabhakar, Senior Technical Officer (T-6) Assistant Chief Technical Officer (T-7-8) 03.11.2017 Appointment Dr. K.L. Sharma Appointed as Vigilance Officer 15.11.2018 ICAR-CRIDA extends best wishes to them Retirements Name Designation Date of superannuation Dr. (Smt). K. Usha Rani Assistant Chief Technical Officer 04.10.2018 Shri B. Anjaiah SSS 31.10.2018 Shri Buchaiah Ennapally Senior Technician 30.11.2018 Shri Jainender Assistant Chief Technical Officer 31.12.2018 Our best wishes for happy and peaceful retired life to all of them July - December, 2018 15 BOOK-POST To _______________________________________ _______________________________________ _______________________________________ Published by : Dr. G. Ravindra Chary, Director (Acting), ICAR-CRIDA Editorial Board Chairman : Dr. K. Sammi Reddy, Head, DRM Editors : Dr. (Mrs.) K. Nagasree, Pr. Scientist (TOT) Dr. P. K Pankaj, Senior Scientist (TOT) Dr. R. Nagarjuna Kumar, Scientist, (SDA) Dr. Anshida Beevi C.N., Scientist, (TOT) Hindi Translation : Dr. P.K. Pankaj, Sr. Scientist, (TOT) Dr. S.R. Yadav, Asstt. Director (OL) Secretarial Assistance : Mrs. M.A. Rekha, PA Photo credits : Mr. K. Surender Rao, CTO ICAR-Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture Santoshnagar, Saidabad PO, Hyderabad - 500 059 Ph: 040-24530157/161/163 Fax: 040-24531802 E-mail: news.crida@icar.gov.in Website: www.crida.in staff side members Sri V. Venunath, CJSC Member, Sri B. Krishna, Secretary, Staff side, Sri S. Ratnashankar Rao, Sri D. Srinivas, Sri A. Mallesh Yadav and Sri S. Shankar Reddy. Agenda points were discussed in the meeting. क्रीडा, हैदराबाद में स्वर्गीय श्री अटल बिहारी वाजपेयी जी, भूतपूर्व प्रधानमं त्री, भारत सरकार का प्रथम मासिक श्रद्धांजलि दिवस आयोजित भारतीय कृ षि अनुसं धान परिषद (आईसीएआर) के दिशा-निर्देशानुसार कें द्रीय बारानी कृ षि अनुसं धान सं स्थान (क्रीडा-CRIDA), हैदराबाद के प्रांगण में रविवार दिनांक 16 सितंबर, 2018 को भारत रत्न स्वर्गीय श्री अटल बिहारी वाजपेयी जी, भूतपूर्व प्रधानमं त्री, भारत सरकार को प्रथम मासिक श्रद्धांजलि दिवस के अवसर पर श्रद्धा सुमन अर्पित किए गए। इस अवसर पर आयोजित विशेष कार्यक्रम में कार्मिको को सं बो ं धित करते हुए सं स्थान के निदेशक महोदय डॉ के सम्मी रेड्डी ने स्व. वाजपेयी जी को महान कवि, समाज सेवी, सर्वप्रिय जननेता तथा देश-विदेश में भारत की छवि को निखारने वाला राजनेता बताते हुए उनके सिद्धांतो को अपनाने पर बल ं दिया। आपने स्व. वाजपेयी के सं घर्षों से परिपूर्ण जीवन का उल्लेख करते हुए देश को नई ऊं चाइयो पर प ं हुंचाने हेतु उन्हेंप्रेरणा स्त्रोत बताया। इस कार्यक्रम में डॉ पी के जैन, वैज्ञानिक-एफ, एआरसीआई, हैदराबाद ने मुख्य अतिथि के रूप में पधारकर वाजपेयी जी की प्रसिद्ध इक्यावन कविताओं का सं क्षिप्त परिचय दिया तथा उनकी श्रेष्ठ कविताओ का ं वाचन करते हुए भावार्थ समझाते हुए वर्तमान परिदृश्य में उनकी उपयोगिता को सिद्ध करते हुए उनके उद्देश्यों का अनुपालन करने का अनुरोध देश्यों किया। आपने कौरव कौन कौन पांडव; ऊं चाई के साथ विस्तार भी हो; मुझे इतनी ऊं चाई कभी मत देना; मौत से ठन गई; सामने वार कर फिर मुझे आजमा; बिखरे नीड; सवेरा है मगर पूरब दिशा में; सच्चाई यह है कि; ऊं चाई; आओ मन की गांठें खोलें; नामक कविताओ का ं विस्त रूप से भा तृ वार्थ समझाया। इस विशेष कार्यक्रम का सं चालन डॉ नागार्जुन कु मार, वैज्ञानिक ने, धन्यवाद ज्ञापन डॉ एस आर यादव ने तथा डॉ पंकज कु मार ने कार्यक्रम के आयोजन में विशेष भूमिका निभाते हुए सं पूर्ण सहयोग प्रदान किया। इस अवसर पर सं स्थान के अधिकांश वैज्ञानिक एवं अन्य कार्मिक उपस्थित थे। South zone sports meet ICAR-CRIDA sports contingent comprising 31 participants and 1 CDM participated in the ICAR South Zone Sports Meet - 2018 organized by ICAR-CTRI, Rajahmundry at DSA stadium, Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh during 5th-9th September, 2018. In this tournament, Mr. B. Kiran Kumar, SSS, secured 1st place in javelin throw and Mr. Mukund, Senior Technical Assistant secured 2nd place in cycling. Mr.B. Kiran Kumar receiving 1st prize in Javelin throw Mr. Mukund receiving 2nd prize in cycling Independence day celebrations The 72nd Independence Day was celebrated on August 15, 2018 with pride and patriotic zeal. The Director hoisted the flag and addressed the staff of CRIDA. In this occasion, Director distributed cash awards (CCS & CCRC) to the X class toppers of CRIDA staff children and motivated the staff with his message to work with dedication and boost institute's growth. Director (Acting), ICAR-CRIDA addressing the staff CRIDA - Newsletter 16 Dr. K Sammi Reddy, Director (Acting), ICAR-CRIDA Small Farm Mechanization is the Key for Successful Adoption of Climate Resilient Technologies by Farmers in Rainfed Areas Over the years, the National Agricultural Research System (NARS) has contributed significantly to development and transfer of technologies for a more viable and sustainable rainfed agriculture. Of late, timely farm operations has become an expensive preposition due to shortage of agricultural labour in rainfed areas. To obtain the proper response from the rainfed crops, small farm mechanization is the key to meet the timeliness of operations in quick session for establishment of crop and enhancing inputs and moisture use efficiency. Realizing the fact, CRIDA and AICRP on dryland agriculture have identified small farm mechanization as one of the prioritized research area and made continuous untiring efforts to develop dryland farm implements. So far, CRIDA has developed nearly 23 dryland farm implements which are being widely adopted by rainfed farmers. More than 3 lakh units of CRIDA BBF Planters have been sold to farmers during the last 5-6 years in states of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana etc. Since about 85% of the rainfed farmers are small and marginal who can't afford to procure farm implements, rainfed farm mechanization is not happening at desired pace. Therefore, CRIDA under its flagship programmes, NAIP and NICRA has conceptualized the Custom Hiring Centre (CHC) and implemented successfully in 151 climate resilient villages (CRVs) of vulnerable districts under NICRA. Suitable farm implements were identified for each CRV through focused group discussions with the farmers pertaining to their farm operations. To oversee the requirements, service and maintenance aspects of these machines, a village climate risk management committees (VCRMC) have been constituted. This approach has showed many positive results in enhancing the crop productivity in climate resilient village clusters due to timely availability of improved implements at affordable cost for the small and marginal farmers in their own village or nearby village. Dr. K. Sammi Reddy, Director (Acting), ICAR-CRIDA From the Director's Desk . निदेशक की कलम से ……… वर्षा आधारित क्षेत्रों में क षेत्रों िसानो द्ं वारा जलवायु समुत्‍थान प्रौद्योगिकियो को सफलतापू ं र्वक अपनाने में छोटे कृषि यंत्रों कत्रों ी मुख्‍य भूमिका पिछले कु छ वर्षों में, राषटरीट्य कृ षि अनुसं धान प्रणाली (एनएआरएस) ने अधिक व्‍यवहार्य एवं टिकाऊ वर्षा आधारित कृ षि के लिए प्रौद्योगिकियो के ं विकास एवं हस्‍तांतरण में महत्‍वपूर्ण योगदान दिया है। वर्षा आधारित कृ षि में कृ षि श्रमिको कं ी कमी के कारण कृ षि कार्यों में देरी से कृ षि कार्य अधिक खर्चीला होता जा रहा है। वर्षा आधारित फसलो कं ी सही प्रतिक्रिया के लिए, फसलो कं ी बुआई एवं निवेशो तथा नमी उपयोग ं क्षमता को बढ़ाने के लिए सत्र में समयबद्ध रूप से कृ षि कार्यों को पूरा करने में छोटे कृ षि यंत्रों कत्रों ी प्रमुख भूमिका होती है। इस बात को ध्‍यान में रखते हुए, क्रीडा एवं अखिल भारतीय समन्वित बारानी कृ षि अनुसं धान परियोजना ने छोटे कृ षि यंत्रों को त्रों प्राथमिक अनुसं धान क्षेत्र के रूप में पहचाना है एवं बारानी कृ षि उपकरणों के विकास में निरंतर अथक प्रयास जारी है। अब तक, क्रीडा द्वारा करीब 23 बारानी कृ षि उपकरणो का ं विकास किया गया है जिन्‍हें वर्षा आधारित किसानो द्ं वारा व्‍यापक रूप से अपनाया जा रहा है। महाराष्‍ट्र, मध्‍यप्रदेश, तेलंगाना आदि राज्‍यों में ्‍यों पिछले 5-6 वर्षों के दौरान क्रीडा बीबीएफ प्‍लांटरों की 3 लाख से अधिक इकाइयां बेची जा चुकी हैं। करीब 85 प्रतिशत वर्षा आधारित किसान छोटे एवं सीमांत हैं जो कृ षि उपकरणो को खरीद नही ं ं सकते, जिसके कारण वांछित गति से वर्षा आधारित क्षेत्रों में यां क्षेत्रों त्रिकीकरण नही हो पा रहा है। अत: क्रीडा के ं प्रमुख कार्यक्रमो के अंत ं र्गत एनएआईपी एवं निक्रा ने कस्‍टम हायरिं ग केंद्र की अवधारणा को अपनाते हुए निक्रा के अतिसंवेदनशील जिलो के 151 जल ं वायु समुत्‍थान गांवो (सीआर ं वी) में इसे सफलतापूर्वक कार्यान्वित किया है। उपयुक्‍त कृ षि उपकरणो कं ी पहचान प्रत्येक जलवायु समुत्‍थान गांव के कृ षि कार्य में जुड़ेकिसानो से ं विचारविमर्श के उपरांत की गई है। इन उपकरणो कं ी आवश्‍यकताओ, से ं वाओं एवं रख-रखाव के विभिन्‍न पहलूओ को पूरा करने के ल ं िए, गांव जलवायु जोखिम प्रबं धन समितियो (ं वीसीआरएमसी) का गठन किया गया है। इस कदम से कई सकारात्‍मक परिणाम देखने में आए हैं जैसे कि उनके अपने गांव या समीपवर्ती गांव में छोटे एवं सीमांत किसानो को सही समय पर उन्नत ं उपकरण सस्‍ती कीमतो पर उपलब् ं ‍ध होने के कारण जलवायु समुत्‍थान गांवों की फसलो कं ी उत्पादकता में बढ़ोत्‍तरी हुई है। डाॅ. के . सम्मी रेड्डी, निदेशक (कार्यकारी), भाकृ अनुप-क्रीडा ; Not Available